Category: Club events

Willand vs Dorchester.

Something strange has been going on in CW2 this week.

It started with what seemed like an innocuous tweet showing two young Crewe fans, a club legend and mascot Gresty the Lion. I wasn’t sure what the point was and I wasn’t sure it mattered; A call to arms for the new campaign perhaps? A last push for season ticket sales? The social media team running out of fresh ideas? Any of these explanations were feasible and I would have quickly continued my doom scrolling had it not been for two things. The first was that the club name didn’t look right.

A quick check and my worst fears were realised. It wasn’t Gresty the Lion who stood with Dean Ashton. It was Aleksandr the Meerkat. Somehow we’d become ‘Crewe Aleksandr’ and I hadn’t seen it coming.

A quick check and it transpired that this was a temporary rebranding, a high-profile PR stunt orchestrated to launch Compare the Market as an official partner of the English Football League. The genius marketing department must have decided to take the week off, and the apprentices had chosen The Railwaymen in what they saw as natural, humorous wordplay.

But it wasn’t the act itself that got my attention (although the influence on business on sports teams will no doubt be revisited before the end of the season), but rather a tweet I found celebrating it ‘I’m on board with anything that involves Crewe’s greatest ever striker’

I was fortunate enough to see Dean Ashton play a number of games, but he wasn’t the greatest striker I’d seen at Crewe. Not by quite some distance.

And that got me thinking. Modern fans naturally point to players from their generation as the greatest of all time. Liverpool fans today may argue Salah over Dalglish, Spurs fans Kane over Hoddle and Stoke fans…..Stoke fans probably need to sit down.

It’s worth looking at these comparisons objectively. Dean Ashton was a force of nature. An elite academy graduate who combined brute strength with lethal finishing that you could argue kept Crewe punching above their weight in the Championship. His 74 goals and subsequent £3 million move to the Premier League represent the absolute pinnacle of what the Dario Gradi blueprint aimed to produce.

But as we know, football didn’t begin in the 21st century. Purely on the numbers, one could argue that the accolade of Crewe’s greatest striker belongs to Bert Swindells. Between 1927 and 1937, Swindells banged in an astonishing 128 goals—a record that has stood entirely unchallenged for nearly a century. Ashton had the modern pedigree, but Swindells owns the history books.

But football isn’t objective. The best striker isn’t the player that scored the most goals, produced the most assists or commanded the biggest transfer fees. It’s the player that made the greatest impression on you.

For me that player is Tony Naylor.

Signed in 1990 from Non-League Droylseden, the same year that I moved to Cheshire from the mean street of South Warwickshire. As a player, Naylor wasn’t a physical target man that Division Four fans were used to; he was a consummate finisher, exceptionally light on his feet, and possessed an ability to weave through tight spaces inside the box that brought entire stadiums alive.

 

His legend was forged when he scored 5 goals against Colchester in 1993, and by the time he left for the best team in Staffordshire a year later,  he had scored 66 goals in 152 appearances, cementing his name in the Crewe history books.

A legend? Maybe.

Known by Millennials? Probably not.

Remembered by anyone who saw him play? Without a doubt.

Tony Naylor made me fall in love with my club, brought me to my feet whenever they got the ball, and whose name I chanted throughout the game ‘Tony. Tony, Tony. Tony Tony. Tony, Tony Naylor’

For Willand’s next batch of future favourites, the first home league test of the season came from the formidable foe that was Dorchester. Relegated from the Southern Premier League last season the Magpies were looking to bounce straight back and there were some familiar faces amongst their ranks, including Jack Windsor, Matt Buse and Tom Purrington, who have all plied their trade locally over the last few seasons.

For Willand it was Jack Furzer taking temporary charge for the day, and the starting line-up included Ayunga and Williams after impressive starts to the campaign.

Willand came into the game looking for their 3rd victory of the season, having seen off Wellington and Falmouth, but it was Dorchester who started the brightest, with the visitors twice coming close in the opening stages, blazing over early before rattling the crossbar from a corner on 16 minutes. Rovers weathered the pressure, with Seedhouse producing an important block and steadfast defending from the back line, and it was the home team who took the lead six minutes before the break.

Zac Williams rose highest to meet a cross after good work down the right, and his towering header gave Willand a 1-0 advantage at half-time, arguably against the run of play.

Half Time – Willand 1 – Dorchester 0

Dorchester responded strongly after the restart with Seedhouse again producing a crucial block to preserve the lead, but the visitors levelled on 53 minutes following what appeared to be a scuffed effort that went in off the woodwork. Just three minutes later, Dorchester completed the turnaround to go 2-1 ahead, Burrows roaming free on the edge of the 18 yard line, before firing past Seedhouse.

Harvey Dorothy was introduced on the hour mark and nearly made an immediate impact, while Baxter tested the goalkeeper from distance as Rovers searched for an equaliser but it was Dorchester who struck again five minutes from time to extend their lead to 3-1. Substitute Samadi was played in beyond the Willand defence, making no mistake with his drilled effort.

Rovers continued to push and were rewarded deep into stoppage time when Josh Ford headed superbly into the top corner to reduce the deficit but Dorchester held firm through the remaining moments, securing a 3-2 victory despite Willand’s late rally.

Furzer and the management team will lament some soft goals conceded, but ultimately the better team won on the day, and it was already clear to the Willand faithful that the team that Ben Watson is putting together should be capable of pushing on as the season continues.

Next up on that journey is an FA Cup trip to Brixham. All Willand need to do is beat the lower-league opposition, build on a promising start to the season and maintain that form for the next nine months.

Simples. Right?

Full Time – Willand 2 – Dorchester 3

🆙NEXT

You don’t want to miss this one 👀

Our first home game of the season see’s Dorchester Town FC make the trip over to Silver Street in the Southern League Division One South with a 3pm KO!

Willand Vs Wellington

Growing up on the mean streets of South Warwickshire in the 1970s two things were true: sport was something you played outside rather than watched on a screen, and you only had one choice of team to support.

It’s important to understand that Warwickshire was a geographical anomaly in terms of sporting teams; the county is one of only seven in England (if you happen to count the City of London and Isle of Wight as such) that does not host a professional football club.

So which team is it that we were somehow forced to support, I hopefully hear someone ask?

Not technically part of the West Midlands, we chose to disassociate ourselves with those cities and municipalities to the north. We have nothing in common with Brummies, or Yam Yams; we’re Shakespeare’s county after all, which discounted Birmingham, Aston Villa and any other team that shares the night sky of the second city.

To the east lay Coventry, once part of the county but transferred out in the early 1970s, a premonition perhaps of what happened to the football club when it was forced to leave Highfield Road several decades later. By the time they had achieved anything in 1987, affiliations had been forged and no amount of Sky Blue was going to break them.

And to the west, Worcestershire, ceremonial home of the asparagus and perennial gateway to nothing much, certainly not a football team that we could call our own.

This isn’t to say that people didn’t support football teams. On any given day you could observe blue and white, or claret and blue, or, more likely, differing shades of red and white, adorning cheap polyester scarfs.

But these were choices. Bad choices in a lot of cases, made of youthful exuberance and Match of the Day highlights, but choices nonetheless.

But we all had another team that we followed. Warwickshire County Cricket Club. Ironically enough, not based in Warwickshire.

It seems counterintuitive today, but cricket completely dominated football in television hours and accessibility during this era, for one fundamental reason: the Football League’s strict anti-live broadcast policy. Terrified that live televised matches would deplete stadium gate receipts, football chairmen banned broadcasters from showing live league games. While football fans had to survive on mere snippets of recorded weekend highlights, cricket offered free, live, ball-by-ball coverage for six or seven hours a day. The BBC’s cricket broadcast essentially functioned as the background soundtrack to British summer life, making iconic cricketers household names and rendering live cricket far more accessible to the stay-at-home public than domestic league football.

The visual presentation was distinct: static, high-angle cameras positioned behind the bowler’s arm, a simple manual scoreboard graphic superimposed in the corner of the screen, and the unmistakable, soothing cadence of legendary commentators like Richie Benaud guiding viewers through long, sun-drenched afternoons.

The zenith of this television era arrived in the unforgettable summer of 1981, when Ian Botham staged a staggering, near-miraculous comeback against Australia. Millions of households sat transfixed in front of their TV screens during the Third Test at Headingley, watching “Beefy” smash an unbeaten 149 to reverse odds of 500-1 and secure an impossible victory. The sheer drama of Botham’s heroic hitting and Bob Willis’s ferocious bowling spell was beamed live into British living rooms, capturing the imagination of the nation and cementing cricket as the defining televised soap opera of the summer.

And Bob Willis was a Warwickshire man. Goose was followed over the years by Brian Lara, Ashley Giles, Ian Bell and a plethora of names that are household, so long as your house worships at the altar of Edgbaston.

Cricket has of course changed over the last decade. Twenty20 made it more accessible to the masses before The Hundred crossed the barrier where fans and money intersect, pushing the game in a direction that Gianni Infantino would be proud of.

But for those summers of my youth, the memories of Allan Donald steaming in with the sound down and the radio on will live longer than any of it.

This is an odd start to a football season, especially one that kicks off with an FA Cup game, but long-time readers will know that the journey is usually worth the destination. New readers may take a few games to get used to it.

Cricket has been on my mind simply because of Willand’s opponents for the opening fixture, Wellington Town. The Playing Field is one of my regular stops during the season, and remains the only ground I’ve been to where the game was abandoned because the floodlight caught fire (still waiting for my refund on that one). A cosy corner ground where the admission fee is akin to an honesty box, the side of the pitch forming part of a path that leads non-footballing residents across town. I’m always amazed at the job the club seems to do with so little.

One of the challenges, at least before this season, that faced Wellington was that the ground was shared with a local cricket team whose end-of-season activities took precedence over Western League concerns, meaning that for the first handful of games Wellington were inevitably away from home, meaning that fast starts were as rare as floodlight fires (refund anyone?)

This season has seen other matters supersede the geographic limitations of the ground, though, and have left the Tangerines in an unenviable position. Last season’s manager and team have all departed, with the exception of Willand alumni Josh Baker, and the manager brought in to see the new season left after a few weeks in what can only be described as a puff of wind, leaving chairman Mike Hall to lead the team as he simultaneously searched for his own replacement.

This unfortunate set of circumstances meant that the visitors arrived at Silver Street with no wins in the league and having suffered a 10-1 bruising at the hands of Buckland Athletic midweek. They were also without talisman and captain Josh Baker.

As for Willand Rovers, despite the last minute reprise that saw us maintain our Southern League spot, the new season saw a number of stalwarts leave the club as we bid farewell to Ryan Guppy, Josh Searle and Ashton Hewlett. At the start of his first full season manager Ben Watson strengthened his squad with a number of players that I’m sure we’ll all become familiar with in short order, the standouts being the return of Adam Seedhouse-Evans in goal and the acquisition of attacking threats Zack Williams and Sol Ayunga from Sidmouth and Bridport respectively.

Given the different off seasons that both teams have enjoyed and endured, perhaps it’s no surprise which way this one went. There’s no point talking about the goals or I’d spend the next hundred lines just listing players’ names. Suffice to say those who played and came on for Willand enjoyed the afternoon, with Zack Williams marking his debut with a brace, Bailey Kempster helping himself to a hat-trick, and Harvey Dorothy grabbing two of his own for good measure. It was a workout for Willand, but as noted by the manager after the game, you can only beat what’s in front of you.

As for Wellington, they were outclassed, outperformed and beaten well, but to their credit heads never dropped and they never stopped giving 100%.

While I wish both teams well, I can’t help but think that they have started on very different trajectories.

For Willand, next up is a trip to Falmouth to open the league season, and the first of many tests that we will face across another season of hope, despair, and everything in between.

I would be remiss not to mention the dedicated grounds team at this point as well. In a time where we are facing a drought, a hosepipe ban and our fifth heat wave, the work of Tacker, Hedley and Andy to keep the Silver Street pitch as pristine as it is could be described as nothing short as a reyt good job.

It was nothing short of a Test Match wicket out there.