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Ok least they haven't suggested a merger as Croydon United!

Not looking good at Wandsworth. Their coaches and first team have left, and forthcoming games are postponed, opponents Kingstonian are given a bye in the FA Cup as well. Anyone due to watch Tooting v Wandsworth, there's always Molesey v Croydon tomorrow. (And a youth team game at the Arena tonight.)

I notice there were no apologies re the mix up of Croydon and Athletic in the News of the World or Sunday Telegraph yesterday. Yesterday's Sunday Mirror was another newspaper mixing up the two totally different clubs -

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Croyden-Athletic-the-first-football-club-to-be-killed-by-the-Test-cricket-scandal-article572177.html

Saturday 4 September 2010

Cherry Red Records Combined Counties Football League

Croydon FC (1) 1 (Denver McKenzie 1)

Wembley FC (0) 1 (Dean Linton 50)

Croydon and debutant Denver McKenzie got off to a dream start in this match but when the final whistle blew, Croydon had to be content with a point when they should have had 3 and McKenzie was sitting in an early bath.

It wasn’t exactly a dominant display by the Trams but they did enough to win and only some defiant keeping by Richard McCabe and the woodwork saved Wembley from defeat.

The Trams gave 1st starts to the aforementioned McKenzie and the returning Paul Scott whilst the exotically named Jack Nicholson made a promising appearance from the bench.

It was an emphatic start for Croydon who notched the lead after all of 29 seconds. A powerful header up field from a fit again Dave Waters was helped on by Scott leaving McKenzie to compete for the ball with McCabe, get there 1st and neatly hoist the ball over the helpless keeper.

A fabulous start and Trams could so easily have had 3 in the opening 5 minutes. Only a minute or so later Paul Shelton found himself in acres of space, uncontested in the middle of the goals but blasted his shot into the stratosphere and then he had an even more clear cut scoring chance a couple of minutes after that when Scott put in a cross from the left that Morgan Jenden headed back into the danger area. Sheton once again couldn’t hit the target. A proven striker, his time will surely come.

Croydon were in charge for the whole of the 1st half and only a finger tip save from McCabe and the woodwork kept the score down. It looked odds on a goal when McKenzie slalomed past the Wembley defence and unleashed a shot that appeared to have gone past the keeper, amazingly McCabe stuck out a hand and diverted the seemingly goal bound attempt for a corner.

Towards the end of the half Shelton’s run of bad luck gave the false impression of coming to the end as running from his own half he hit a curling shot that beat McCabe and seemed destined for the goal. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be as the attempt hit the angle of post and bar.

Of course a failure to take chances was always going to be costly for the Trams and when a poor bit of defending gave a toothless Wembley their 1st chance of the game Dean Linton was on hand to gratefully take it with a close range header.

A minute later Wembley very nearly took the lead when Kristian Hale’s shot took a huge deflection but Francis Ameyaw showed his mettle with a terrific one handed save.
Midway through the half Croydon began to assert their authority. Michael Johnson popped a free kick onto the top of the Wembley bar but no-one could force home the ball in the ensuing melee and Johnson again delivered a beautifull cross that the ever dangerous Waters headed just wide.

The chances continued to come for luckless Croydon: McKenzie hit a shot on target the McCabe mopped up easily but he had to work much harder to deny Jenden who hit a fine angled drive that looked in. and Nicholson nearly made it a shining debut when he too hit a shot the McCabe half saved but the keeper was at his brilliant best to stop Scott from capitalising on the rebound.

The match ended on a slightly sour note as McKenzie and Antoine Djerrou were sent off after a bit of a scuffle in the 85th minute.

The positive thing about the game was that Croydon were in the box seat for most of it with Wembley creating very little danger. However, they couldn’t take advantage during the large portion of the match that they were on top and Wembley snatched a point with their only shot on target.

Trams are on the road for their next 3 matches. They face Molesey on Tuesday 7 September before travelling to Dorking on Saturday the 11th. Then it’s off to Raynes Park on Wednesday 15th.

Croydon: Francis Ameyaw; Aaron Smith; Michael Johnson; Danny Cumber; Dave Waters; Bronek Dabrowa (Asa Rixon-Nicholls 90+4); Morgan Jenden (Jack Nicholson 83); Justin Hemmings; Denver McKenzie; Paul Scott; Paul Shelton (Martin Smith 49).

Subs not used: Jamie Rixon-Nicholls; Teon Haywood.

Simon Hawkins 

 

The Latest Score page is now TWITTERED.

Thanks to T-Man, the trams have a twitter page and with a bit of fiddling I have managed to get the twitter page to work on the latest score page.

Also there is a twitter feed on the home page.

And so technology moves on!

Very improved performance by the Trams today. Denver MacKenzie opened the scoring 29 seconds into his début. Croydon deserved the point and should have really sewn the game up.

The ref was good, only made two mistakes all game, one was the sending off of MacKenzie after an 18 man bust up. The Wembley #4 went for violent conduct and quite rightly so, but MacKenzie was on the edge and didn't actually do anything. Wrongful ID me thinks. The other mistake was not booking Wembley's Ian Bates. His constant moaning and shouting at the ref and doing anything to get players booked was a shameful display.

The Wembley keeper was good, and kept them in the game on a number of occasions, as did the crossbar.

Yep a good day at the Arena.

Well done Trams and match officials.

Possiblily T-Man might be able to do it on Twitter.  I am working on a bit of code to make the Latest score show the Twitter feed.  Also the main page will have the twitter feed too

ok, change of plan.   2 hours before I wrote that message, I slipped off the garden path and turned my foot over.  2 hours after I wrote the message, it got diagnosed as a broken 5th metatarsal!    Unable to drive for 4-6 weeks, so no long-distance football for a while.

Hopefully someone else can maintain the Latest Score window in Lens and my absence.

Monday 30 August 2010

Cheery Red Records Combined Counties Football League

Croydon FC (0) 0

Horley Town FC (2) 2 (Gary Tomlinson 7, John Eldred 32)

No shame attached to Croydon’s exit from the FA cup less that 2 days before against a decent Whitstable side a division up, but this Bank Holiday morning kick off was a game to far for a depleted and demoralised Trams team.

Horley had been hammered 6-0 in the cup by Metropolitan Police and could hardly have been looking forward to an 11.30 start at the Arena themselves, but they would have departed jubilant knowing that they had caught a side at a low ebb, toothless up front and woefully undermanned and unfortunate at the back.

The list of defensive absentees was pretty formidable: Dave Waters; Ollie Young; Ntipadem Sophonie; Justin Hemmings and Abu Tounkara were all absent forcing manager Dickson Gill into sending out the untried but persevering pairing of midfielders Teon Haywood and Terry Fennessey. There were other compensatory reshuffles as well, that lead to an unsatisfactory ad hoc felling to the team.

Croydon had just had the opportunity to score at the other end when disaster struck. A brilliant cross from the improving Morgan Jenden so very nearly set the ball up on a plate for Paul Shelton bombing in at the far post but when any touch appeared likely to bring a goal the ball just evaded the on rushing striker.

A minute later in the 7th minute Horley were ahead in comic book fashion, a Croydon defender attempted to clear but he thumped the ball against Gary Tomlinson who saw the ball balloon over the helpless Francis Ameyan and into the net, all in slow motion.

Although Horley didn’t have a great deal more than their hosts to offer the viewer they should have scored again in the 12th minute. It was a typically gusty day at the Arena and when the ball was hoofed up into the air it seemed destined to go out of play, somehow the ball was blown into the path of the surprised Charlie Addsett on the left touchline. He made the most of his luck and put in an inch perfect cross that was headed embarrassingly wide by Tomlinson.

Croydon did have some openings: Abdoulaye Camara shot into the side netting after being put through by Dana Zadia and he was on hand to force an excellent save from Joe McLoughlin when he got his head to a Michael Johnson corner.

It was pretty much all over when Horley scored again in the 32nd minute. The Croydon defence half stopped when the linesman raised his flag for offside. The referee had other ideas however and deemed his assistant to be of only “park football club lineman” level and bizarrely overruled him stating after the match that the infringing player was not interfering with play. Surely he was indirectly in any case as he caused the assistant referee to raise his flag! In the ensuing moments Croydon conceded as generously given free kick on the edge of the box and after Liam Hunter’s shot hit the wall John Eldred was on hand to fire in the loose ball.

With confidence at a low ebb the Trams didn’t look like scoring even though they had a sequence of reasonable attacks in the 2nd half. Camara had a shot that made McLoughlin work and he headed another Johnson corner just wide. He was in the game again when the keeper hit a poor clearance but he shot from distance when he could have carried the ball closer to goal.

Terry Fennessey went close with a header and Johnson hit the target as well but Croydon were never going to score in this game. And to be fair Morgan Jenden kicked one off the line and Ameyan made a decent save to deny Horley towards the end of the game.

With a full complement of players and a bit of self belief, this side could easily turn the corner, they are only one good win away from a decent run, hopefully the change of luck comes this Saturday when the play host to Wembley at the Arena.

Croydon FC:  Francis Ameyan; Danny Cumber; Jamie Rixon-Nicholls (Marco Black 82); Michael Johnson; Teon Haywood; Dana Zadia (Kevin Dalrymple 76); Morgan Jenden; Terry Fennessey; Abdoulaye Camara (Martin Smith 85); Bronek Dabrowa; Paul Shelton.

Subs not used: Asa Rixon-Nicholls; Danny Burnett (GK).

Simon Hawkins