Saturday 18th July 2009 - U's 1-1 West Ham XI: Back to Front

There are only three weeks to go until the start of the league season, but at the moment it seems months away, particularly on a sleepy, sunny Saturday afternoon spent watching two teams playing an easy-on-the-eye passing game while one sips a cool drink and soaks up the rays. What is it, though, about the warm weather that brings out the sartorial worst in the British?

To take just one example, there was a chap today clad in the most revolting shorts with a blue-and-white flower motif, which he had thoughtfully combined with a brown hoodie, grubby multi-coloured trainers and black socks. Individually, the components were hideous. As a combination, they were a nightmare. Where is Gok Wan when you need him, eh?

United were still clad in Cambridge blue (those new home strips will turn up, you know) and visitors "A West Ham XI" sported Oxford blue with a Cambridge blue stripe down the front. Our old pal the Hammers stall holder had set up his annual shop at the front of the car park, and although there were no jellied eels or "I was at Violet's funeral" T-shirts I did enjoy the "Only Fools and Tottenham - this time next year we'll be Champions League" number.

At a sparsely populated Abbey (attendance down a thousand on the equivalent fixture last year), caretaker manager Paul Carden opted for a 4-3-1-2 formation, with an unchanged back four in the continued absence of Anthony Tonkin, a midfield trio of Jai Reason, Sam Ives and Carden himself, and Mark Beesley "in the hole" behind front men Adam Marriott and Chris Holroyd. The rest of the squad was on the bench, except for the resoundingly out of favour Challinor and Pitt, with all trialists having been released for now at least, although young keeper Laurie Walker had resourcefully offered to help Danny Potter in the warm-up and was rewarded with a place amongst the substitutes.

The scholars were on duty as a "CUFC XI" at Sudbury, whose match report on their goalless draw was to observe "the opposition appeared to be CRC in disguise". West Ham's squad was similarly youthful, although it did sport two familiar names in Nigel Quashie and Calum Davenport, returning from injury, with 16-year-old former Roma academy midfielder Simone Bezziccheri on trial. Their first team squad was in Austria, although a friendly with Werder Bremen was cancelled due to heavy thunderstorms making the local pitch unplayable.

On a carpet of a pitch in comfortably warm but not swelteringly hot conditions, both sides proceeded to stroke the ball around pleasingly, United's CRC graduates looking confident and comfortable on the ball. The visitors' front two of Cristian Montano and Ahmed Adbulla looked lively but were contained by Messrs Coulson and Hatswell, and while the ball pinged around nicely there was little for either keeper to do in the early stages.

Dan Gleeson stopped a mazy Montano run on 5, and eight minutes later he combined well with Ives to arrow an excellent cross into the danger zone which Marriott slid onto to reach before keeper Peter Loveday, but touched just the wrong side of the post.

Potter was forced into his first save a minute later, getting behind a Montano drive, but action was mostly contained to the centre of the park. On 25 Conor Okus blasted a free-kick hopelessly over, but proceedings began to get a little more competitive ten minutes later when Quashie took exception to a lunging Ives challenge and had to be calmed down by the ref.

It was a good workout for the U's, having to be careful with their passes and quick thinking in possession, because at West Ham's level even their juniors are particularly strong and fast of thought and action. But they competed well, with Carden, Ives and Reason giving as good as they were getting in the middle, the back four looking organised and cool under pressure, and the forwards willing runners, although several promising Beesley runs were not picked up by his team-mates.

Marriott showed a glimpse of class in winning the ball on the left touchline, beating his man with a neat shimmy and cut inside, then arrowing a superb ball down the wing for Holroyd to run onto.

And United rounded off an entertaining half with their best move so far, a neat interchange between Holroyd and Gleeson sending the latter haring down the wing and crossing for Marriott, but he was unable to steer his shot goalward under pressure. So far, so enjoyable in a laid-back, sun-lounger sort of way.

Carden withdrew Reason, Beesley and Holroyd for part two, replacing them with Andy Parkinson, Danny Crow and Robbie Willmott as the side went to 4-4-2. It was the visitors, however, who broke the deadlock within three minutes of the restart, a high diagonal ball to Abdulla finding him with time and space on the edge of the box, and before Hatswell or Coakley could close him down his powerful low drive fizzed past Potter to spark a Cambridge Cockney knees-up in the South Stand. Boiled beef and carrots all round: 1-0.

The wide men began to look lively for United, Willmott cutting in from the left and having a couple of shots blocked, but without any real aerial presence up front there were a few too many crosses that Loveday was able to collect unchallenged.

United made more changes on 68, introducing Rory McAuley, Ben Farrell and Lee Phillips for Hatswell, Ives and Marriott, with McAuley making an instant impression with cool tackling and intercepting well beyond his tender years. Quashie and Davenport were withdrawn in a clutch of Hammers subs four minutes later, but there was bad news for the U's on 77 when Phillips clashed with Jack Lampe in the corner and fell with what looked like a bad knee injury.

Unfortunately ref Long failed to realise the seriousness of the situation and allowed play to continue until Willmott, now having swapped flanks with Parkinson, gave him a right earful and Long stopped play to lecture Robbie on his language. Thankfully that gave Greg Reid the change to attend to Phillips, and he was soon carried off on a stretcher. One can only hope and pray that it is nothing serious.

The only remaining sub was young keeper Walker, a lanky Crouchalike with bleached bogbrush hair, so he was found a number 17 outfield shirt and trotted on, still resplendent in black goalkeeper's shorts and socks. Ironically, his sheer physical presence was to turn the game United's way.

The lad certainly put himself about willingly, and with a target man to aim at now, his colleagues went at their visitors with renewed vigour. Within three minutes he had flung himself at a Parkinson cross and missed it by millimetres when any touch would have put it in. And he helped create United's equaliser, when another Parkinson ball saw the keeper fumble under pressure from Walker, and there was McAuley arriving with perfect timing to fire home from fifteen yards. 1-1.

Walker had galvanised the team with sheer enthusiasm, and Willmott in particular rose to the occasion, causing havoc down the right and having shots blocked and arrowing testing crosses into the centre. On 87 he latched onto a Gleeson pass to cut inside and fire low for the near post where sub keeper Mehmet just managed to push it round for a corner, and as full time beckoned, Coakley crossed a cleared corner back in, Parkinson flicked it on and Crow stooped to head home, only to be robbed of a winner by the diminutive lineswoman's flag.

Warm applause greeted United at the final whistle after such a rousing last fifteen minutes, galvanised by the most unlikely member of the squad, and let us hope that we can rekindle some of feelgood factor after the events of the last week, news of Phillips notwithstanding. With young players of the calibre of Coakley (above), Ives, McAuley and Marriott coming through, we can at least crack a smile through the (temporary) pain...

Statto Corner: Managers Special
Gary Brabin was the 26th different manager to run Cambridge United's first team since the first player-coach, one A.E. Target, was appointed on 19th October 1948; before that, the team had been selected by committee. So how did he rank in the pantheon of Abbey bosses?

This table records every league result of every permanent manager/coach (excluding playoffs), assuming three points for a win, the most successful being the one who gained the most average points per game:

So purely in terms of points gained, Brabin was the second most successful manager in United's history.

Statistics, of course, tell only part of the story; some bosses took over teams in terminal decline and needed time to turn things around, others got out while the going was good, while the likes of John Docherty kept the U's at a high level for years, surviving against all the odds. The Doc was initially joint manager with Paddy Sowden when Big Ron left for West Brom, then their roles were amended to manager and assistant.

John Beck's second spell at the turn of the century is recorded separately. And the identity of the bottom two names will come as no surprise to anyone who knows their Abbey history.

So who was Gerald Williams? As a player he was a Welsh schoolboy international and went on to play for Blackpool, Birmingham, Accrington and Bolton. He took over as player-manager at United at the start of the 1955-56 Eastern Counties League season and was the first U's boss to try to sign Wilf Mannion, without success.

He got off to a splendid start in the league, but when United lost 2-1 to Chatteris in the FA Cup First Qualifying Round on 10th September, the board decided that he was not the man they were looking for and he was dismissed. And you thought controversial board decisions were a relatively recent phenomenon...

The Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Football Director, Messrs Proctor, Woolley and Harris, took over as temporary managers until Bert Johnson was appointed; Bert's death was reported only last week. Which brings us to table number two, caretaker managers:

Paul Clark was Tommy Taylor's assistant and stayed for one game before joining his former boss at Orient. Lee Power was of course assisted by Chris Turner after the dismissal of Rob Newman. Gary Johnson is the only man who appears in both tables, as caretaker between the sacking of John Beck and the appointment of Ian Atkins. John Cozens 'enjoyed' two spells as caretaker in two seasons, but unsurprisingly failed to gain a win in the bad old days of the mid-1980s.

On Saturday evening Brabin was to be found playing for Doncaster Rovers in Sky's six-a-side 'Yorkshire Masters,' with ex-U's team-mates in Leo Fortune-West and Mark Sale, but despite two goals from LFW and Brabin and Sale both hitting the post, they went down 5-2 to a Sheffield Wednesday side whose first goal was scored by another ex-U, Scott Oakes.

Donnie beat Sheffield United 3-2 in their second match, the Blades including ex-U Tom Cowan who is now a fireman, but Wednesday beat United 4-1 to win their group and go on to lose to Barnsley on penalties in the final.

Player Ratings
Potter 7. Always looked in control - except when he conceded.
Gleeson 7. Continued his classy pre-season.
Coulson 7. Looks ready to be first choice.
Hatswell 7. No major foul-ups this time.
Coakley 8. Top quality.
Reason 7. Still waiting for Jai to really turn it on, but he's getting there.
Carden 7. Good, energetic runout.
Ives 8. The boy's a natural. Future star.
Beesley 7. Busy and intelligent, made many unappreciated runs.
Marriott 7. Almost frightening potential.
Holroyd 6. Chris has had a bitty, subdued pre-season, but it is surely only a matter of time before he hits his stride.

Parkinson 6. Did OK when on the right, but faded when he swapped flanks.
Crow 6. Easing his way gradually into the season.
Willmott 8. Constant menace and when he switched to the right he simply terrorised the Irons.
McAuley 8. So calm and assured he looked like he had been playing for years.
Farrell 6. Unobtrusively efficient.
Phillips 6. Only on for twelve minutes until forced off again by injury.
Walker 8. He wasn't clever or subtle, but by God he was effective!

Match Summary
An enjoyable summer afternoon's entertainment was notable mostly for the assured performances of United's youth system's graduates... and a remarkable cameo from a goalkeeper doubling as a makeshift centre forward.

Man of the Match
Darryl Coakley. Comfortable in possession, defensively solid, links well with colleagues and doesn't waste a pass. Mr Tonkin had better look to his laurels.

Ref Watch
Long 6. A little whistle-happy at times, but kept control of a match which occasionally threatened to boil over in the July warmth. One mark deducted, however, for failing to spot the seriousness of Phillips' injury.

Soundtrack of the Day
Simian Mobile Disco 'Audacity Of Huge'

Andrew Bennett

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