The wheels on the bus go round and round....

1^st March 2011 – 13^th March 2011

Following Saints 4-1 home victory against Swindon, the Saints made the midweek trip to Walsall hoping to come home with the 3 points. An enjoyable drive up to the Midlands ended with parking at the stadium for a reasonable £2 for the night. Walsall has a great supporters club in the vicinity of the stadium. £2 to get in and they do food and drink at a good price. When we arrived at about 5.30pm the club was already half full with the Saints army and by 6.30pm it was full of Saints.

Away Entrance at The Bescot

The first half started scrappily with Saints trying to pass the ball about on the bog they called a pitch. This wasn’t working and we soon switched to a more direct approach. The defence seemed solid enough but we lacked the guile and patient to open up the home defence. Morgan Schniederlin went through early on, but collided with the keeper. Morgan stayed down following the collision and was subbed off. Rumour has it we may not see Morgan again this season. A fairly poor half was finally over and we hoped for better.

Classy Stadium!

Saints started the second half shooting towards the 1200 or so fans that had made the trip. We finally started to open up the defence and seemed to be gaining the upper hand. We were wasting chances and seemed to panic in front of goal. Then disaster struck, a long ball from the Walsall defence was misjudged by Jaidi and with Kelvis yet again off his line, Jon Macken coolly lobbed the on rushing keeper. 1-0 and they only had one shot on target. Saints continued to try to get back level but it just wasn’t our night. Both centre backs had simple chances to score, but were denied by a combination of good keeping, brave defending and some luck! With saints launching the ball into the box at every opportunity, Walsall seemed to take an age over goal kicks and throw ins. Looking back, we played ok. We just knew it wasn’t going to be our night and the fact the home keeper, Jimmy Walker was named man of the match summed up our evening. A disappointing journey home was all we had to look forward to.

Saints were again on the road for the next game. Colchester has proved to be a tough team for Saints to beat and this was a vital game in our promotion challenge. This was a game I didn’t go to and I wasn’t surprised that we won. It always seems to be the case. We took the lead following a Lambert free kick which was poked home by Alex Chamberlain. Then a bizarre decision by the ref turned the game in our favour. He showed a red card to the Colchester forward Mooney, for what I can only describe as handbags with Danny Butterfield. A very harsh sending off. Second Half, Skipper Hammond finished well to round off an impressive and very important 3 points for the Saints.

After two games on the road, Saints returned to the relative luxury of St. Marys for a home match against perennial strugglers Yeovil Town. Saints still had a few injury problems with Guly and Morgan still sidelined. Yeovil came to St. Marys with the objective of frustrating Saints. They worked hard and made life very difficult for Saints. We finally took the lead when the hard working Barnard fired home from close range following yet another training ground set piece. Bernie was working his socks off up top and creating space for Lambert, Lallana and Chamberlain. Saints were playing a patient game and seemed to be tiring the opposition out. The morons who sit at the back of the Northam stand fail to understand tactical play and just moan and complain when Saints try to do this to teams. Tactical play is something we have rarely done over the last few years and look where it’s got us.

9 minutes into the second half our number 9, Bernie, doubled the lead with a far post header following great wing play from Lallana. Our opponents were now looking tired and we seemed quicker to every ball. A result of our tactics? The result was put beyond doubt when Alex Chamberlain won a ball about 25 yards out and drilled a shot home via a deflection. 3-0 and we were very comfortable. We had managed to get a vital 3 points, but the plus side was that we were able to rest Jaidi and give valuable run outs to a few squad players like Aaron Martin and Oscar Gobern.

And so to the day Eddie Mitchell and every Bournemouth fan has been harping on about all season! Their Cup final!

Saints took a great following of 1200 down the M27 to dean court. Arriving at Kings Park we were greeted with a surprisingly quaint atmosphere. We were told to expect a hostile reception and to expect a heavy police presence. This could not have been further from the truth. It was like a pre season friendly as the Saints fans gathered outside the ground.

The crowds rushing to get at the home end! Dean Court.

The game finally kicked off with the travelling support in good voice, nothing beats mocking a jumped up little club like Bournemouth. The home side took the lead when Dalla Valle smashed home a controversial opener. Saints cleared the ball, it hit one of our own players before the blonde haired striker scored. The linesman who had officiated in the world cup final could make up his mind as to if it was offside or not and Andre Marriner awarded the goal. Considering the ref was an established Premier league official with one of the most highly thought of linesman in the country I have to say they were more than useless! Some of the decisions were baffling. I couldn’t believe how many fouls on Bernie were going unpunished. Both the Saints strikers were victims of some very heavy challenges. Saints equalised quickly. Lambert did very well in chasing down a ball out wide and not letting the home defender see the ball out. He then crossed to the back where Bernie headed downward towards the goal. Then comedy time as Shwan Jalal the home keeper seemed to let the ball under his body. Another example of how bad a keeper he is. His distribution and handling was so bad, it made Kelvis look a decent keeper. 1-1 at half time, but in all honesty I didn’t think we were in any danger.

Saints pre match prep

The second got underway with another controversial start. Ref Marriner denied Saints a good shout for a penalty when Chaplow was bought down on the edge of the box. How it wasn’t given as a foul I’ll never know. Then up the other end, Jaidi went in clumsily in the box and appeared to have bought down Ings. Yet again no penalty given. Saints were starting to dominate with Lallana showing why he is so important to the team with some great surging runs and tricky footwork. On 70 minutes Chamberlain got away down the right and was brought down by a high challenge. From the resulting free kick Hammond poked in at the far post to give Saints a well deserved lead. We were now fully in control of this match and despite Bournemouth sending on Fletcher and playing more long balls than a Wimbledon side of the late 80’s we were rarely troubled. Just as rare is my praise for Saints current number 1, Kelvis. But fair play to him, he pulled off a great save to tip a shot onto the bar and maintain our lead. We wrapped up the victory when Lambert smashed home free kick from the angle late on. Again if I was a Bournemouth fan I would be asking serious questions of Shwan Jalal. The only sour point of the day for Saints was the very late red card for Oscar Gobern. Ossie went in with a wild high challenge that was reminiscent of Tommy Widdrington’s effort away to Port Vale many years ago.

Hopefully this victory coupled with Saints leapfrogging Bournemouth will put an end to any thoughts of a permanent derby match. The local press have done all they can to try to build up this match and should take responsibility for some of the pre match hype regarding trouble at the match. I’m sure Eddie Mitchell the Chairman of Bournemouth will still run his mouth about how we showed little old Bournemouth no respect. And why should we?

The highlight of my day in Dorset had to be the walk back to the car. Once we were finally let out of the ground, I could do nothing but laugh as we were met by a group of about 20 kids trying to start trouble with our fans. These kids must have been about 14 or 15 years old and were all dressed in the obligatory Boscombe trackie bottom and hoodie combo! True nutters! Maybe they should go home and watch Danny Dyer on the telly before they can be classed as “Pwaper Nawty.”

Cheers for the 3 points Cherries!     

A big thank you to all those that have been able to read this and if you have any comments, good or bad please get in touch. Email – modha79@gmail.com

Special thanks to my very good friend Alan who is helping spread the word by advertising this blog on his own website. Please visit www.bellsofhythe.co.uk for all your outdoor sports needs!

All the best

Neel