football rambles

 Last Saturday saw Cambridge play out a very entertaining draw against Fleetwood Town in League 1. Like in the previous home league game against Lincoln City, The Us went be hind early on with James Hill scoring for the visitors in the 2nd minute. In fact for the first 20 minutes Cambridge seemed to still be asleep, but they rallied in the second part of the first half and Adam May had an equaliser in the 35th minute. Cambridge continued to press and had enough chances to be ahead at half time, but they went in at the break on equal terms. Cambridge carried on the 2nd half as they finished the first and Shilow Tracey gave the home team the lead for the first time in the 52nd minute. Cambridge had plenty of other chances with Joe Ironside and later Sam Smith creating some good chances. However, Patrick Lane got an equaliser on 76 minutes and although Cambridge had the lion's share of the chances neither side could find a winner despite being close on several occasions. A good game t...

 Well, with one thing and another I am only just managing now to catch up with last weekend's games, which started off with Ely taking on Mildenhall in the FA Vase. After a convincing win against March just 3 days before confidence appeared to be high in the team. However despite their best efforts, they didn't manage to get past Mildenhall, who despite having lost the previous two games would have been the favourites. An early goal by Tanner Call settled the game, but both teams had their chances. Ely may have felt slightly aggrieved given that they seemed to have the ball over the line near the end, but this time the decision didn't go their way. 

 The first competitive match that I have got down to an Ely City home fixture for and the first home win of the season too. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a win for the Robins or an exciting game, so it was a real bonus to get both. Goals from Capel (2), Townshend, Tom Williams and Foster saw off the Hares. March took the lead early on before Ely equalised and regained the lead again before yet another equaliser before half time making the score 2-2 at the break.  In the second half, March took the lead early again before Tom Williams drew the teams level with the linesman saying the ball had crossed the line. You couldn't see from where we were, but the March goalkeeper vehemently protested about it. Ely made it 4-3 from the spot in what looked like a bit of a soft penalty before Foster rounded off a fine victory. Finally Ely had some luck and a win.

 Well, this was a disaster for Cambridge. After recording fine and surprising wins against Burton and Bolton in recent weeks the Us would have gone into this game with some confidence especially as Lincoln had not been in particularly good form. One criticism that I have had of Cambridge is that they have full backs who don't especially want to be full backs and seem more comfortable attacking than defending. The first 3 goas were definitely down to this and at 3-0 down with less than 25 minutes on the clock it was always going to be a big ask. Hakeeb Adelakun scored with less than a minute played and this set the tone for the afternoon. Conor McGrandles added to the scoring after a quarter of an hour and Anthony Scully made it 3 on 24. 3 attacks, 3 goals and 3 times a full back was out of position. It was just a surprise it was still only 3-0 at halftime.  Cambridge came out swinging in the second half, and you felt that with a lot of luck they might get something. However, t...

 I left it comparatively late (at least for me) to get to an FA Cup game this year with this local derby going ahead in the First Qualifying Round. I have usually been to the two preliminary rounds at this point. I made a bit of a day out with it with James and we went to a couple of pubs, both of which weren't great before the game. it became a whole day out when the shortage of train drivers after the game meant we had to spend a significant amount of time in the White Hart, which was a decent pub, after the game. What a pity! As for the football, there were a lot of Hitchin fans, it's just down the road and they definitely historically at least are the stronger of the teams. I was a bit surprised that they seemed to see themselves as the underdogs and in the opening encounters it definitely looked like Hitchin were the favourites. Despite all of their dominance Hitchin only led by 1-0 at the break and this was thanks to an Alex Brown penalty on 12 minutes. At halftime the ev...

 Saturday saw Cambridge post a shock result against one of the biggest clubs in League 1 (and there are a lot this season) by beating Bolton 1-0 at a packed out Abbey. Cambridge managed to draw first blood and then stay strong at the back. The peerless Wes Hoolahan had a fine game and ran himself ragged the whole match. On 16 minutes he threaded the ball to George Williams who squared it to Shilow Tracey to fire home. For long periods of the game it looked like Bolton would get an equaliser as they ramped up the pressure on Cambridge who seemed happy to defend and hit Bolton on the break, usually trying to feed Joe Ironside who would then get wrestled to the ground, occasionally with the intervention of the referee.  Cambridge stayed strong though and an impressive performance all round and especially in goals from Dimitar Mitov kept the Us on track to record an impressive victory.    

 I am a bit late in catching up with this game from last Saturday (21/8), and we are only a couple of days from the next home Cambridge game where the Us take on Bolton at the Abbey. In the game with Burton, the Brewers went into the game on fine form and must have fancied their chances against Cambridge who are one of the favourites for the drop and haven't exactly been knocking the goals in. They did get a bit of a help in this game though! Both teams had chances in the second half with Cambridge feeling like the most likely to score despite Burton having more of a threat up front. The deadlock was broken on 51 minutes when Sam Smith scored for Cambridge. We still didn't feel too confident though, but on 73 minutes Thomas Harmer put the ball in his own goal to give Cambridge a 2-0 lead. Just 6 minutes later the hapless Harmer got his second at the wrong end when a George Williams cross (or shot) took a massive deflection off him to give what at least on paper looked like an i...