football rambles

 This was a very limp display by Norwich as they slumped to a sixth consecutive loss at home to Portsmouth on Saturday. This was a game of very few chances for either team, but it was Norwich who were chasing the match for most of the second half. The game was decided by a Marezi penalty in the 51st minute. The closest that Norwich came was when Pelle Mattson hit the post, but overall the performance wasn't good enough. 

 A 42 minute penalty from Jesse Nwabueze was the difference between these two teams at the Walks on Saturday. Buxton seemed to turn up aiming to play for a draw and didn't really have a Plan B. It wasn't a classic by any means but it gave Lynn a third win in a row and they are now up to sixth, which isn't bad given that a lot of people had them down as relegation candidates at the start of the season.

 It's a long time since I had ventured to Histon for a match, so much so they were in the National League at the time looking like they might become a league club. Now they sit near the bottom of the United Counties League Division One South. I had a bit of a pub crawl ahead of the game on Saturday not expecting a classic, especially as they were playing Daventry who have also had a poor start to the season. However, despite the game not going Histon's way, it was a good game and there were goals galore. Histon actually looked pretty good going forward and they were first on the scoreboard when Ryan Sharman headed home after just 2 minutes. This perked Histon up for a few minutes and it looked like they might score more. However, Daventry soon played themselves into a game and scored a header themselves further up the pitch when Tommy Kruck equalised after 20 minutes. Things got worse on 37 minutes when Kruck scored again to give the visitors a two goal lead at the break. Histo...

 A nice sunny day saw Downham take on early league leaders Stowmarket at the Memorial Fields. Stowmarket started the game showing why they were top of the league going into the game. Downham faced attack after attack. Fortunately, Charlie Congreve in goals for Downham kept them at bay. The game was turned on its head in the 41 minute when Tobi Lawal was brought down as the last man by Hayden Baker and was given a red card. Lawal had been the one player who had been giving Stowmarket something to think about. One criticism of Stowmarket, who clearly have a good team is that they can be quite physical. Things got worse for Stow on the stroke of half time when Eoin Mc.Quaid scrambled the ball home to give Downham the lead going into the break. The second half saw Downham take control of the match with the man advantage, although chances were few and far between for both teams. At one point Downham had a two man advantage when another Stow player was sinbinned for 10 minutes, but they ...

 This was my first FA Cup game of the season as Hitchin welcomed Leiston to Top Fields in what looked like the best fixture of the weekend that I could get to. Although, I do have to admit the real highlight was seeing Villa beat Spurs in a Spurs pub in the early kick off ahead of us going to the ground. The game started with Hitchin on the attack and they were all over Leiston for the first 10 minutes. However, as the half progressed Leiston looked the most likely to take the lead and on 28 minutes the visitors took the lead from a well worked cross that Adam Mills struck home.  This seemed to give Leiston the impetus and Adam Marriot (remember him) and Seb Dunbar gave Hitchin a few things to think about before the two teams went in at the break with Leiston having a one goal advantage. The second half started quite slowly with both teams looking a little laboured, but Hitchin seemed to be the most likely to score and so it was. Blue Joy (yes that's his name) scored from clos...

 This really was a game of two halves with Reading dominating the first half and taking the lead on 38 minutes through ex-Posh player Jack Marriot (needless to say he enjoyed scoring that one). To be honest, it was probably what the Royals deserved after the sustained pressure of the first half. The second half saw Cambridge come out looking for a response and they found one when Liam Bennet - one of the shortest blokes on the pitch - scored a header from a Callum Perry Cross on the 52nd minute. Ten minutes later and another defender converted for the Us when Kelland Watts headed home from a Mpanzu cross. This time it was probably the tallest player scoring from a header rather than the shortest, but it did highlight a weakness that Cambridge had clearly targeted at half time.  Reading pushed for an equaliser but the two scorers were also pretty active in defence in stopping Reading make much progress, a good result and a good performance, especially from Watts and Bennet.