2015/16 Prediction League; Game 34 v Yeovil Town (away)

Div3North · 28-02-2016, 23:16

Yeovil Town

V

Accrington Stanley

2015/16 Prediction League - Game 34; v Yeovil (away)

In honour of the fact that we’re playing Yeovil (for the second time) on a Tuesday - this time on 1st March – can I just say, to make my Welsh friends feel at home, “Oggi, Oggi, Oggi ..........”!

So the Northampton runaway train eventually got “pointed” down the sidings by Hartlepool, ending a run of ten straight wins with a Zero Desmond (a zero-Desmond is a 2-2 draw where neither side scores, therefore a game which ends 0-0!) ........ Ten wins in a row, good as it is, isn’t actually the League record, which stands at 14 in a row and is shared by Man U in the old Second Division (1904/05), Bristol Citties in the same League the year after, PNE in a later version of Division Two (circa 1950/51), and Arsenal – whose feat crossed parts of two seasons (Feb 2002 to August 2002) ........... Although that’s the League record, a former (recent) League team just beat it handsomely lower down the League pyramid, their run of 27 consecutive wins in the Midland Football League (Premier Division) being halted by a 1-1 draw at Alvechurch (they also play against Quorn, which I thought you ate!) .........This week’s starter for 10, then, is ........................ Name that Club!

The converse of long winning runs, of course, is long losing runs and/or long runs without a win....... League One Colchester (soon to be re-named League Two Colchester) were 8th after 10 games at the end of September, coming off the back of four wins in a row; since 1st October, in the League only, their record is P24 W1 D6 L17 ....... they haven’t won in their last 19 (D5 L14), and their last win was 2-1 against Port Vale in mid-October ........... Even that isn’t terrible (“Yes it is”, (signed) The Chairman of Colchester Utd FC) compared to Darwen FC’s run of consecutive losses in season 1898/99 (18), or to Derby County’s run of games without a win between 22/9/2007 and 13/9/2008 (38) ................. And the team with 27 consecutive wins was Hereford FC ..........

Yeovil (“The Glovers”) are currently 22nd in the Division, with a record of P33 W6 D11 L16 GF33 GA47 and 29 points ..........Only one side has drawn more games than them (Pompey, who have 13 draws to go with their 13 wins and therefore only 6 defeats), and only one side (York) has won as few as them, and again only one (the Daggers) has won fewer (4 out of 32). That said, their last 10 have included 4 wins, 4 draws and just 2 defeats (as against Plymouth and ourselves, who each have a last 10 reading W5 D3 L2) ...........I know lots were upset that we let Barnet back in on Saturday, but remember if you will that the game before that they beat Pompey at home 1-0, which is part of the reason that Pompey are four points behind us and we have the games in hand ........Yeovil have won three away (Crawley 1-0, the Wombles 3-2, and Dagenham 1-0 on Saturday); at home, their record is W3 D7 L6, the wins being Crawley (again, this time 2-1), York 1-0 and Luton 3-2 – so beating the teams currently lying 13th, 17th (twice), 23rd, 24th and 8th ............. They’re one point above Hartlepool, 3 above York, and 9 above Dagenham, who look to be adrift without a rudder ...................

We’ve met once in the League (we don’t talk about Cup games), winning 2-1 at the WhamBam at the end of September last courtesy of goals from Josh McWindass and Matty McCrookes ............... Yeovil are, of course, out of all the Cups, although they played 9 cup matches in all, departing the League Cup (McCarling) 0-3 at home to QPR, the PaintyThingy in the Southern Semis 2-3 at Oxford, and the FA Cup on penalties (5-4) to Carlisle at the end of a home replay half-Desmond, which followed a Proper-Desmond in Cumbria ............those 9 Cup games resulted in 9 scored and 10 conceded (not counting penalties), meaning their season’s tally to date in 42 games is 42 for, 57 against ..........leading scorers are former Cambridge striker Ryan Bird with 8, and ex Blackpool striker Bernard Francois Dassise Zoko, a 32-year old Cote d’Ivoire-born striker who once played with Nancy (perhaps that should read “once played FOR Nancy”, although I’m not sure that’s any better), and also with/for Laval and Mons in France, Halettepe Spor Kulubu (Turkey), Oostende (Belgium), Carlisle, Notts Co, Stevenage and Blackpool, who has 6 ....

Not a lot of comings and goings in the transfer window; Iffy Allen went to Torquay (soon to join the Conference South, it seems) and Curacao-born (but Channel Island brought up) striker Jamie Burrow, who spent four years at Rangers without getting a game (Josh and Matty McSporran please note), joined Yeovil in July 2015, came on as a second-half sub in the 3-0 Cup loss to QPR (see above), and was mutuallyconsented in October ..............as well as Monsieur Zoko, they also ProperSigned ex Watford, Millwall (twice), Palace, Wolves and Swindon CB Darren Ward (37), and they’ve LoanSigned the wonderfully named Brandon Goodship (who should have been in a CS Forester “Adventure on the High Seas”), a 21-year old striker from Bournemouth who’s coming back from 18 months out injured ..........Oh, and they changed managers on 1st December, losing Paul Sturrock and promoting Darren Way ..............

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 7.45 pm on Tuesday 1st March (St Taffy’s Day) .......I can never look at a daffodil without remembering the scene at the end of “Carry on Nurse” (where the daffodil substitutes for the thermometer ................ We need something out of this game, otherwise Oxford could start to pull away from us .............. How about 3 points, no red cards, and no alarums and discursions? What do you reckon?

Good luck to everyone! ........... Keep the Faith! ........ and thanks for playing!