Daventry 2 - Ashford 1

[mottwill]

Got this from the Daventry Twitter feed . 

[Swifty]

It's implied from Charlie's Twitter feed that we should have won and missed several good chances.

[MarkT]

Yes we should have Ed but in truth totally mugged off by some disgraceful refereeing decisions and we even had a Premier league Lino who was no help at all. We will go again Saturday and hopefully back to winning ways. There wage bill 1200 quid a week and I didn't see one player on the pitch worthy of a tenner. Our boys done the club and management proud yet again. Well done lads !!!

[lazarus]

Just a word of caution when quoting other clubs' wage bills.  We have no way of knowing what other clubs pay - for example, how many Ashford people know for certain what we pay, if anything.  These figures invariably get exaggerated (or sometimes under-stated if the Club wants to take pride for some reason in suggesting they pay nothing) often from one person to another usually going up every time!  Best not to believe too much of what is sometimes declared with absolute certainty by people who cannot possibly know.

 

Thoroughly agree that all the players did the Club proud and that over the two matches, we were unlucky not to get through.

[Keith B]

I thought our team and team management were a credit to the Club.

 

I rarely voice my opinions openly about referees, but on this occasion I thought that the match officials were somewhat lacking. The lino on the dugout side (not sure if he is the Prem one) was too busy making friends with the home bench. I think there is an underlying problem these days with referees telling linemen only to flag for certain things and think that this undermines the lino's with the  referees' "I am in charge" attitude.

 

As a result, he did not intervene to give his verdict on the clear penalty denied when Mark Bitmead was brought down. If our people were there after the match when the officials turned up for the Daventry Grilling Chair, I hope they were left in no doubt as to how we felt. Diplomatically, of course.

 

I spent most of the match from between the two dugouts, and found myself with a group of locals (from their accents, at least) who were not Daventry fans and were very generous in their praise of Ashford and incredulous about the match officials. They seemed to become pseudo Ashford fans and liked the quality of our team's style of play.

 

Fair play to Daventry, though. A very tidy stadium (despite a bumpy pitch), pleasant people, and I hope they do well this season. However, their crowds are not high, and I wonder why not? Ok, its out of town and inaccessible other than by road, and whereas we have a fuel depot on our doorstep, they have a smoky recycling site!