It’s the 2nd Round of the FA Cup and it’s fucking cold. Cheltenham are in town with the obvious carrot of being one game from a potential money spinning draw against one of the big boys. Money of course, is what it’s all about these days and how I love that attitude. If the mighty SFC get through this one, I want Dover at home – you can keep your big boys and sit at home and take your Sky Sports contract, roll it up and stick it up your arse.
The Kingsland stand is once again reserved exclusively for ball boys, so instead of sitting in the Northam, I have opted for the Itchen Stand and after going up the wrong aisle, I have to make about 30 people stand up so I can barge past them to my seat. The first thing I notice when finally in my seat, is the back of Dan Harding’s head as I’m right behind the dugouts.
To the team and it’s all a bit mix and match with Holmes coming in for Chamberlain to see if he can translate decent sub appearances to playing from the start and The Gulyman coming in for Barnard to increase his cold weather training. In central midfield, the suspension of Schneiderlin and the injury to Chaplow means a first start for a couple of years for Oscar Gobern who should be wearing Number 7 as he is about 7 feet tall and weighs about 7 stone. Nigel has also decided that this would be an ideal game for The Bartman and he’s in goal with Superkelv taking a seat just in front of me, dressed as an Eskimo. If the bench last week resembled a kindergarten, today is resembles a nursery with baby changing facilities with Aaron Martin, Ryan Doble, Alex Chamberlain and Ben Reeves on there.
Cheltenham have a fair few fans here and must have been hopeful of an upset, given their manager’s pre-match promise of them having a right go. Immediately after the start, they are having a right go at making a balls of it when their right back dawdles along and the intended pass to him is intercepted by Dickson who drives forward and squares for Lallana to tuck under the keeper for 1-0, five minutes gone.
Bart is called into action a moment later, not to save a shot but to save Jose Fonte who has been shoved into him by a Cheltenham forward. As Bart receives treatment, Superkelv takes off some of his Eskimo gear and does a few stretches at the side of the pitch – I bet he really does not want to go on. Luckily for Bart and for Superkelv, Bart recovers and on we go.
Dickson and Lallana are running riot down the left hand side and the former sets up the latter to cut in and curl one just wide of the far post with the keeper watching on like the defence and the rest of the spectators. Dickson then manages the trick of not getting booked after completely carting someone up in the air which was quite frankly, ridiculous refereeing.
Another player making his first start for a while is of course, Lee Holmes who is just getting into the game, having had a couple of decent bursts forward when he did what he usually does and went in for a challenge and came out sitting on his ar, holding his ankle. After five minutes treatment off the pitch and a forlorn attempt to run it off, he’s replaced with Alex Chamberlain whose rest has lasted all of 20 minutes. It’s a shame for Holmes but sadly, it’s completely typical and you just know that that’s the last we’ll see of him until February at the earliest.
Saints are dominating the game with Hammond putting himself about strongly to make up for the rather tentative Gobern who is barely getting involved other than to have Bambi on ice moments when the signals from his brain seem to take too long to travel the seven foot to his feet. Dominating we may be but no more goals for now, just Richardson breaking up a Saints attack by hoofing the ball out of play and hobbling straight down the tunnel to be replaced by Danny Butterfield just before half time.
The half time whistle blows and it’s still cold. As the players come off, it’s hard not to notice that The Gulyman looks particularly miserable. Emerging from the tunnel and Harding is on for Sir Rickie which means that Chambo has gone up front with Guly and Dickson has pushed up to left wing with Adam on the right. I expect he’s got a slight knock but it’s another disappointing performance from Sir Rickie and it would have been nice to see him end the drought in the 2nd half. Not to be though and surely Cheltenham would attack a bit more in the next 45.
Unsurprisingly, it was Saints who came out fastest as Chamberlain flew down the right and stood up a cross to where Oscar Gobern didn’t need to jump to head in. Easy – oh hang on a minute, the ref’s disallowed it for the Peter Crouch rule which states that if you are tall and awkward looking, then you will not be allowed to win any header without a free kick being given against you.
I do a spot of dugout watching for the next five minutes or so as Nigel Adkins and Andy Crosby take it in turns to race into the technical area and have a word with a player. Compare and contrast with Mark Yates of Cheltenham who spends all his time berating the 4th official in desperate fashion. What gets me is that he is arguing about decisions which are 100% nailed on correct by the ref. Why not stop doing that you berk and actually commit some players forward to try and get a goal?
Mark’s misery is complete as Lallana twists himself into space for the 20th time in this match and crosses onto the head of The Gulyman who heads in rather awkwardly off of the back of his head for 2-0 and game well and truly over. Despite scoring, he still looks kind of cold and miserable. Having sewn up the game, there was an unforeseen turn of events when Cheltenham had an attack and the ball fell to Wes Thomas six yards out but as he pulled the trigger, Fonte appeared out of nowhere and blocked it. Bart had thrown himself full length and had therefore got his kit dirty for the first and only time.
It was one way traffic for the rest of the game when despite playing at half pace, Saints created chance after chance. Dickson and Lallana were still combining well despite now being on opposite sides of the pitch with Lallana attempting a goal of the season volley from Dicko’s cross which flew just wide. Neat combination play put Chambo through the middle but he got too close to the keeper who smothered the shot. The third goal was a matter of time though and Lallna crossed, a flick on by Deano and Gobern headed in again – this time the ref couldn’t even invoke the Crouch rule.
The one sour note to the game was that Jose Fonte then needlessly got himself booked by pulling back a forward who’d ran past him and therefore got his 5th booking of the season. He obviously didn’t fancy Hartlepool away next week and it would serve him right if it got postponed because of the snow. This one bad moment was followed by some comedy gold as Ryan Dickson thought he was possessed by the spirit of a much better footballer and attempted to chip a ball up so he could attempt an overhead scissor kick swivel volley thing. To be honest, I don’t know what you call it but it flew into the Chapel anyway.
Full time and happy days and through to the 3rd Round. As the players leave the Coliseum to get out of the cold and start defrosting, Andy Crosby congratulates them all on a job well done, pausing only to rip the p out of Ryan Dickson – I assume for the chip up overhead volley, miles over the bar effort. The Gulyman looks like he’s rather be on a beach in Rio and who can blame him.
Three nil and job done and we took care of business in the building as Nigel would say. In truth this was incredibly easy and I wouldn’t be remotely happy if I was a Cheltenham fan as they didn’t even make a game of it, never getting numbers forward or giving Bart anything to do. In addition to that, it was fucking freezing which I believed I may have mentioned before. Still, from our point of view it’s better to have a boring win than a boring defeat, of which I have witness many over the years.
A slight worry is that we lost three players injured today. Sir Rickie and Richardson should be ok for the next match but Holmes’ curse has struck again and I bet he’ll be out for three months. Definitely out next week is Jose Fonte who managed to get his fifth booking of the season today so it’ll be Martin or Seaborne alongside Jaidi next week at Hartlepool. It’ll be bloody cold up there – rumour has it that they don’t have a centre circle, they have the Arctic Circle.
The benefit of being a bit slow to get this blog entry written is that I know the draw for the 3rd Round and we are at home to Blackpool which I think is a decent fixture and they’ve got Brett Ormerod. They’re a Premier League side but one which I feel we could beat. I’d rather be playing them than Man Utd or Chelsea, that’s for sure. I’ve seen some negative reaction to the draw from some of our fans and it makes me despair a bit. If you can afford it and can make it, buy a ticket and get down to SMS and support the lads.... and we may get to see Jason Euell (football genius) demonstrate why he was our highest earning player, ever (I think).
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