Stevenage (A) League 1 Saturday 26/11/11.

[boringteacher]

well done lads. The stats suggest it was backs to the wall, but its an away point when I reckon most thought we'd lose. Shows spirit.

[latviancheese]

Good result, hard earned. Im glad to hear we defended well.

[Sadders]

Very good point imo. Sounds asif we stifled them and defended very well. It might only be 'Stevenage' on paper, but they've beat Sheffield United 2-1, Sheffield Wednesday 5-1 and Charlton 1-0 so far there this season, so we must have been well up for the battle. Back to back games against Rochdale and Chesterfield the week 10th-17th of December are looking absolutely crucial! 6 points required if we're to have a chance of staying up.

[Darth Vader]

Stevenage fan on their forum:

fudge hope walsall rot and die. Timewasting from the first minute. Didn't even come to play football . Leigh RMI are better.

Joke club. How their fans are happy with that I don't know. Absolute prick.

One of their fans had the nerve to say hoof ball about us walking past me.

Whens the last time we timewasted from THE FIRST SECOND until the LAST Second.

Im talking as soon as we kicked the ball they were on the timwasting. I Cant recall us timewasting for THE WHOLE GAME.

Fair enough if they wa 1-0 up with 20 minutes to go i wouldnt of been surprised. But they done it the whole game . Thier keeper the first time he got the ball he had wasted a minute of the game waiting to kick it. He done it purposely throughout the entire game and yet none of the officials wanted to do anything about it. Every time they had a throw in a player dropped it waited for another player to take it thn that player also droppd it wating for the 3rd time to throw it. Even when the ball boys or someone from our bench or their bench practically gave it to them from a yard away they INTENTIONALLY missed the ball and let it go a yard past them.

It was a complete and utter joke from start to finish. They came and didnt even attempt to play an ounce of football.

I HOPE THEY GET RELEGATED AND GO BUST AND DIE !

:lol: Calm down you Southern Scunthorpe, seems our game-plan succeeded. Thanks for the decent away point. xxx

[Welsh_Saddler]

Obviously a home fan or two frustrated at not being able to score against little old Walsall :roll:

IF any deliberate time-wasting was being perpetrated then the REFEREE would have BOOKED the Walsall player(s) involved. Were there any bookings for time-wasting?

NO..... therefore end of story.

[Jolly Johnny]

Obviously a home fan or two frustrated at not being able to score against little old Walsall :roll:

IF any deliberate time-wasting was being perpetrated then the REFEREE would have BOOKED the Walsall player(s) involved. Were there any bookings for time-wasting?

NO..... therefore end of story.

Jimmy does sail very close to the wind on the time wasting side of things a lot of the time!!! :D

When's Jimmy...




taking the goal kick...





not until he has to!! :mrgreen:

[brummie saddler]

Obviously a home fan or two frustrated at not being able to score against little old Walsall :roll:

IF any deliberate time-wasting was being perpetrated then the REFEREE would have BOOKED the Walsall player(s) involved. Were there any bookings for time-wasting?

NO..... therefore end of story.

Jimmy does sail very close to the wind on the time wasting side of things a lot of the time!!! :D

When's Jimmy...




taking the goal kick...





not until he has to!! :mrgreen:

very true, he is a big smart arse, but hes our smart arse

[latviancheese]

Thats funny coming from a Stevenage freak. Has he not seen his team play? Few times i saw them last season they were elbow happy, and knew every trick in the book.

Im really glad we have ruined his day anyway :lol:

[bangsection]

Horrible game, great point.

Graham Westley's brand of football is well documented but I was still pretty appalled to see it first hand. It's like a sort of dystopian vision of football in the future where the game is a more cynical version of rugby union played in front of 2,500 people with no cultural heritage.

Match report: Hoof, head, hoof, head, foul, dive, hoof, tug, block, dive, grab, head, hoof, tug, dive, hoof. All played out to the soundtrack of a very angry man shouting swear words at the top of his voice. There was also a twunt with a drum.

Deaninho set us up 4-3-3 to contain Stevenage and it worked but we offered very little going forward. That said, Lancashire and Smith did everything asked of them, as did the midfield trio of Chambers, Wilson and @Taundz. Nicholls, Grigg and Macken had a thankless task up front but Grigg didn't look up for the battle today at all I'm afraid. Macken blasted our best chance of the game out of the ground from 6 yards out.

You can see how Stevenage have bullied better teams than us into submission this season so a point is a very good return. We're actually pretty good at the backs to the walls stuff this season but we need to start seizing the initiative - especially at home.

Nice to tick it off the list but I have no desire to go to Stevenage again any time soon. Dreadful place, dreadful manager, dreadful team.

[belgiansaddler]

A Stevenage fan moaning about another team not playing football, does he know nothing of their proud tradition :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[latviancheese]

Do you mean Beevers? Butler didnt play.

[belgiansaddler]

Horrible game, great point.

Graham Westley's brand of football is well documented but I was still pretty appalled to see it first hand. It's like a sort of dystopian vision of football in the future where football is a more cynical version of rugby union played in front of 2,500 people with no cultural heritage.

Match report: Hoof, head, hoof, head, foul, dive, hoof, tug, block, dive, grab, head, hoof, tug, dive, hoof. All played out to the soundtrack of a very angry man shouting swear words at the top of his voice. There was also a twunt with a drum.

Nice to tick it off the list but I have no desire to go to Stevenage again any time soon. Dreadful place, dreadful manager, dreadful team.

:mrgreen:

[bangsection]

Do you mean Beevers? Butler didnt play.

Sorry, I meant Smith! Beevers and Sadler were pretty solid too.

[chestersaddler]

Stevenage fan on their forum:

jolly well hope walsall rot and die. Timewasting from the first minute. Didn't even come to play football . Leigh RMI are better.

Joke club. How their fans are happy with that I don't know. Absolute mister sensitive.

One of their fans had the nerve to say hoof ball about us walking past me.

Whens the last time we timewasted from THE FIRST SECOND until the LAST Second.

Im talking as soon as we kicked the ball they were on the timwasting. I Cant recall us timewasting for THE WHOLE GAME.

Fair enough if they wa 1-0 up with 20 minutes to go i wouldnt of been surprised. But they done it the whole game . Thier keeper the first time he got the ball he had wasted a minute of the game waiting to kick it. He done it purposely throughout the entire game and yet none of the officials wanted to do anything about it. Every time they had a throw in a player dropped it waited for another player to take it thn that player also droppd it wating for the 3rd time to throw it. Even when the ball boys or someone from our bench or their bench practically gave it to them from a yard away they INTENTIONALLY missed the ball and let it go a yard past them.

It was a complete and utter joke from start to finish. They came and didnt even attempt to play an ounce of football.

I HOPE THEY GET RELEGATED AND GO BUST AND DIE !

:lol: Calm down you Southern lady-garden, seems our game-plan succeeded. Thanks for the decent away point. xxx

Shocking use of our mother tongue. Makes some of our lot read like Dickens :lol: It's DID not DONE :evil: :D

[Duke]

Great result , we seem to have found a little resilience away from home .

well done lads

[PT]

Agree with Bangsection.

I think the term "Anti football" was coined to describe the Dutch tactics in last year's world cup final. Whoever said it had obviously never been to Stevenage.

For those old enough think of the worst John Beck team you ever saw and times it by as bigger number as you can think of. People on this message board have accused us of "hoof ball" under recent managers. Time to think again. Stevenage take hoof ball to a whole new level. I've seen Walsall play league football for nearly 40 years and I honestly don't think I've seen us play a team so determined to play it high, play it long and then push, tug, dive, kick and squeal to such a degree.

I'm now not surprised by their quick elevation to their current status. The laws and spirit of the game pushed to breaking point, a goalie with a big kick, a winger with a big throw, central midfielders built like centre halves with no discernible touch but certainly a "presence" at set pieces. And why would you need midfielders who can play when you by-pass that area of the pitch entirely?

I'd take Walsall playing non-league football over trying to stay at our current level but resorting to those tactics any day. In fact, having been a fervent "anti-stay awayer" I think I've just seen something that might make me stay away from Walsall. If we ever resorted to the "Stevenage way" I'd definitely consider my future attendance. It was that bad.

Our lads stood up to it and they deserve credit.

The "time-wasting" cries are true and to be honest I don't give a flying fig. I'd have preferred to have watched Jimmy Walker trying to solve a Rubik cube than watching Stevenage destroy the game I love and have loved all of my life

[latviancheese]

If we ever resorted to the "Stevenage way" I'd definitely consider my future attendance. It was that bad.

The "time-wasting" cries are true and to be honest I don't give a flying fig. I'd have preferred to have watched Jimmy Walker trying to solve a Rubik cube than watching Stevenage destroy the game I love and have loved all of my life

And people mock me for not wanting Martin Allen anywhere near my club!

Join my club PT, we can fight this cack together.

[PT]

If we ever resorted to the "Stevenage way" I'd definitely consider my future attendance. It was that bad.

The "time-wasting" cries are true and to be honest I don't give a flying fig. I'd have preferred to have watched Jimmy Walker trying to solve a Rubik cube than watching Stevenage destroy the game I love and have loved all of my life

And people mock me for not wanting Martin Allen anywhere near my club!

Join my club PT, we can fight this guano together.

Hmmmm, dunno mate. I speak as i find and the last few times I've seen Notts County (in flesh and on telly) they play a decent style. OK, the Martin Allen "attitude" gets onto the pitch in terms of a bit of snivelling and whinging at the ref (something we're doing far more of by the way) but given the opportunity they will try to play through teams by passing and a bit of pace. Today, especially second half when they had the wind, their big ploy was for their keeper to basically drop bombs from his area onto the edge of ours.

I agree with you about not wanting allen at our club, but I guess I'm making a bit of a case for him on the back of what I saw today and not wanting to tar even Martin Allen with the Stevenage brush.

[latviancheese]

I saw Cheltenham, and Mk Dons pay under Allen. It was all the same. Hoof it up to a big black geezer, and pressure the ref.

[priestley_saddler]

Agree with most of what Bangsection and PT have said. I don't know if anyone else on here follows the tweets of the E&S's Nick Mashiter (they're actually very good) as tonight he's asked whether the ball received air miles for today and claimed it would have needed a stewardess if it had spent any longer in the air. That tells you pretty much all you need to know.

I was actually really looking forward to today. A sizeable away following to a team we haven't played before in what most of us would call a "proper" ground. The result itself is satisfactory; most, including me, expected us to lose this, but apart from the one big chance they had midway through the second half following a Lancashire slip, we never really looked in danger. That said we never looked like conceding at Exeter in the cup, until we did, so you were always aware we had the ability to throw our point away as Stevenage were probably the more likely winners.

The team line up looked bizarre. Butler failed a fitness test which we can't plan for, but then Halliday only made at the bench, and even then it was at the expense of Paterson??? Now it makes sense though, as he'd have probably got snapped to pieces by that lot today. It was a very ugly game of football which, even though the match ended just a few hours ago, I'm struggling to remember much of. Hopefully by in the morning I'll have forgotten the rest of it too.

Walker - As always had the knack of looking like he's hurrying up when he's really taking forever. Took forever to do everything today, much to the annoyance of the home crowd which in turn made him take even longer. They soon stopped complaining when the ball was back in the air though.
Beevers - Seemed really up for the physical battle today and did well. I wonder if he'd make a better centre half?
Sadler - Hasn't lived up to his usual high standards in recent games, but was steady enough today. Defended well but didn't really have the chance to get forward.
Lancashire - One of the criticisms of him has been his inability to win balls in the air. To be fair, watching him play today you could see that he wasn't really comfortable but stuck to his task well, despite the slip which almost cost us.
Smith - This is his sort of game, the sort he thrives in and was my MOTM today. Very good performance.
Chambers - I think its fair to say this isn't the sort of game where midfielders thrived, still managed to get booked for persistent fouling though.
Wilson - Struggled to get into the game, but was still the pick of our midfield. Withdrew late on, presumably with neckache.
Taundry - Was played wide right, presumably because he has more of a physical presence than an out and out winger. Actually took a man on during the first half, beat him and had a shot (which went about 12 yards wide). I still think he's the weakest of our midfielders though and certainly should be behind Peterlin in the pecking order.
Nicholls - Another who struggled to get into the game. Worked hard but without success.
Grigg - Had as much success as Nicholls, minus the hard work. He has such a lazy and lethargic playing style, coupled with a niceness towards the opposition. He needs to develop a mean streak, and looking motivated would also help his cause.
Macken - Is it just me who wishes he'd get on with the game rather than spending the whole match moaning like a girl to the referee? Missed our best chance, although he did manage to just about keep it in the ground.

Subs

Bowerman - Didn't live up to the heights of his previous two appearances but given the shape of the game he'd have always struggled too. Battled hard though and we do look to have a talent on our hands.
Halliday - I honestly don't remember him touching the ball.
Jarvis - I would say he was brought on purely to waste time, if it weren't for the fact we would never resort to such measures.

[SWS1]

"There was also a twunt with a drum".
:lol: :lol: :lol:
I love it! Will the Mods mod a non-word that everyone understands and says everything we want to say about something but is not in any dictionary (yet!)?
Love it.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

[wednesburysaddler]

well ticked another ground off which was the main purpose of me going to my first away match of the season
unfortunely a football match tried to break out but the amount of time i had to look up into the fading light sky i thought it had wedged on the wings of the luton to glasgow plane a dozen times.
i have seriously come home with a cricked neck!!!

2 very poor footballing teams slugging the ball in the air to hopefully land on someones head but both goalies played well enough to snuff any danger out.
we simply cant pass the ball to feet anymore we never seem to make any runs and create any space to run into and we have zilch down both channels.

just wondering how stevenage have managed to get into top ten and were 4th bottom playing what seemed copycat football today.
ok a point is very welcome but when the big teams come along very shortly were going to get beat.

nice to see richard okelly back and went to every walsall player before match and seemed to offer some words.
lets hope they werent keep the ball in the air as they very much managed to do that.

oh well we had 1 shot by chambers in first half to reward us for the £21 admission fee.
compact ground too expensive non league facilities but fair play theyre noisey and the ground created a decent atmosphere with a small crowd.

stevenage will finish nearer the bottom than top this season but i think well finish below them as were no better.

[MILO5]

Well I was actually quite proud of that.

No comments to make on the game as it was an absolutely awful game of football. But geez they are physical , massive and combative. Better teams than us have and will lose there...against what is basically the ultimate non league team .

I am not going to criticise our lack of creativity too much because we could have gone there , tried to play pretty stuff and just been walked over. We were set up for a battle , and a battle is what we had . Factor in the extra time on wed and the fact that they didn't play , and heads should be held high...a very very hard earned and deserved away point. Well done lads.

Ratings ...defence 9, midfield 8 , attack 6 ...

On to daggers and round 3 v villa .

[bangsection]

It's a good point about Stevenage being rested while we'd played 120 minutes on Wednesday. In fact, Westley made the same point before the game - saying that it would definitely be to their advantage. It wasn't. If anything, we looked much the fitter of the two teams at the end.

Thought Beevers did pretty well against Freeman who was by far the best player on the pitch (Arsenal paid £200k for him as a 15-year old which will now, of course, never happen again thanks to the EPPP).

[Pedagogue]

Macken - Is it just me who wishes he'd get on with the game rather than spending the whole match moaning like a girl to the referee?

No it's not just you. Macken's behaviour p****s me off, too! :evil:

[mel58]

Bangsection and PT are spot on for me.

I think we did very well to stand up to the bombardment Stevenage launched at us. I'm glad I sat up at the back of the away end yesterday - if I hadn't I'd have needed to go to an osteopath tomorrow to get my neck realigned!
A welcome point at a difficult venue.

Having said that it was great to have a free car park opposite the ground.

[Ancient Moaner]

Bangsection and PT are spot on for me.

I think we did very well to stand up to the bombardment Stevenage launched at us. I'm glad I sat up at the back of the away end yesterday - if I hadn't I'd have needed to go to an osteopath tomorrow to get my neck realigned!
A welcome point at a difficult venue.

Having said that it was great to have a free car park opposite the ground.

A mate of mine from Bolton, tells me its now £8 in thier car park near the Reebok, and, if you are stupid enough to park in the nearby retail centre they WILL nab you and hit you with a fine of £80! charming!

Re the match yesterday, I am stunned that we came away with a point, most, including me (for a change) expected us to lose, but it still leaves us wollowing in the relegation basement, the Charlton match won't help our cause, but there are couple of matches in December that could earn us a point or two...looking forward to gewin to Bury on 'New year' but that
big black Awoomboonoobo bloke looks like he may be hard to stiffle!! cue Walker gettin sent off again!!

[belgiansaddler]

Bangsection and PT are spot on for me.

I think we did very well to stand up to the bombardment Stevenage launched at us. I'm glad I sat up at the back of the away end yesterday - if I hadn't I'd have needed to go to an osteopath tomorrow to get my neck realigned!
A welcome point at a difficult venue.

Having said that it was great to have a free car park opposite the ground.

A mate of mine from Bolton, tells me its now £8 in thier car park near the Reebok, and, if you are stupid enough to park in the nearby retail centre they WILL nab you and hit you with a fine of £80! charming!

Re the match yesterday, I am stunned that we came away with a point, most, including me (for a change) expected us to lose, but it still leaves us wollowing in the relegation basement, the Charlton match won't help our cause, but there are couple of matches in December that could earn us a point or two...looking forward to gewin to Bury on 'New year' but that
big black Awoomboonoobo bloke looks like he may be hard to stiffle!! cue Walker gettin sent off again!!

:shock: :shock: :shock: You feeling ok AM :D

[Bernie]

Macken - Is it just me who wishes he'd get on with the game rather than spending the whole match moaning like a girl to the referee?

No it's not just you. Macken's behaviour p****s me off, too! :evil:

And when he is not moaning to the referee he is always moaning at his team mates for causing him to lose control of the ball.

When Macken was injured I thought that we missed him; now that he is back we are still missing him. He is not the player he was for much of last season. Has he reached the end of the road as far as League One is concerned?

[belgiansaddler]

Macken - Is it just me who wishes he'd get on with the game rather than spending the whole match moaning like a girl to the referee?

No it's not just you. Macken's behaviour p****s me off, too! :evil:

And when he is not moaning to the referee he is always moaning at his team mates for causing him to lose control of the ball.

When Macken was injured I thought that we missed him; now that he is back we are still missing him. He is not the player he was for much of last season. Has he reached the end of the road as far as League One is concerned?

Either that Bernie or maybe at his age he just takes longer to recover full match fitness and he's not quite there yet. Either way he has got a point to prove in second half of this season with his contract being up, if he wants a new one he has to get back to what he was. In a way at least that means he should be busting a gut for us from here on in