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Anyone else wake up feeling a little bit sick?

Jane.N wrote:Anyone else wake up feeling a little bit sick?

No not sick, more an annoying rage at the way we're able to capitulate so easily at the end of a game.

Had the pleasure of meeting TCP in B/Hill yesterday, and to say he wasn't happy would the understatement of the decade. But then you can't really blame him for moaning this time.

Today the team need to think positive work together in harmony as a team without any silly squabbles if substituted, and hit them hard straight out of the starting gate.

And remember today we are the 12th man. So no standing or sitting around in silence as if you were at a wake, get in the ground and make plenty of noise all round the ground.

Just gutted.

There is no doubt that we have been in positions both in the league and during games where we should comfortably have made the play-offs.

However today I thought the team played really well and deserved more than they got. Smikle once again got my mom vote.
Everyone gave everything : no one can question the effort.

Once Salford took the lead for the second time, you could see the tiredness of travelling and playing less than 48 hours ago was taking it's toll.

No-one means to make mistakes, miss penalties, concede penalties, miss open goals etc etc and it's a shame that all the positive points of the season could be forgotten.

Last season we were dross where this season we have played some great football and had 2 excellent cup runs.
I am sure that all involved will be as gutted as the fans... :-(

Enjoy the few weeks off til pre season everyone.

I'm not sure whether to be angry, disappointed or frustrated. Half of me expected us to bottle it again. It's been a memorable season, but sadly we haven't been good enough when it really mattered. We need to keep hold of Hawley, Pierpoint, Gould et al and build on this team for next season.

On a more positive note, the fans were excellent yet again and an attendance of over 1800 is fantastic. Onwards and upwards.

A huge disappointment for us all - players, management, officials and supporters. Whether it was because Salford had the luxury of not playing in the week but they were the better team on the day, even though they were gifted the opening goal following a rare mistake by Matt in probably his last game.

Having said that, their keeper's mistake led to Stuart's equaliser, followed by, what I thought, were pompous celebrations by him, even though Chris had done all of the work. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but Chris was largely ignored with all of the back-slapping after the goal. Strange !

Thought George had his best home game , again in probably his last appearance.

Not wishing to be negative but, to me, Sean is not the player he was, and am still not convinced that our team can accommodate both him and Tom at the same time.

Matt, on the right wing, has been missed.

Summarising the season, the simple truth is, though it's been successful in so many ways, including cash flow, we are still not good enough for promotion. It's far too early, and still a bit raw after today's defeat, to analyse why - no doubt we've all got our personal thoughts which will be aired. If we can retain most of this season's squad, we have the nucleus of a good team for next season but I shall be surprised if we see all of our veterans donning the red and white shirts again. Think Gary's and the Board's policy in paying a bit more in attracting experience has been vindicated, well.... nearly !

So near and yet so far !

Feel totally gutted again today as I did Thursday night.

Again we have missed an opportunity to progress and just think of the games we could have had against local team next season.

After seeing every game this season dont think our squad is as strongest as it could have been. Tatics at matlock and frckley were at the end probably wrong.

Team spirt up till Tonks seem to be perfect but since Geddes came back it hasnt been there as proved at Matlock. The lad never made a difference second time around.

For me we have lost out due to this reason squad need to be together. You could have said this before.

As DA said best midfield player in our league but he hasnt shown it

Groundhog day.....Gosport at home,Chesham away in recent seasons and too many matches in recent weeks.

Not "turning up" at Barwell and Halesowen,half baked start at Grantham,same at home to Ashton and switching off late at Matlock and at Frickley culminating in putting too much pressure on ourself today and a truly gruesome second half display.

No tactical changes made even though things were not working,Richards introduced far too late and once again,no thought of mixing things up by sticking Scarr or Pierpoint up front.

I gather we haven't trained for about five weeks now so perhaps it's no wonder we've faded late in matches,I don't want to hear excuses about "midweek matches" tiring players out,how a club at our level can give training a miss is beyond me,even if training is light then tactical conversation and planning should take place.

For a top 6 side our defensive record is appalling,63 goals against matches that of Marine just above the relegation places,leaking almost 1 1/2 goals a match doesn't win you promotion and the top teams are 20 goals better than us in defence AND they scored a fair few more.

The cup runs were fun but I'd sacrifice them for promotion every day of the week.

I hear some people say we are at our "best ever level" and that we "punch above our weight" but this is bollox.

We played in the equivalent of the Conference Premier in the 70's and in the Southern League for years which was then the level of the Conference North and South.

Our present level is the lowest we should expect to play at,we have a town of the same population as Burnley I believe,we have to do better than we are.

I predicted on here and to friends a week ago exactly the scenario that has played out today and although I'm gutted we have failed it was no more than I expected.

I feel that next season in this division will be even harder and I still feel that if things do not change at the club then the Southern Premier offers us the best hope of escape from this level.

On a personal level I'd like to thank Chris Lait for the exciting play he's entertained me with this season,Leon for his constant effort and professionalism and Junior for a supreme effort in a position that was alien to him and to Dan Scarr who along with Lait was my player of the season.

Well done to Brian Handy as usual for his money raising exploits and his unstinting commitment to the club.

There are also a lot of people like old Eric Timmins and the others who hardly ever miss an away game,THESE are most important people at the club and I take my hat off to them for their fantastic support.

Thanks also to all my good friends at the club who make attending such a pleasure....Neil,Baz,Alan,Jane,Jack,Joe,Andy Hill,DY9 Paul,Bruce and the many others who make it such a laugh......it wouldn't by the same without you.

It panned out as I feared really, very disappointing way to finish, we should have been in the play offs but injury time goals have proved costly and more so to my mind, a number of drawn games when we didn't take our chances, ultimately we haven't scored as many goals as we should have.

The game itself was a good one with a great crowd, they looked as dangerous as any team I've seen up front, how the chap got to the ball for the first goal was a great effort, when we where having the better of exchanges there where a few headers, that a yard either side would have been in the net - you just felt it wasn't going to be our day. There was definitely a handball at one stage- although unintentional I thought, we where flagging towards the end and they could have scored a couple more probably, disappointed we didn't throw caution to the wind, and throw a few more forward.

It has been a great season, let's not lose sight of that, cup and trophy runs probably had a hand in our fade out, as it did with Blyth last year and i'm certain Nantwich would have been in the mix without a run to the trophy semi final. Of course we have clearly had a bigger budget this year with some of the players brought in, so perhaps that makes it a bit more disappointing than other years, with some players the wrong side of 30, there may be a few changes and the goalkeeping spot also I suspect, I virtually had a 3 way tie for player of the year with Scarr just getting the nod ahead of Lait and Smikle, Tonks may have been in there if he had stayed around Christmas time and his loss then when he was playing well had an impact.

Hopefully we will get the promotion we all want sooner rather than later - I know not every fan wants it, as some think it could be prove disastrous, you only have to look at some of the logistics and figures mentioned by the chairman in today's programme to have concerns - as I do - but I very much we can achieve it at some point.


A big thank you to everyone involved on and off the pitch, throughout the campaign, the season has just flown by and kept me going through difficult personal times, highlights: Braintree, beating Kiddy twice and of course Dover another priceless occasion for the archives.

Roll on August.

Back in August the consensus seemed to be that a successful season would be one in which we were challenging for the play-offs so by that criterion I would say that it has been a reasonably successful campaign, especially compared to where we are 12 months ago.

Yes, we should have had a penalty when Hawley was shoved over towards the end of the first half but ultimately our undoing was being unable to close out games at Matlock and Frickley where 5 points were thrown away in the late stages.

BTW can anyone from closer at hand confirm whether or not Stuart actually got a touch for our goal this afternoon? From where I was standing it looked as if Laity's cross went into the net unaided.

It was certainly an SP header Dave,I was right behind the goal.

Pity he wasn't up there on the end of some of our other crosses!

No matter how bad we all feel at the moment, compare this season to last season and you have to see more positives than negatives.

Yes there are changes that need to be made to the team, especially in our defence which had more holes in it than a Swiss cheese some matches.  And if the team are going to be able to stand the pressure of getting promotion or reaching the play-off's next season, can the management make sure that it is for the entire 90 minutes and not just 85 like this season.

The crowd of 1800+ was very good, just a pity that we won't see about 1200 of them at the first home game next season.  And it's also strange with a crowd that big of which 90% were Stour fans, that during the second half the most noise being made was by the travelling fans from Salford.  I cannot see the point of people coming to watch a football match if they are going to either sit or stand there in silence, instead of getting behind the team regardless of what the score is.  Standing behind the main road end goal second half yesterday, there where times that you could hear a pin drop it was that quiet.

Missing training isn't good, but we have had a lot of midweek games recently. And whilst people can go on about a team of our size being able to cope with that, you have to remember that playing for Stour is not something they do full time. We are still a part time club, and the players do work full time as well.

With regards to giving up cup runs for promotion, the answer is yes but only local competitions like the Worcs Senior, B/ham Senior & league cups which in my opinion are pointless. The FA Cup and Trophy are more important, as the prize money from winning in those helps to improve both the team and the ground.

Time to put this season behind us and start concentrating on next season, and yes I would also love to see us return to the Southern League from the northern but I doubt if we will.

See you all at Stourport pre-season

Hard to say anything that hasn't already been said, but why don't we kick towards the Shed in the second half?  Yesterday we had a decent atmosphere and played o.k. first half, couldn't hear the away fans.  Second half was flat all round and it's already been said, at times you could hear a pin drop.

Man of the match voting was as follows:

BRIAN SMIKLE. 19

Stuart Pierpoint. 7

Chris Lait. 6

Leon Broadhurst 3

George Bowerman 2

Matt Gould
Kristian Green
Sean Geddes. } 1
Dan Scarr
Salford No 6

2 votes outstanding

PAUL BROOKES won the wine (I will bring a bottle to the friendlies Paul,let me know what colour)

As always thanks to everyone who took part.

I and a few other agree with you Sam,the second half atmosphere was awful yesterday.

Having said that there's no rule that says we have to vacate the shed when we kick the other way,perhaps next season more of us should make a concerted effort to stay at that end for the whole match.

What a disappointing end to the season and guess we just ran out of steam,when needed just a few more points to get in the play offs but like everyone has said we have had some great highlights along the way and made a bit of money,had some great journey's with DA,Neil etc to the away games,been a laugh,I have said before a unsung hero at Stour is Richard Drewett keeping the players patched up,final thought I heard Leon did the London marathon in 4 hours,what an achievement when a certain premier league manager said his players were leggy after not playing for a week!