Worthing Away

[Windsor Rebel]

Another tough one on Saturday, how are we going to manage without Matt Lench and Jonny Goddard for

the rest of the season?

[Reading Rebel]

7 hours ago, Windsor Rebel said:

Another tough one on Saturday, how are we going to manage without Matt Lench and Jonny Goddard for

the rest of the season?

You might be right.

Matt Lench was a waste of space the other night with his sole contribution being a good corner which they scored from.

And Johnny Goddard can't even get a game at Boreham Wood.

No point in getting these two has beens in just to sit on the bench.

Edited October 25 by Reading Rebel

[Reading Rebel]

Sounded like a spirited effort from the team after going 4-1 down.

Set up tactically to out score Worthing but came up just short.

Massive two games coming up.

[Irishadrian]

29 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

Sounded like a spirited effort from the team after going 4-1 down.

Set up tactically to out score Worthing but came up just short.

Massive two games coming up.

Agree Just one win in last 7 league games is disappointing The Truro clash pitches the leagues joint top scorers (us) against  the tightest defence In our favour Truro score many more points at home (18) than away  We need to get back to winning ways.

Edited October 26 by Irishadrian

[Irishadrian]

Tuesdays game with Bath pitches us against a team that has plunged to 20th with growing calls for the manager to go  beaten 3-2 today by St Albans  

[Reading Rebel]

Bath, along with some other teams are currently struggling because of having key players out through injury and nothing left in the budget to replace them. Once these players are back there's no doubt they will start climbing the table.

With a squad of 16 players lets hope we can steer clear of injuries or we could find ourselves nose diving down the table.

[Holyport Rebel]

   

Well that was certainly an incident filled visit to the seaside yesterday.
We left St Joe's on the coach on time, at 11.45, and I was hoping for as straightforward a journey to Worthing as we had had the previous week when we visited Maidstone

. On our previous two visits this season to seaside venues Western-super-Mere and Eastbourne, I had made a quick dash down to the beach before kick off  just to get a quick glimpse of the sea, and hoped we'd arrive at Worthing with enough  time to allow me to make it a hat-trick of seaside visits.

Unfortunately, our progress seemed slower than I'd hoped. Amy, our usual driver, was not with us, and I wondered if this was a bad omen for the match ahead.

I don't want to appear alarmist or dramatic, but in my eyes we very nearly had a  very nasty accident on the motorway on the way down there.

Looking out of the window from the left hand side of the coach, with the hard shoulder running along side us, the coach suddenly veered viciously to the right  and quickly changed lane from the inside lane to the middle lane.

" WTF was that all about?" I thought to myself, then 0.1 of a second later I realised what had happened.

Cars are always stopped in the hard shoulder in a sort of North to South configuration, lined up the exact same way that the traffic on the motorway is travelling.

This time there was a car facing in a West to East configuration, stopped at a 90 degree angle across the hard shoulder , (sort of half in it and half out of it), with at least the back four feet of the car sticking out into the inside lane of the motorway.

As we sped by him I couldn't imagine how he had got into that position, and more importantly how we and others hadn't already hit him, and hoping against hope that a juggernaut or someone wouldn't come along after us and smash  into the side of him.

With me thanking our lucky stars we carried on, and arrived much later than I'd anticipated at Worthing, at just after 2pm.

I didn't think I'd have enough time to get to the beach and back with enough time to gain a relaxed entry into the ground, but I'd thought I'd see how far I'd get before I felt I had to turn back.

I started off in the dry, but soon after miserable drizzle began.

Why do I always believe the weather forecast ?

It said it was going to be dry at Worthing with zero % chance of rain during the time that we would be there, so I hadn't brought a coat suitable for the wet  conditions.

As it turned out I made better progress than I expected, and got down to see the sea and the pier.

Grey, gloomy and wet it was, with only one man and his dog on the pebbly beach, and I turned to hurry back to the ground.

Part of my  route down to the beach entailed walking across a railway level crossing, and as I got to within 25 yards of it on my way back, the flippin' lights started flashing and the claxons sounded, and I got stuck behind the barriers.

There was no bridge  to walk over to the other side, so there I was stuck, fuming at the delay.

I could see the train stopped at the station, which was only 50 yards away on my right, and after what felt like an age it eventually moved off, passing me by the barrier.

I waited for the barriers to go up,..........but they didn't.

Fuming more, I had to wait for another train to pass me by and go into the station.

Still the barriers wouldn't go up, and wouldn't you know it, I had to wait for yet another flippin train to pass by before the barriers rose to let me through.

Cursing trains and level crossings, I dashed off to the ground, and after what felt like an eternity waiting in the queue with people paying with cards to get  through the turnstiles, I finally made it into the ground.

I thought I had just enough time to have a pee before the game kicked off, so looked about me for a gents, and  saw a sign that said "Toilet" only about three yards ahead of me.

The bloke just in front of me seemed to have the same thought as I did, and just beat me into open door of the concrete block ahead of us ,and he dashed inside the cubicle and locked it behind him.

" For crying out loud, do I have to wait again !!!!!", I thought to myself.

Time passed.

 

" How long does it take to have a pee" I inwardly cursed the bloke inside the cubicle.

It was getting ever  closer to kick off time.

After what felt like several minutes had past, I suddenly  got an odd feeling.

It felt odd that nobody else had come into the toilet to have a pee.

I looked about me.

Only one lockable cubicle.

Only one hand basin.

No urinals or trough.

No overpowering  smell of urine.

Fearfully I looked at the sign on the door, that was open tight against the wall, in the shadows.

The sign said " Ladies ".

"Oh FFS !".

 
I dashed out of there pretty pronto I can assure you.

That shows what can happen if you blindly follow the crowd, or in this instance only the one.
It definitely looked like it was a bloke I followed in there ,though in this day and age, that doesn't seem to be relevant.
Having found a proper gents, afterwards I  finally got around to the tunnel area just as the players were walking out.
Not having heard any team announcements, I was surprised to see Jeanmal leading the team out.
Hmmm, no Josh..........no Dan either.
Who is playing today ?
Kweku, Sam AND Francis up front ?
Blimey, AND David too ?!
That sure is an attacking line up !
There was no way today's game was going to finish 0-0.
The game started well

Good goal by Francis to go 1 up.
To be honest, the game could easily have finished 6-5, as it had in 1961 as said the Worthing pre match website info, as so many chances were created and missed by both sides.
A great cross from Leon across the six yard line was met by Kweku.
I thought he should have put it away, but the goalie saved it, and the deflection went straight up high in the air, making it I thought a much harder chance for Sam to score with.
He didn't
Worthing almost scored a great goal when one of their players almost did a  Scotty by chipping Charlie in goal from nearly on the half way line.
A very entertaining half ended 2-1 to Worthing, but you knew that that was not going to be the end of the scoring, and if we got an early goal in the second half, we would be right back in this game.
An early goal was scored.
Wrong damn net though.
It looked a great strike from where I was standing, long range top corner.
3-1.
I still felt if we scored next the game would still be alive, and John Gilbert did a "Bryan Robson" type run with the ball through the Worthing defence and had just the goalie to beat to make it 3-2.
Then he stood on the ball, lost his balance, and the chance was gone.
To make matters  worse, Worthing immediately went down the other end, and despite what looked like a failed attempt at handball by Scott on the halfway line, a Worthing attacker was one on one with Charlie, and to give credit where credit is due, made a fantastic chipped finish over Charlie to make it 4-1.
I have to say that at this point I did fear the worst.
4-1 down with about 30 minutes still to go, against a nippy team like Worthing.
I should have known not to doubt Scotty and the boys, as less than 10 minutes later it was 4-3 thanks to two great strikes by Sam and Leon.
(Thankfully, Worthing missed what looked like a "sitter" at 4-2 when one of their players went around Charlie, and instead of placing the ball into the back of the net, blasted the chance high into the stand behind the goal. ).
Even despite Worthing being reduced to 10 men with about 20 minutes to go, we still weren't able to score  what would have been  a deserved equaliser.
So we are no longer in the play off positions. 
Does that bother me?
Not in the slightest.
Do I think we are going to finish in the play off positions ?
No, but I'd love to be proved wrong.
I don't think  we are going to finish in the bottom third of the table either.
I'm sure we are going to win more games in the league this season than we are going to lose, and that will do me.
What other manager would go away to a team like Worthing, not have two regular recognised defenders in his team, and play FOUR attackers ?
I think with Scott in charge of this team we are going to have a very entertaining season ahead, win, lose or draw.
Is it the Trophy draw on Monday ?
Every year we have been in the National League South I've thought we have had a great opportunity to progress to the latter part of this competition, but have not really got through to the nitty gritty rounds of the quarters or semi's.
Again I feel why can't it be our year this year?
If in the past 5 seasons teams such as Concord Rangers and Hornchurch ( when they were at a lower level than they are now), got through to play at Wembley,  why not us  this season?
Of course much depends on the  draw, and if our FA Cup draw luck continues in the Trophy, that would not be very kind.
Fingers crossed we'll at least start with a home draw, and then who know's ?
I remember well  the heartbreak of losing in the Trophy semi-finals in both 1977 and 1998.
I would love to see Slough at Wembley again. 
I can dream, can't I ?
 
.
 

 
 

Edited October 27 by Holyport Rebel

[Ian g f]

27 minutes ago, Holyport Rebel said:

   

Well that was certainly an incident filled visit to the seaside yesterday.
We left St Joe's on the coach on time, at 11.45, and I was hoping for as straightforward a journey to Worthing as we had had the previous week when we visited Maidstone

. On our previous two visits this season to seaside venues Western-super-Mere and Eastbourne, I had made a quick dash down to the beach before kick off  just to get a quick glimpse of the sea, and hoped we'd arrive at Worthing with enough  time to allow me to make it a hat-trick of seaside visits.

Unfortunately, our progress seemed slower than I'd hoped. Amy, our usual driver, was not with us, and I wondered if this was a bad omen for the match ahead.

I don't want to appear alarmist or dramatic, but in my eyes we very nearly had a  very nasty accident on the motorway on the way down there.

Looking out of the window from the left hand side of the coach, with the hard shoulder running along side us, the coach suddenly veered viciously to the right  and quickly changed lane from the inside lane to the middle lane.

" WTF was that all about?" I thought to myself, then 0.1 of a second later I realised what had happened.

Cars are always stopped in the hard shoulder in a sort of North to South configuration, lined up the exact same way that the traffic on the motorway is travelling.

This time there was a car facing in a West to East configuration, stopped at a 90 degree angle across the hard shoulder , with at least the back four feet of the car sticking out into the inside lane of the motorway.

As we sped by him I couldn't imagine how he had got into that position, and more importantly how we and others hadn't already hit him, and hoping against hope that a juggernaut or someone wouldn't come along after us and smash  into the side of him.

With me thanking our lucky stars we carried on, and arrived much later than I'd anticipated at Worthing, at just after 2pm.

I didn't think I'd have enough time to get to the beach and back with enough time to gain a relaxed entry into the ground, but I'd thought I'd see how far I'd get before I felt I had to turn back.

I started off in the dry, but soon after miserable drizzle began.

Why do I always believe the weather forecast ?

It said it was going to be dry at Worthing with zero % chance of rain during the time that we would be there, so I hadn't brought a coat suitable for the wet  conditions.

As it turned out I made better progress than I expected, and got down to see the sea and the pier.

Grey, gloomy and wet it was, with only one man and his dog on the pebbly beach, and I turned to hurry back to the ground.

Part of my  route down to the beach entailed walking across a railway level crossing, and as I got to within 25 yards of it on my way back, the flippin' lights started flashing and the claxons sounded, and I got stuck behind the barriers.

There was no bridge  to walk over to the other side, so there I was stuck, fuming at the delay.

I could see the train stopped at the station, which was only 50 yards away on my right, and after what felt like an age it eventually moved off, passing me by the barrier.

I waited for the barriers to go up,..........but they didn't.

Fuming more, I had to wait for another train to pass me by and go into the station.

Still the barriers wouldn't go up, and wouldn't you know it, I had to wait for yet another flippin train to pass by before the barriers rose to let me through.

Cursing trains and level crossings, I dashed off to the ground, and after what felt like an eternity waiting in the queue with people paying with cards to get  through the turnstiles, I finally made it into the ground.

I thought I had just enough time to have a pee before the game kicked off, so looked about me for a gents, and  saw a sign that said "Toilet" only about three yards ahead of me.

The bloke just in front of me seemed to have the same thought as I did, and just beat me into open door of the concrete block ahead of us ,and he dashed inside the cubicle and locked it behind him.

" For crying out loud, do I have to wait again !!!!!", I thought to myself.

Time passed.

 

" How long does it take to have a pee" I inwardly cursed the bloke inside the cubicle.

It was getting ever  closer to kick off time.

After what felt like several minutes had past, I suddenly  got an odd feeling.

It felt odd that nobody else had come into the toilet to have a pee.

I looked about me.

Only one lockable cubicle.

Only one hand basin.

No urinals or trough.

No overpowering  smell of urine.

Fearfully I looked at the sign on the door, that was open tight against the wall, in the shadows.

The sign said " Ladies ".

"Oh FFS !".

 
I dashed out of there pretty pronto I can assure you.

That shows what can happen if you blindly follow the crowd, or in this instance only the one.
It definitely looked like it was a bloke I followed in there ,though in this day and age, that doesn't seem to be relevant.
Having found a proper gents, afterwards I  finally got around to the tunnel area just as the players were walking out.
Not having heard any team announcements, I was surprised to see Jeanmal leading the team out.
Hmmm, no Josh..........no Dan either.
Who is playing today ?
Kweku, Sam AND Francis up front ?
Blimey, AND David too ?!
That sure is an attacking line up !
There was no way today's game was going to finish 0-0.
The game started well

Good goal by Francis to go 1 up.
To be honest, the game could easily have finished 6-5, as it had in 1961 as said the Worthing pre match website info, as so many chances were created and missed by both sides.
A great cross from Leon across the six yard line was met by Kweku.
I thought he should have put it away, but the goalie saved it, and the deflection went straight up high in the air, making it I thought a much harder chance for Sam to score with.
He didn't
Worthing almost scored a great goal when one of their players almost did a  Scotty by chipping Charlie in goal from nearly on the half way line.
A very entertaining half ended 2-1 to Worthing, but you knew that that was not going to be the end of the scoring, and if we got an early goal in the second half, we would be right back in this game.
An early goal was scored.
Wrong damn net though.
It looked a great strike from where I was standing, long range top corner.
3-1.
I still felt if we scored next the game would still be alive, and John Gilbert did a "Bryan Robson" type run with the ball through the Worthing defence and had just the goalie to beat to make it 3-2.
Then he stood on the ball, lost his balance, and the chance was gone.
To make matters  worse, Worthing immediately went down the other end, and despite what looked like a failed attempt at handball by Scott on the halfway line, a Worthing attacker was one on one with Charlie, and to give credit where credit is due, made a fantastic chipped finish over Charlie to make it 4-1.
I have to say that at this point I did fear the worst.
4-1 down with about 30 minutes still to go, against a nippy team like Worthing.
I should have known not to doubt Scotty and the boys, as less than 10 minutes later it was 4-3 thanks to two great strikes by Sam and Leon.
(Thankfully, Worthing missed what looked like a "sitter" at 4-2 when one of their players went around Charlie, and instead of placing the ball into the back of the net, blasted the chance high into the stand behind the goal. ).
Even despite Worthing being reduced to 10 men with about 20 minutes to go, we still weren't able to score  what would have been  a deserved equaliser.
So we are no longer in the play off positions. 
Does that bother me?
Not in the slightest.
Do I think we are going to finish in the play off positions ?
No, but I'd love to be proved wrong.
I don't think  we are going to finish in the bottom third of the table either.
I'm sure we are going to win more games in the league this season than we are going to lose, and that will do me.
What other manager would go away to a team like Worthing, not have two regular recognised defenders in his team, and play FOUR attackers ?
I think with Scott in charge of this team we are going to have a very entertaining season ahead, win, lose or draw.
Is it the Trophy draw on Monday ?
Every year we have been in the National League South I've thought we have had a great opportunity to progress to the latter part of this competition, but have not really got through to the nitty gritty rounds of the quarters or semi's.
Again I feel why can't it be our year this year?
If in the past 5 seasons teams such as Concord Rangers and Hornchurch ( when they were at a lower level than they are now), got through to play at Wembley,  why not us  this season?
Of course much depends on the  draw, and if our FA Cup draw luck continues in the Trophy, that would not be very kind.
Fingers crossed we'll at least start with a home draw, and then who know's ?
I remember well  the heartbreak of losing in the Trophy semi-finals in both 1977 and 1998.
I would love to see Slough at Wembley again. 
I can dream, can't I ?
 
.
 

 
 

Great!

[Reading Rebel]

Nice one HR.

I suppose the moral of the story is whether you are going by coach or by foot make sure you leave plenty of time for your journey.

And read the signs on the outside of toilets 😅

Listening to Rebels Radio there was some confusion as to why Dan Bayliss was not in the match day squad.

I had no idea that Dan picked up his 5th yellow card on Tuesday which, according to the rules as I understand them meant he would be suspended for 1 match from 7 days later but it seems that the ban was yesterday instead.

The only explanation I can think of is that his suspension was brought forward to yesterday because we have no game on Tuesday.

[Bernie Gogan]

Highly entertaining game, unfortunately the score not being in our favour. I thought we were worth a point.

So Worthing's "new" 4000 capacity ground is set for the FA Cup 1st Round. I was impressed with the new stands, one behind the goal and one more or less the length of the pitch. That's a hell of a lot of investment over the last few years by the young owner. Just one drawback for the club is the lack of space around the stadium and no parking other than in the streets. I guess there are other plans to further enhance spectating facilities.

What was the hoohaa about behind the goal btw? Over zealous stewarding again? Taking Customer Service tips from Woking, Bromley, Ebbsfleet?

My list of new grounds (to me) visited has increased this season, unfortunately I can't call Worthing one of them as I visited some 50 or more years ago or should I only include modern era visits!? Not sure how we all got there back then, but I do remember a supporters kick about at the seafront.

Any other points have been covered extremely well by Holyport Rebel in his usual post matchday blog.

 I fully expect Worthing to finish in the play offs at least.

[Holyport Rebel]

3 hours ago, Bernie Gogan said:

 

What was the hoohaa about behind the goal btw? Over zealous stewarding again? Taking Customer Service tips from Woking, Bromley, Ebbsfleet?

 

 

Hi Bernie.

I guess you must be referring to the bother Warren had in the first half ?

Once again the local stewards didn't like Warren beating their big green plastic bin with his drumsticks.

It was only a few moments after he started banging away on it that the stewards descended, taking the bin away.

The action then seemed to move about ten yards away from me, with stewards remaining in the area.

I'm not sure myself exactly what went on there then..

Below is a comment put up on the Worthing Fan Forum by one of their supporters, talking about us Slough fans and this incident.

 

"As an aside, due to a combination of laziness and the immobility of my old man, we stuck behind the Slough attacking goal in the first half, and I thought their fans were excellent. “I’d rather be a rebel than a rebel” was a highlight… but I was disappointed to see one of their fans surrounded by 7 or 8 security and man handled despite posing zero threat. I think as a club we continue to find our feet in relatively new circumstances at this level, but would be disappointed if we weren’t a place that opposition fans didn’t enjoy coming to for the craic in future. The Slough fans for the most part were exactly what I’d want to see in the away end."

 

One further comment, nothing to do with our game.

I've just watched the vlog that the Tonbridge bloke does of their matches, and yesterday they were away at Truro, our visitors next Saturday.

He says that a few Truro 'fans'  "set upon" them during the match, and tried to steal their drum.

 He said all the other  Truro fans and  match stewards were extremely apologetic for what had happened, but with Truro coming to us next I would hope these low life stay at home and don't bother to travel to away games.

Hopefully by the time we travel to Truro in February, Truro will have been able to stop this sort of behaviour in their ground.

Edited October 27 by Holyport Rebel

[Reading Rebel]

 

[bonjour]

Something I noted from the game.

after the final whistle i saw that the Worthing player who got sent off came back onto the pitch to celebrate with his team mates. At the Woking game when Scott was sent off he wasn't allowed to enter the field of play at the end of the game. Does anyone know why the difference, are there different rules for players and managers, different rules in the FA Cup or was it that the Woking referee was just making his own rules up as he went along?

 

[Bernie Gogan]

12 hours ago, Reading Rebel said:

 

Title implies a backs to the wall victory over 90 minutes, when in fact they had been 4-1 up and then 4-3 up with 11 men. They were reeling with 11, but as usually happens when a side is reduced to 10 they narrow the game up and low block and we had zero luck finding an equaliser, despite all our pressure.

[DonnyNo6]

56 minutes ago, bonjour said:

Something I noted from the game.

after the final whistle i saw that the Worthing player who got sent off came back onto the pitch to celebrate with his team mates. At the Woking game when Scott was sent off he wasn't allowed to enter the field of play at the end of the game. Does anyone know why the difference, are there different rules for players and managers, different rules in the FA Cup or was it that the Woking referee was just making his own rules up as he went along?

 

I could be wrong but I believe anyone sent off shouldn't be allowed back into the field of play but I'd imagine with all going on at the end of a match it would be hard to possibly manage that consistently.

We had a player sent off recently at Slough Heating and the lino at the end of the match told him he couldn't go back on at the end, yet two weeks ago the lino didn't care when one of our other lads that was sent off came onto the pitch.

As we always say and ask for...consistency!

[Reading Rebel]

1 hour ago, bonjour said:

Something I noted from the game.

after the final whistle i saw that the Worthing player who got sent off came back onto the pitch to celebrate with his team mates. At the Woking game when Scott was sent off he wasn't allowed to enter the field of play at the end of the game. Does anyone know why the difference, are there different rules for players and managers, different rules in the FA Cup or was it that the Woking referee was just making his own rules up as he went along?

 

I think it's simply some refs/officials are sticklers for the rules and some just can't be bothered or maybe just forget in the heat of the moment.

In the case of the Woking ref it was hinted that maybe he had some sort of a grudge so no surprise he stuck to the rules.