2020/21 Prediction League; Game 4 v AFC Wimbledon (away)

Div3North · 30-09-2020, 23:51

AFC Wimbledon

V

Accrington Stanley

2020/21 Prediction League; Game 4 v Uncle Bulgaria’s All Stars (away)

While trying to scramble out of the Slough of Despond into which I’d sunk following our 4-1 home trashing last week by the team at that time bottom of League One, I tried to think of those less fortunate than I ......... and my mind landed on the Scots, who are more unfortunate than most, simply by being Scottish – haggis, caber tossing, neeps, porridge, deep-fried almost anything, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond – plus Moira Anderson, and Jimmy Shand and His Deep-Fried Bagpipes ..... so I called in on our friends at Fort William FC (whose logo, I see, is Two Thistles Rampant over a Deep Fried Mars Bar) to see how they were doing, only to discover that their season – which was scheduled to start in October on a 16-game cycle - now won’t start until at least 28th November .......Watch this Space!

So I popped on to the Lowland League site, and they’re the same .......... then I started to look at who’s in the Lowland League; they’ve got Braves, Strollers, Colts, Hearts and a Star ............... plus Berwick Rangers, East Stirlingshire and Gretna 2008 (the phoenix club) ........... and who knew that East Stirlingshire – based in Falkirk – played in the Scottish First Division during the 1932/33 and 1964/65 seasons, and were also the first team to be relegated across the Styx from the fourth tier of Scottish Footba’ into non League.... Having finished bottom of Scottish League Two in 20156/16, they faced a play-off against Edinburgh City for a place in 2016–17’s League Two, which Edinburgh won 2–1 on aggregate, thus relegating East Stirlingshire to the Lowland League and ending their 61-year tenure in the National set-up ........... and another thing; they play in black and white hoops, and were managed, between June and October 1974, by a well-known football figure on these shores, who won 9 of his 17 games in charge there, but did rather better elsewhere, later on .......... Starter for Ten, then; who managed The Shire for four months in 1974? And I’ll tell you three things; he was paid £40 a week; he was 32; and his middle name’s Chapman ............and one of his players described him as “a frightening bastard from the start”

There’s lots of humour in footie – much of it unintentional comedy – and now is a good time to peruse it, since laughs are in short supply; So ..... who remembers Cantona’s “Seagulls following the Trawlers”, for example? (Man’s a nutter) .......OR – to cheer you up, and in no particular order;

1. “Matty Jarvis had acres of time out there” (Stan Collymore, on “How Not to be a Pundit”)

2. “We didn’t underestimate them. They were just a lot better than we thought.” (Bobby Robson, after playing Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup).

3. “The rules of soccer are very simple, basically; if it moves, kick it, and if it doesn’t move, kick it until it does.” (Phil Woosnam, Welsh football player and manager).

4. “Well Kerry, you’re 19 and you’re a lot older than a lot of people younger than yourself.” (Mike Gray, discussing “Interviews I have B*ggered Up” (Volume 3))

5. “We must have had 99 percent of the game. It was the other three percent that cost us the match.” – (Ruud Gullit, on why he didn’t pass his O level Maths)

6. “I wouldn’t be bothered if we lost every game as long as we won the league.” – (Mark Viduka – Aussie Philosopher and Idiot)

7. “Julian Dicks is everywhere. It’s like they’ve got eleven Dicks on the field.” (Anonymous summariser on Metro Radio – and you can see why he was anonymous)

8. “If you’re in the penalty area and don’t know what to do with the ball, put it in the net and we’ll discuss the options later.” (Bob Paisley, advising his players).

9. “He’s got a first touch like a trampoline” (Irish striker Andy Keogh on Usain Bolt’s try-out for a contract at Central Coast Mariners FC)

10. “Well, Clive, it’s all about the two Ms – Movement and Positioning” (Big Ron Atkinson, on “My Short Career as an Analyst”)

11. “I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one” (Brian Clough – who else?)

12. “I’d been ill and hadn’t trained for a week, and I’d been out of the team for the three weeks before that, so I wasn’t sharp. I got cramp before half time as well. But I’m not one to make excuses” (Clinton Morrison, not making excuses)

But – this week’s Second Starter for Ten; who said,

• “I never comment on referees, and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat”

The Wombles’ spiritual home is in Merton, SW London; their new Stadium (Plough Lane) is on the site of Wimbledon’s old Dog Stadium (that’s an old Stadium, not old dogs – cruel to race old dogs!) ......... Merton – bet you didn’t know this! – is the only London Borough to have Tube, rail and tram services (well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!) ..... The Borough gained a football team in 1889 when Wimbledon Old Centrals were founded, and were soon a member of the local football leagues; they later adopted the title Wimbledon FC (ie The Crazy Gang Show) and moved into a (then) new stadium at Plough Lane in 1912, where they would spend the next 79 years. ..... Until they moved to Milton Keynes! Bastards!

I can’t find any trace of a Prison in Merton, you’ll be pleased to hear .... But I’m still looking .........

The 2020–21 season is the Wombles’ 19th since they were formed, and the fifth consecutive in League One. It will be their first season based in their spiritual home of Wimbledon at the newly built Plough Lane stadium, but that will only start once the stadium’s finished, with the home game against Doncaster on 3rd November; until then they’ll play their home matches at Loftus Road

Last season they avoided relegation after amassing a PPG figure of 1.0 (35 pts in 35 games) from a record which read (home) W5 D9 L4 GF18 GA18, and (away) W3 D2 L12 GF21 GA34, giving them an overall P35 W8 D11 L16 GF39 GA52 .... they were in 20th place, 0.06 PPG behind the PhoneyWombles, and 0.06 PPG ahead of Relegated Tranmere in 21st; the Trannies had 32 points from 34 games for 0.94 PPG ....... and their GD was -11 worse than the Wombles anyway, so one more win wouldn’t have kept them up, unless they’d won it 12-0 ........ They also completely failed to escape Round One of any of the Cup competitions they were in – 2-0 after a Home Half Desmond against Donnie in the FA Cup, 4-2 on pens after a Desmond against the McDonuts in the EFL Cup, and one win (Leyton Orient) and two defeats (Southend away 3-1 and 2-0 at home to the VerySmallSeagulls) in the Troffy ............... We took a point at theirs in week 3 (our goal by the Episcopal Bishop of Wham on 64, 3 mins after Zaine Francis-Angol (now of Boreham Wood) got a Red), and did them 2-1 at Fortress Wham on 1st February, goals by Clicker on 14 and Charles on 21 – almost 9 months before he got a Red (I couldn’t see what he did to deserve it, to be fair), but with Pritchard getting one on the day instead ................. three goals, two Reds and four points; settle for that!

They shed 12 players in the summer and didn’t get a bean for any of them – even Jack’s Mother’s Cow was worth a few beans! (“Oh no she wasn’t!” “Oh yes she was!”) ..... Striker Kwesi Appiah was released and is club-less (so that’s his golf career up the Swannee); AMF Dylan Connolly went to St Helen Mirren, LW Mitchell Pinnock (I had to type that carefully) joined the Killies, RMF Scott Wagstaff went to Vegan Greenpeace United, and GK Albert White went to the TractorBoys ..... Five Incoming (ProperSigned) – all signed for nowt, therefore presumably not worth anything; RB Cheye Guevara – no, sorry, Alexander – from Barnet (speaking of which, my hair really needs cutting badly); Alex Woodyard, CMF from the Posh; ex Crawley striker Ollie Palmer, Aldershot DMF Ethan Chislett (who?); and former Wolves Hungarian CB Daniel Csoka ........... handful of loans ..... blah, blah .....

Manager is Glyn Hodges, who was Wally Downes’ asst manager until September 2019, when Downes got the boot and Hodges got the job ............. His (nearly) 20 year playing career took in the Crazy Gang, Watford, the Blades, Koparit (originally Kuopion Pallotoverit) which was a football club from Kuopio, Finland - founded in 1931 and disbanded in 1990 (but he was there in 1981, so it wasn’t his fault) - and Sing Tao (Hong Kong), plus many and varied loans .......... Their season has started well – two wins from two in the Troffy (including revenge on the TinySeagulls), a defeat on pens (4-3 after a HalfDesmond) at our mates from Oxford in the EFL Cup, and in the League, a Desmond at the Cobblers, a Double-Desmond (never had one of them before) against the Brethren (the Argyle and Bolton Wanderers, as my old Dad called them – it was an Army thing, I think), and a 1-0 win at Fleetwoof; 8th in the League (5 points from 3 games) .......... Bottom four include Pompey and Brizzle, top three still with 100% records (Ipswich, Lincoln and Hull; no-one in League Two still on 100%, and Bristol City and Reading in le Championnat the only other EFL sides with 9 from 3); Cambridge, Portly Vale and Newport – who nearly did Newcastle tonight – at the top of League Two on 7 points)

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pom on Saturday 3rd October, which is also the start of the Bananarama Season, and the North and South versions .......... among the opening fixtures are Hartlepool v Aldershot and Torquay v Stockpot County, both League fixtures in Days of Old, and also King’s Lynn v Yeovil and Altrincham v Weymouth ............. and our Ref this week is Christopher Pollard, who last reff’d our 4-3 win against Lincoln in February, dishing out 5 yellows to us and one to them (but we still won!) ........ and the “frightening bastard” who managed East Stirlingshire was (Sir) Alex Ferguson (his first managerial job), and the man who wasn’t going to “break the habit of a lifetime for that prat” was Big Ron Atkinson, who – at 81 - is still Oxford United’s ‘most appearances’ record holder with over 500 games, and a playing style which earned him the nicknockname of “The Tank”; nice one, Ron!

Good luck to everyone! ………….. Stay safe and keep well! ………… And thanks for playing!