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Post by vasepen on Aug 27, 2005 18:48:09 GMT 1
We drew 0-0 with Cambridge today. I think we were the better side overall. I'm basing this mainly on the fact that Cambridge didn't manage an attempt at goal, either on target or over until the 75th minute in the second half. They had one shot on target afterwards and a couple over/wide. They had some in the first-half too. Two shots at the end of the first half were saved brilliantly in quick succession by Luke McShane. I think things were even in the first-half up until about the 30th minute where Cambridge seemed to be able to get through our defence a bit easier, but they didn't really get many shots on target. Just the two that I mentioned earlier are worth mentioning...
As for us, well, I think we controlled the second-half up until the 80th minute. They seemed to put on more pressure after that. I think the players were worried that all their possession was going to go to waste and we'd get robbed at the death, so they seemed to defend more. Of Cambridge "came out of their shell", whichever you want to believe...
We had some shots on goal. I remember MacDonald turning a defender and the goalie parrying his shot. MacDonald headed just over from close-range near the end aswell. We seemed to dominate the second half but didn't get too many shots on target.
Some bloke in his 40s started talking to me. After the 50/50 draw number was read out, the bloke said "Look at that, just four out...*points to Cambridge fans* I bet one of them knobheads won." ;D
Before the match, there wasn't any chanting, then suddenly the Cambridge fans went "Yel-low" "YELLOW!!!!" as they do, and Hooky our pirate mascot, pointed at them with his white gloves on, then made the w*nker sign. ;D
Anyway, official man of the match was Ross Smith and I won't argue with that. He seemed to win everything in the air. All the back four had good games. What we need is some height up front as I think we would've won if we had a tall bloke to win all those long balls and crosses we persist in playing.
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Post by Mensana on Aug 29, 2005 18:21:09 GMT 1
thank you for your enlightening match report
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Post by Karlgr on Aug 29, 2005 23:40:30 GMT 1
we need more of this ;d
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Post by bartoniron on Aug 30, 2005 10:34:53 GMT 1
we need more lower league fans imho
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Post by vasepen on Aug 30, 2005 13:45:32 GMT 1
Oh, I'm glad I didn't get too much abuse then.
Cheers for the comments. I'll admit I just copied and pasted the whole thing from a journal I keep on the team. I write match reports, all the transfer news, rumours, etc. in an online journal thing.
Anyway, I'd post more up...but I know there aren't really any fans that care so I'm not sure. But for what it's worth, we beat Woking yesterday 3-1 away from home, which was a pretty good result. After losing two games, we have got 7 points from the last 9 possible points and are up to 14th. At this early stage, if we win again we could go up to about 7th or whatever....
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Post by bartoniron on Aug 31, 2005 14:03:43 GMT 1
so i take it ur gravesend and northfleet fan then? i care! i know wot its like to support a s*** side. well before last year anyway! wot sort of crowds do u get then?
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Post by vasepen on Aug 31, 2005 17:48:49 GMT 1
sh*t side, eh? The cheek.  I think our average crowd last season was 1300. So, quite low for Conference-standards, but our average attendance has gone up each year. We got 1500 and 1400 crowds against Exeter and Cambridge this season, although that's because of their large away supports... I think out of the 1570 at Exeter, 604 were Exeter fans, which means only about 970 were Gravesend fans, which is worrying. I think our home support has gone down because a lot don't like the new manager and the prices have gone up two quid, as we have gone full-time. It's all a bit silly really. Despite a bad start, Liam Daish has done a decent job... |
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Post by Devrozex on Aug 31, 2005 23:38:32 GMT 1
Liam Daish is your manager? God, havent heard that name for a while. Is this his first managerial position?
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Post by vasepen on Sept 1, 2005 2:18:13 GMT 1
Yup, manager with Alan Kimble (former Premiership player at Wimbledon...and Cambridge team-mate of Daish's.) as assistant manager.
But I think this is Daish's third managerial appointment. I'm not sure of the details but he was caretaker manager of Welling for about a month (think he did quite well, although I could be wrong) and was manager at Havant & Waterlooville, which I hear he didn't do too well at. So that could be why people are unhappy with him...he doesn't exactly have an impressive CV. But I think he's done well. He's still just getting started really, but I think the squad he has now is better than last season's squad. We started off this season not very well, but are unbeaten in three so we may be pulling things together at last.
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Post by bartoniron on Sept 2, 2005 9:53:03 GMT 1
cor iv never rly spoken to a conferance fan, though i nearly was one a few years back. so do u travel around the country then. how big is gravesend. o and dont forget northfleet?
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Post by vasepen on Sept 2, 2005 14:13:45 GMT 1
Sadly not, although many do. I would, honestly I would, but I really don't have the money. I'm lucky enough to have a season ticket as it is. I'm still paying it off...
Anyway, Gravesend and Northfleet combined make up the borough of Gravesham (along with a few really small places...) and the stadium is situated in Northfleet. I think the population of Gravesham is 95,000. I think part of the reason we only get crowds of 1,300 is because we are about 25 miles from London. So quite a few go up to see Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Palace, West Ham, Millwall etc. but especially Charlton. Charlton run buses all over Kent and beyond and will probably murder a few clubs in the long-run. Everyone has this perception of Charlton as a nice friendly club, but I don't think running buses that go straight to The Valley from everywhere within a 70 mile radius is very friendly. A clever marketing tactic, but it's not very considerate to all the other clubs within that radius....
They've announced plans to increase their capacity to 40,000. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Charlton finishing 4th on a regular basis in the next few years...but I just don't think all the marketing is fair. People insult Man United fans for being gloryhunters but these Charlton fans aren't much better. "It's only 30 miles away from my home" they;ll say. But within those 30 miles will be lots of other teams. And if they have something against Conference teams, then there is always Gillingham, who for the last five years were in the Championship.
Some have said Charlton's fans are a bit quiet. Well maybe that is why - a lot of their fans don't have the same passion as those born in Charlton.
Anyway, I'm worried about Gravesend's future, because Charlton want to increase their capacity to 40,000 so that'll mean promoting their team more around here and taking more potential Gravesend fans...
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Post by bartoniron on Sept 2, 2005 14:40:43 GMT 1
greedy b******* the lot of those prem clubs. still, if u were in our league you'd get quite alot, scunnys catchment area is only 80k odd and we average 5 n half thousand.
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Post by LightDrizzle on Sept 3, 2005 0:01:16 GMT 1
DFK you have a thing about writing really long posts don't you
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Post by vasepen on Sept 3, 2005 1:29:05 GMT 1
Is that considered long on this message board then? I thought this was a message board, not MSN Messenger.  |
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Post by Devrozex on Sept 3, 2005 2:04:35 GMT 1
Anything over a line is considered a thesis on these message boards pal.  |
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Post by bartoniron on Sept 3, 2005 11:56:21 GMT 1
nah keep it up mate, we need inteligent posters like you, and a lower league/non league fan which is great. keep em coming
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Post by vasepen on Sept 3, 2005 17:34:53 GMT 1
Cheers. We beat Southport 2-1 today. Their only shot on target was their goal. We were quite good in the second half, dominating the match and having many attempts on goal. Should have won by at least one more goal. Both Fleet goals were headers - Slatter's was especially good. We subbed both strikers off and played with 6 midfielders, yet played even better... So, that puts us 10th, but joint on points with the 6th-placed team. If for some reason you would like to see Conference football, then this site has all the highlights: www.conferencefootball.tv/Club/CTV_Club/0,13999,5879,00.html (copy and paste the whole thing...) |
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Post by C@rly - WHU on Sept 3, 2005 22:41:01 GMT 1
darrenfromkent, keep up your post there are some of the most enjoyable posts on here! so who do you tip to go up this season any chance for Dagenham and redbrigde? i would personally like to see more lower/non league football on the TV and less of the premiership, as i now believe sky is ruling and ruining football, and believe sky games should be evened out on more of a scale of more evenly games for each division! And i take a look at that link many thanks  |
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Post by vasepen on Sept 4, 2005 0:18:21 GMT 1
darrenfromkent, keep up your post there are some of the most enjoyable posts on here! so who do you tip to go up this season any chance for Dagenham and redbrigde? i would personally like to see more lower/non league football on the TV and less of the premiership, as i now believe sky is ruling and ruining football, and believe sky games should be evened out on more of a scale of more evenly games for each division! And i take a look at that link many thanks (I'm sorry that this is pretty long. I just couldn't explain things briefly. Sorry.  ) Thank you, Miss Hammer. I've always liked West Ham a bit since we sold Jimmy Bullard to you about six or seven years ago. Although Bullard never made it into your first team, but he's got into the Premiership at last with Wigan now, so I guess that shows that there are quite a few non-league players out there who will one day make it to the Premiership. Jason Roberts, Stan Collymore, Kevin Phillips, amongst others, used to play in the non-league too.  I think Freddy Eastwood at Southend, who used to play for Grays Athletic has a good chance of playing in the Premiership one day. But who knows... Former West Ham player, Lee Boylan certainly spanks in the goals at Canvey Island. I think he may be joint top-scorer this season with 5 goals. Anyway, as for Dagenham & Redbridge...I think they may sneak into the top ten. It's definitely hard to say what will happen in the Conference, especially at this stage. For example, on the first day Cambridge United (arguably the "biggest" - in terms of history - team in the Conference at the moment) lost to Forest Green (who finished 20th last season and should've been relegated but were saved due to Northwich having problems with their stadium) but then in their next game beat the favourites for the title, Hereford. So, I'm going to say Dagenham will probably finish between 8th and 12th but it's pretty hard to predict. They had a good result today - holding Exeter to a 2-2 draw...but were denied by a last-minute Exeter equaliser. Exeter are joint top, so if Dagenham had held on it would've been a great result. Anyway, I guess that leads me on to your other question - title contenders. Well, as I said earlier, Hereford were the bookies' favourites before the season started but haven't started too convincingly... Exeter haven't lost yet. They won their first four matches and so were top, but on the back of two draws, they are now second on goal-difference to... Grays, the newly-promoted Essex side. They've started very well and could keep it up. Their success is probably all dependant on the money being pumped into their side. They're a bit like the Chelsea of non-league, I guess, just not quite as good. It shows what quality they have when two of their players who played for them in the Conference South leave and go to Southend United, three leagues above. They went full-time whilst in the Conference South, yet at least five Conference National teams are still part-time, so they've definitely got a bit of money there. So, they could be in the running, but if their money runs out they could end up like fellow Essex side who had lots of money, Hornchurch, and go bust... But I have no idea on how much money they have and all the technical details, so they could be fine... Stevenage were second-favourites before the season started. Their manager is rather arrogant though, easily the most hated in the Conference. They've started well-ish though - 4 wins, 2 defeats. So they should be in the running. They lost in the Play-off final last year... I suppose those are the main contenders. After them, anyone from the likes of York, Kidderminster, Halifax, Morecambe, Accrington Stanley, Dagenham & Redbridge, Tamworth, Cambridge and Gravesend & Northfleet probably fancy their chances on getting a play-off spot. Then again, it is pretty hard to predict. The two bottom sides are Crawley and Aldershot. Crawley have recently been taken-over by people with a lot of money and have signed a player for £60,000 who is arguably the best striker in the Conference. Gravesend's record fee paid for a player is £4,000 and we finished 14th last year, so if a team is spending £60,000 on a player you really can't expect them to stay bottom all season. They finished about 10th last year and most were predicting a play-off spot for them. Aldershot were predicted to finish in the playoffs and yet find themselves in the bottom two. So Crawley and Aldershot could turn things around, just they've had really bad starts. As an example of just how well people expected these two to do before the season started...Sky Sport's next game on Monday is infact Crawley Vs. Aldershot. The fact that they are both bottom and Sky are showing them is kind of funny to Conference fans, as Sky Sports have a thing about the bigger teams in the league. This is our fourth season in the Conference in a row now yet we've never had a league game on telly (although we had a Cup game...) and many others haven't either - most of which are bottom-half or part-time teams. Sky Sports have a thing for ex-league teams (Hereford, Cambridge, Exeter, York, Halifax etc.) and also for Woking. The reason why Woking seem to get a fair amount of Sky Sports games is probably because commentator Martin Tyler, supports them. So, Sky unevenly handing out TV money happens at all levels, it seems.  Conference probably gets more games broadcasted than League One and Two though, for some reason. Not just on Sky, on the link I posted for Conference TV. They broadcast games over the internet every now and then. I think they're going to show 20 this season. The next one being Scarborough agaisnt Altrincham. That may not sound appealing to the average fan but I think it's good that Altrincham get a game as they are newly promoted. So if we are to get a game broadcasted, then it is more likely to be on Conference TV than Sky Sports. |
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Post by C@rly - WHU on Sept 4, 2005 0:49:14 GMT 1
Sky is just stupid now, I'm fed up with every weekend man u, Chelsea or Arsenal playing on sky week in week out i would rather some of them games went to the lower leagues (premiership fans are properly saying what are you talking about you can't have to much premiership football) well you can and we have and i had enough!
Before west ham got relegated ill be honest i didn't give a stuff about the lower leagues, but since then i tell you what i have took a big interest, what the lower leagues lack in quality they make up with determination, excitement and most important anyone games (either team can win)
In the fourfourtwo magazine it lists all the teams fixtures which are on sky, and this is only up to January the 2nd and this may interest you, man u are on 12 times, arsenal are on 10 times Chelsea are on 9 times and then you go to a team like Sunderland who are on 4 times as you in the championship the most there is, is a few teams who are on 3 times go down another league coca cola league 1 and there is hardly no games on. What the hell is happening?
There is more leagues than the premiership and more clubs than Chelsea Man u and Arsenal. I think its about time (i think it may be too little too late) that sky even the sky games out and stop having man u arsenal and Chelsea on every week and start showing more lower league games and that more money reaches the lower league clubs, otherwise we will be seeing more clubs go into administration and out of business while the premiership gets richer and richer! As many people have already stated there is already two leagues i the premiership and thats all down to money! I think and i don't care if we have earned it that all th premiership should give (it don't have to be much) a small proportion of money. How can the clubs sit there and watch teams go out of business?
But as i started i think its too little to late.........and i believe we will be see many more teams go out of business in the coming future!
The conference is looking a very strong league now (well stronger than what it has been) and now with two going up which is fairer and better it makes it very more interesting. Barent stormed the league last season didn't they can you imagine if they still had only one going up, i think the play-offs gives it more excitement and right t the end teams are still in with a chance to go up because they can sneak in that last play-off place.
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Post by BafanaBafana on Sept 4, 2005 17:46:00 GMT 1
so this is where the clever people hang out
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Post by Devrozex on Sept 5, 2005 0:01:43 GMT 1
It is indeed, you must have stumbled in here by accident my friend, let me show you the exit. |
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Post by bartoniron on Sept 5, 2005 19:16:36 GMT 1
yeh i wonder if hereford will evr get promotion - theyve been faves for like 3 years now at least. come on forest green.
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Post by vasepen on Sept 19, 2005 0:08:58 GMT 1
Hmm Miss Hammer, I had a long reply written out for you that is probably still saved in my Word, but it's a bit late to bring that back into topic I think. I kind of lost faith in all humanity including myself and went away for a couple of weeks to my kennel to become one with myself again.
Anyway, I'm back now and we spanked another ex-football league side 4-0 on Saturday. Halifax were the victims this time. I looked on their board and someone said "how the f*ck did he lose 4-0 to some knob head team like Gravesend?" - When you piss off people that much you've got to feel some small-town pride.
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Post by bartoniron on Sept 19, 2005 23:32:19 GMT 1
yeh i know what u mean. whenwe beat the 'big' boys like notts forest and huddersfield away. ha
up the iron and MOST other small town teams!
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Post by vasepen on Sept 20, 2005 22:05:56 GMT 1
Tonight, we got a last-minute equaliser against pre-season title-favourites, Hereford. Marvellous.
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Post by bartoniron on Sept 21, 2005 18:16:08 GMT 1
theyre always faves n fail to deliver. good result, home or away? we lost to em away in ldv last yr. with a reserve team of course!
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Post by vasepen on Sept 24, 2005 14:03:18 GMT 1
Yeah, we were away. Our next two games are at home to Kidderminster and Forest Green Rovers, which could see us into the play-off positions. If we win both, expect a rambling message on how you should put your money on us as an outside tip for the play-off winners. If we lose both, expect some sort of suicidal message on how Gravesend & Northfleet will never get into the Football League and how all the casual fans and drifters should just "f*ck off and watch Gillingham."
Oh, that's another thing. It looks like we'll be building a new stadium instead of Gillingham. Thing was, Gillingham wanted to move to Gravesham (it's at least 10-15 miles away) and Paul Scally (Gills chairman) even suggested we ground share with them. Funny man. 1000 fans in a 35,000 seater-stadium. Idiot. He knew people would get sick of that and eventually leave and the team would get worse and worse and Gillingham would end up with more fans.
But yes, the council are on our side, not Gillingham's by the looks of things. Paul Scally's a bit of a wanker, he wants a team who are lucky to get 7000 attendances to move 15 miles away into a stadium that will hold 35,000. What a fool.
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Post by vasepen on Sept 24, 2005 17:38:04 GMT 1
Lost to Kidderminster. Hmm. Not good. But we did play better than them. Their first goal was the result of a Fleet player trying to clear it and it hitting another and falling into the path of their player who finished it easily. Their second goal was a deflection. They only had one other shot on target, according to Confguide.
I'll be amazed if they finish above us this season.
Still, I'll only get suicidal if we don't beat Forest Green on Tuesday.
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Post by mrleeds on Sept 24, 2005 18:41:33 GMT 1
Unlucky mate, we beat Tamworth 1-0 away
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)
I think Freddy Eastwood at Southend, who used to play for Grays Athletic has a good chance of playing in the Premiership one day. But who knows...
Conference probably gets more games broadcasted than League One and Two though, for some reason. Not just on Sky, on the link I posted for Conference TV. 