The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Striker

Will there be a more poignant image taken this season than this one of Barnsley’s Kayode Odejayi? With twenty minutes played in the second half of this afternoon’s FA Cup semi-final between Barnsley and Cardiff City, he was put through on goal with a glorious chance to level things up. One can only imagine what went through his mind in those ten seconds. I’d be less than surprised if his entire life flashed before his eyes. It’s likely that he had too much time. His shot flashed wide of the post, and with that miss went Barnsley’s chance of making it to their first FA Cup final since 1912.

Prior to this, Cardiff’s lead had seemed like a somewhat fortunate. Barnsley had reacted excellently to Joe Ledley’s early goal for Cardiff, and had looked plenty capable of being able to drag themselves back into the match. Odejayi’s miss, however, proved to be as good as it got for them. They continued to press forward for an equalizer, but left significant gaps at the back, and in the last ten minutes Cardiff looked more likely to double their lead than Barnsley looked like levelling things up.

A harsh reality now faces them. Having lost this match, their attention will now turn back to their battle against relegation from the Championship, where results over the weekend dropped them into the bottom three. For Kayode Odejayi, who gave the FA Cup one of its defining moments of the season when he out-jumped Petr Cech to head Chelsea out of the competition last month, there have been a series of rather unsavoury comments after it became public that Barnsley may not be renewing his contract. We may never know the exact extent to which this popped into Odejayi’s head as he closed in on Peter Enckleman’s goal, but his reaction to the final whistle (which was linger over for considerably too long by the Sky Sports cameras) indicated that he somehow knew that finding a new contract might prove to be more difficult to find than he was hoping it was.

Congratulations, then should go to Cardiff City, whose enormous support at Wembley thoroughly deserved a return trip there next month. They still have half a chance of making the play-offs for a place in the Premier League, and it will be interesting to see whether the diversion of an FA Cup final will propel them up the table on a sea of newly-found confidence, or whether it will prove to be a distraction from the business of hauling themselves up the table. Cardiff have flirted with the idea of entering into administration a couple of times over the last couple of seasons, and could do with the £50m that a year in the Premier League could net them, but I suspect that human nature might just overtake the need for extra cash.

It is somewhat ironic that the competition that has provided so many surprises should suddenly run dry at the semi-final stage, but Portsmouth tried their level best to help to cause one by playing absolutely terribly against West Bromwich Albion yesterday lunchtime. They scored the only goal of that match when Dean Kiely and Zoltan Gera got their knickers in a twist after Kiely blocked a shot, and Kanu nipped in to put the ball in from six yards. Portsmouth had been the second-best team before this, and continued to be afterwards, but West Bromwich Albion must have known that it wasn’t going to be their day when Robert Koren hit the crossbar from twenty yards out and Ishmael Miller shot narrowly wide when he should have at least hit the target.

So, Cardiff City vs Portsmouth. The 2008 FA Cup Final. I don’t think that any of us were expecting that.

The Dark Side Of Non-League Football

Congratulations, of sorts, to Kettering Town, who became (after Chelmsford City last week) the second club in English senior football to win their league championship yesterday. Their 3-0 win against AFC Telford United yesterday was coupled with a 3-1 defeat for second placed Stalybridge Celtic at Boston United, which meant that the Conference North championship to Rockingham Road and guaranteeing Conference football there next season. The result, however, was overshadowed by considerable crowd trouble in and around the ground, as well as in the centre of Kettering itself.

Supporters of both clubs were keen to distance themselves from the trouble. The rumour currently doing the rounds is that hardcore hooligans from Wolverhampton Wanderers (who had a day off yesterday because of the FA Cup semi-finals) decided to travel down to down to Northamptonshire because their team had a day off. This has, for a long time, been a problem for non-league clubs. I wrote on here last year about the arrival of Brighton troublemakers at the FA Vase quarter-final between Whitehawk and Truro City, and a match between FC United of Manchester and Newcastle Town was disrupted by the decision of groups of “supporters” of Manchester United and Stoke City to use the fixture as an opportunity to renew old acquaintances.

Part of the problem is that courts will ban persistent troublemakers, but they will only ban them from all ninety-two Football League and Premier League grounds. Non-league matches, where security is less tight and there are often considerably fewer CCTV cameras about, make for fertile (and relatively risk-free days). As long ago as 1983, an FA Trophy match between Enfield and Ilkeston Town had to be abandoned with eleven minutes to play when rioting Derby supporters invaded the pitch with eleven minutes to play. Many clubs, however, do have small groups of people that cause trouble at matches, whether with a degree of premeditation or because of Dutch courage brought about by too much alcohol. The costs of policing means that clubs are often unwilling to bring in extra security and the fact that many grounds are circled by pubs provides a fertile ground for people that don’t need much persuasion to get drunk have plenty of opportunity to do so.

Neither Kettering nor Telford’s supporters are much loved in the Conference North (Saturday’s events were as predictable as they were depressing – both clubs have taken trouble with them elsewhere this season), and neither club will be missed. They are the two best supported clubs in the league, but the attendant trouble that comes with them seems to outweigh the financial benefits that their visits bring. Ultimately, the fact remains that is very easy for all non-league clubs to blame their troubles on the supporters of “other” clubs, but such expedience is a short-sighted and dangerous game. Clubs such as AFC Telford United and Kettering Town should be looking to hand out a few banning orders of their own.