Cambridge Match

[1 F in Fleet]

Shaky ? Don't worry , you got it - and so did Charlie . Thought he might put it to his left , after the two to the right against St Allbrans .

[EUFC superb]

Quote:

bsmith said:
Certainly shaped up to be a good game, anyway I uploaded a video I took of the penalty, sorry it's so shakey. Clicky!

You've got the makings of a good site there, keep it up! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />



Felt the first half was pretty even, with us taking a bit of time to get used to a different system. Cambridge were dangerous throughout the first half and, on the break, throughout the second.

Slatter looked back to his best and Quinn was maverlous. All the players worked as a unit and ran their socks off for each other. Cronin didn't have much to do but, what he did do, he did well, except from a scuffed drop kick midway through the first half. (A bit picky I know!).

Sodje, Moore and MacDonald all look dangerous when they had the chance. Sodje looks a lot better when shooting towards the Northfleet end. MacDonald chased every ball, even when it was a lost cause. Moore played some wonderful passes and looks at his best playing in the positon he did today?


Not sure about the pen. I had a view blocked by a number of players but all I saw was a header/shot come in, then the ball bouncing up into the air behind the goal. If it was cleared with his head then he must've been quite low down, as the ball was at stumouch height.

As you can probably tell I'm on a high right now, after the win, and managing to miss the whole of the england match's second half, LUCKY ME!!!

[1 F in Fleet]

Quote:

gnfc superb said:
Sodje looks a lot better when shooting towards the Northfleet end.

Is that the reason ? Personally I think he thrives on the crowd encouraging him , wherever they stand - he certainly plays to the crowd , and loves to hear his name - but if it spurs him on , like today's goal will , no probs !

[EUFC superb]

That's what I meant, shooting towards the crowd.

[1 F in Fleet]

Not the halfway line though (!)

[Graham S]

Quote:

bsmith said:
Certainly shaped up to be a good game, anyway I uploaded a video I took of the penalty, sorry it's so shakey. Clicky!

Nice view & sound of the "new" Plough End celebrating too.

From a different angle here are:

Indecisive view of penalty incident

And

Charlie's Penalty

I had Sodje's goal too, but because I am a prat I decided to view it during the game & deleted it instead <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wall.gif" alt="" />.

Graham S

[Stu M]

Quote:

1_F_in_Fleet said:
Not the halfway line though (!)

If he played in that direction, he shouldn't be out there!

[Alan W (GNFC)]

Have to say I thought Luke did really well today - like others I wasnt sure midfield was the best role for him, but he was tireless today & one cross in the first half, in particular, should have led to a goal.

 

Sodje caused them problems all game - diod well to convert his goal, as I thought his first touch wasnt great but second was excellent.

 

Thought Cambridge were generally poor - we were basically solid at the back, but Cambridge basically offered very little threat & I only really recall the disallowed goal & perhaps one other effort on goal the whole game - they actually played their best football after they went behind, but only really threatened in moments of panicky defending.

 

Good that we are knocking the ball around so well at the moment, but just a shame that so few people can make the effort to come & watch - only 850-900 home supporters again today, when there were no premiership games and Gills were away is very poor (even allowing for the England game starting at 5).

 

Come on people of Gravesend - we're playing some good football at the moment and todays game was better than the rubbish that followed - get down to your local club and cheer us on to a succesful season (I bet you'll all want to be there when we draw Man Utd in the 3rd round of the Cup!!)

[EUFC superb]

Quote:

Alan W (GNFC) said:


Come on people of Gravesend - we're playing some good football at the moment and todays game was better than the rubbish that followed - get down to your local club and cheer us on to a succesful season (I bet you'll all want to be there when we draw Man Utd in the 3rd round of the Cup!!)

Idea:

Why don't we use that old projector that's never in use, by Tesco's.

[reevsie]

I think that Quinn does a good job at breaking up the oppositions play in midfield and laying the ball off. That said some of his medium to long range passing is very poor.

 

One name that doesnt get mentioned is Ricketts. Very steady again today with enough pace to get back and defend when we are caught on the break. Unspectacular but very effective.

[reevsie]

Quote:

reevsie said:

One name that doesnt get mentioned is Ricketts. Very steady again today with enough pace to get back and defend when we are caught on the break. Unspectacular but very effective.

Unless you read the weymouth MOM thread!

[Harry J Allstars]

Quote:

Quecerasaha said:
Now that Keeling and DeBolla are both out injured, both of whom have been key players so far this season, we will see exactly how good the squad of players are that Daish has assembled for this season?

Well what did you think?

Great performance today well done everyone, I thought the whole team did excellent. Like the Man Utd fan that I've quoted I too had serious concearnes about how things would go without these two but you have to hand it to the team they stood up and were counted. Question is will De Bolla and Kelling manage to work their way back in the team? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The only dissapointing things is the attendance, I've tried to keep my opinions to myself on this but then why should I? What have the club got to do invite people in for free? You put posters up post leaflets and still they don't want to come. It's not just the people that will be swarming round us like flies round sh*t should we get a decent cup run but last week we had 1,500 1,200 of which were home fans. Today we had 800 home fans, so a third of our support against Dagenham were missing just so they could watch England on TV? Your not football supporters, your pathetic idiotic morons who are happy to vote Labour because they're told to by The Sun, watch every televised match because they are told to by Sky Sports and wouldn't dare step out of line because they might be to be letting down the flag of St George.

P.S Just watching your club/country on the TV is not how you support your team, you have to actually pay to go and watch them play.

[DarrenGNFC]

I saw that as I was walking home at around 8pm or so (I hung around at the bar first..) and it had some "warning" message on it saying "Macromedia Projector is not working properly" or something. Although I'm sure that could've been easily rectified.

 

Anyway, I've never actually seen it in use; whenever I see it, it is during the day and it always says "watch this space at night." So yeah obviously with the light problems, I imagine it can only be used at night..

[Hannah]

What exactly have Gravesend got to do to get people to come and watch them! 9 games unbeaten not good enough for the people of Gravesend then eh?

 

Great game today and was pleased to see that the team still looked strong without De Bolla, Smith and Keeling.

 

Tuesday! First home game I will miss since I started coming in 2004! Im sad! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

[DarrenGNFC]

Well, to be fair, £12 is quite expensive.

 

There was a poll a while ago where football fans were asked if the football was worth it. I think 7% said yes. It it wasn't 7% then it certainly was no more than 15%.

[Alan W (GNFC)]

£12 - "Quite expensive"?

 

I know that entertainment value isnt guaranteed in the same way as the theatre, but pricewise the cost of 90 minutes football is generally somewhat lower (yes, I know you sit doen in comfy chairs in the theatre as well, so its probably not a fair comparison, but the outdoor music concerts at Rochester Castle this year were priced at £26 plus with no concessions for kids etc, so it isnt that exensiuve to watch Fleet. - equally looking at the total cost for the year - 23 games at £12 = £276 (paying per game) plus say 3 cup games - total cost = £312 = £6 per week over the year - buying a newspaper (better quality one at least) costs c£5.50 per week and people still buy newspapers.

[Guest]

Quote:

Alan W (GNFC) said:
£12 - "Quite expensive"?

the outdoor music concerts at Rochester Castle this year were priced at £26 plus with no concessions for kids etc

F^CK ME!!

Given the choice FLEET or CONCERT!!

You lazy gits get down to your local club, £12 and you aint gotta listen to no shitty music!!

Sounds good to me!!

[Guest]

Even if your supporters are crap at football!

[DarrenGNFC]

Well, alright, I suppose the price of £12 to watch us play is not an easy one to decipher as to whether it is high, low or just about right. Comparisons seem to be the logical way of figuring this out but even they are not consistent enough and vary a fair bit within each division.

 

I think just looking at why people aren't coming to see us will be easier to figure out, although that's open to debate.

 

Personally, I believe it's largely to do with how we have performed in recent memory plus the transitional phase we have gone through from the day we took our first steps towards going full-time. In three of the last four seasons (2003-2004 excluded), we have started well and been in a good position within the top-half for at least a few months or so (give or take a few yo-yos...) only to fall down the table towards the end of the season. Perhaps in the eyes and minds of many casual fans, a slip is inevitably on its way at some point. Therefore, keeping up this good form and maintaining a good position within the top half is the main way to get more fans through the turnstyles.

 

The other is simply to keep hold of a lot of our players for at least a couple of years. The full-time switch saw lots of personnel changes which saw a lot of fan favourites leave and arguably had an adverse effect on some of our performances last season. I think it also has had quite an effect on our attendances. When my casual friends/acquaintances would mention the Fleet, it seemed almost compulsory to follow it with the name Jimmy Jackson, even if it was only in a sentence that went something like "Gravesend and Northfleet...The Fleet....Jimmy Jackson, and all that." I once spoke to an old school friend who said he'd been to see Gravesend once in his life and I asked him if he could remember which players he saw and he said "oh, the one that everyone knows..." "Jimmy Jackson?" "That's the one!". His departure, aswell as that of Skinner, Drury, Protheroe, Skinner, McKimm and Saunders may have signalled a massive change in the eyes of the casual fans, far greater than a statement such as "We are now full-time. We will be taking this football lark a bit more seriously now." That collection of players is largely comprised of long-term players and fan favourites (in some way or another...)...and now they are all gone and what we're left with is a group of players who at most have only been here about a year and even then, were seen largely last season in rather uninspiring matches and/or on the wrong end of the results (It should be noted here that our home record in the last nine games was W2 D2 L5 when, if I recall correctly, Daish was trying to put out mainly full-time sides at the expense of some superior part-time players...so it was a very transitional phase at the Fleet, but even in some of the games we won, we were quite dull - Altrincham, Morecambe.. ) and arguably the best player - or at least the player who you're most likely to go away remembering the name of - Charlie MacDonald was out injured for a lot of this. The other main contender for the honour of being our best player, Ross Smith, a defender, was mainly seen getting beaten or being in a defence that concede a fair few goals. So I think the casual fans can be excused or at least understood for feeling a little apathetic to this squad of largely unknown players who in the long-run are unproven.

 

What I think we need is to keep up the good work, stay in a similar position and have a more settled side, then when people return to Stonebridge Road then at least some sort of continuity between the fan and the club will exist, rather than having to nearly start again with a long list of new names on each visit.

 

If by Christmas, or perhaps late Winter, attendances are at the same level, then maybe it's time to panic. At the moment though, I think if we keep up stability in all areas then hopefully it won't take too long to see the results.

 

Also, I think most people prefer to go to the football with other people, but there were so many uninspiring/dull performances last year that it may be harder for people to convince others to come with them and they don't want to go alone and so end up not going.

 

Keeping up the good work should eventually eradicate a lot of this.

 

 

 

Right, that'll do. I wrote out a reply before this one and then accidently deleted it so I don't think all I wanted to say was said in this one. Oh well. There's always tomorrow. It's quite late, so hopefully my post wasn't entirely incomprehensible.

[Slartibartfast]

Quote:

MOB said:
F^CK ME!!

Given the choice FLEET or CONCERT!!

You lazy gits get down to your local club, £12 and you aint gotta listen to no shitty music!!

Sounds good to me!!

A superb argument and one can only admire your erudition but if I might be permitted to play the pedant here, and after struggling with the double negative, I believe you are inferring that the Fleet are better value because we don't play shitty music...unfortunately we do.

My season ticket cost me £185:00 worth every penny.