lordswood110807

Pretty hot, much more appropriate for the two games of cricket going on either side of the football ground. What do you expect, starting the season in the first half of August? Mind you, with the Summer we have had, there was a certain irony abut the heat.

Nothing ever changes at Lordswood, it is the same season in, season out. Even the programme cover hasn’t changed in all the time I have been going here, I think. Nothing to really complain about with regards the facilities – functional, adequate seating, decent playing surface. It just lacks something. Character, I think.

When I do the Away-Day File, I always forget I am meant to sample the food. Sorry.

Why not do a new cover one year, just for the hell of it? The inners are largely statistics, which made this particularly bare as there aren’t too many of these when you haven’t played a single match. The only editorial of note was ‘Managers Spill’ (sic) with a vague reference to some not awfully successful friendly matches, so it might have been worth including some details of these. In his Spill, new manager, Shawn Mitchell, spoke of his hopes for a flying start...

Mitchell probably knew his hopes would be dashed when he found his team one-nil down in the second minute. By 20 minutes it was a resounding certainty, as we led 3.0. Lordswood have assembled almost an entire new squad and it seemed the back four had not even been introduced. Buster ruthlessly capitalised on the ineptitude with two fine finishes, with Winnie contributing one of his own in between.

The second half was far less entertaining, as the game degenerated. One thing Mitchell should learn to do is close the changing room window during his half-time team talk. Apparently the first portion of this was given over to swearing; the latter part to instructions to ‘disrupt our play’, to put it politely. In fact, you didn’t need to listen in to spot the strategy pretty quickly. It was depressingly effective, spoiling the game as a spectacle but ensuring damage limitation for the home side. At least Buster secured his hat-trick before the end; they scored a lucky consolation goal when the ball looped off one of our defenders, over Paul Hyde and in off the far post. The general agreement was that we can play considerably better than this – we did look a bit shaky at times at the back and were not as fluent as we can be, but perhaps we eased off a bit after taking such early command of the game. Lordswood’s day was capped with the sending off of their captain at the end for headbutting a teammate! It was doubly unfortunate for Lordswood’s official who had chosen that moment to get into an argument with the travelling contingent about our ‘number four kicking everyone all afternoon’, something that nice Will Dunlop would never do.

No question – Buster.

Off the pitch, a mix of the friendly (their chairman) and the ridiculous (afore-mentioned old git and three ‘supporters’ behind our goal who took an odd dislike to Paul Hyde). On the pitch, when they actually applied themselves, Lordswood showed some promise (particularly one sub who surely should have been playing from the start). A few of their new squad either had real stinkers or are just not up to Kent League standard but I suspect they will improve and might become tougher opponents in time.

Less easy. Mr Huggins showed commendable efforts to keep his cards in his pocket, before finally succumbing. But he could have stamped down on Lordswood’s second half tactics much earlier. And I always had the feeling that he never really had control of things, so that his two assistants were often to the fore.

Good to see everyone in the Hythe travelling contingent again and pleasant to stand in the sunshine watching us outclass this lot yet again.

You could really do without idiots on and off the pitch, particularly so early in the season.