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| Deja Vu :(York City 2 Woking 1: 26 August 2005 "Can you do a match report?" Kit Kat Crescent. It's still surreal, despite being oft-repeated by the stadium announcer, confirming its reality. He also repeated a number of times a phrase (can't remember it precisely, of course) about York City being community-owned. Fair enough, and good luck to them. When we were there in February, some (very) 'old boys' from an FA Cup defeat of a big team (Leeds?) from donkey's years back was being celebrated. This time it was the tenth anniversary of another Cup win. Do they do this every week, or am I just lucky? We were entertained by the strains of the York Railway Institute Brass Band before the game. Perfectly pleasant and something different about this venue again. And then a football match interrupted proceedings. JR up front on his own in that away formation with Blackman and Fergy wide in midfield and supposed to get forward to support. Now Glen knows far more than me about football, but I still don't favour this approach. We have far more success at home (I realise most teams do) playing 4-4-2 and can't really see why we don't do the same away. At least the players would be doing the same things in every game. First half very even, keepers not having a great deal to do, bar the moment when Shwan dropped a high cross (he's done this once in every game so far this season), this time right on the goal line. He scrambled to recover and I can confirm that the ball definitely DIDN'T cross the line, despite some rumblings post-match from a few York supporters. The half felt very much like the previous game here - we were not the young team, still learning, they were. Difficult to see how we could lose this one, though no clear indication that we could win it either. The second half contained all the meaningful action. A free kick from just outside the box from Reed hit the foot of the post, then JR scored. A cracker, too, an overhead volley. Don't see those very often at Conference level ! Visions of February. Can we go on to win 2-0 again? Well, no. JR, the hero then turned villain, though I must admit we didn't realise it at the time. A penalty was given down the other end, to a complete absence of Woking protests. Couldn't see what for, but must be correct. Andy Bishop, now on as a sub, put it away in an assured style exactly like our own Ian Selley. And next….. Well I called it at the time. JR scores early in the second half. We give away a poor goal. What comes next? A soft goal from a header - see Crawley and Carlisle last season, Kidderminster this. They got a corner. I put the camera to my eye and said "Well I might as well just take the pictures 'cos they're bound to score with a header." Ball comes over, up goes Dudgeon. Goal. 1-0 up, 2-1 down. Again. Disappointing, of course, but nobody played badly. To illustrate the 'funny old game' aspect, Blackman apparently didn't impress some conference.tv viewers (step forward Moorsie!!), when, to a number who were there, he was our MOTM. I'm in this camp. He worked really hard and has skill. The others need to get to know his game better, and GC has to decide where to play him, but he looks a player to me. JR worked his proverbials off, as usual, especially on his own until McAllister came on to take some pressure off, and everyone else did OK. We just need to learn to keep a lead and close games out. We'll probably play worse than this at home and win. Funny old game. Woking (4-4-2): Jalal; Reed, MacDonald, El-Salahi, Jackson; Evans(82), Murray, Selley, Blackman(82); Richards, Ferguson. Subs used: L Cockerill(82), McAllister(82), Smith, Ruby, Davies Man of the match: Lloyd Blackman Attendance: 2,302 |
