* * * The Foxtrot Report * * * Now with shamelessly self-promotional asterisks! * * *

COLCHESTER UNITED 3 NORWICH CITY 0

In the most end-of-season performance I’ve seen since I went to the home game v. QPR near the end of last season, a lacklustre, disinterested Norwich City dished me out some poetic justice for my condescending decision to see us play Colchester purely because it “would be nice to watch football in a ramshackle lower-league stadium.”

In a massive shock to my expectations, though, it was not Plucky Little Colchester, East Anglia’s Third Team, Who Have No Stars But Play Their Hearts Out who looked like the Plucky Little Team From The Plucky Little Ground, but Norwich! That’s right! Not Colchester, but Norwich who looked like the lower league team! It was Norwich City, who recently boasted the captain of Denmark, England star Peter Crouch and Jason Jarrett – the ‘footballer’ too good to spend a whole season with just one club – on their books, that looked like the lower league team, and not Colchester at all!

Who could have foreseen that? Eh? Not me – I thought it would the other way round, like you’d expect.

Not Peter Grant, either, whose team selection was intriguing. No sign of Dickson Etuhu, who’d shot his mouth off to the Pinkun before the match – perhaps Grant was experimented with a new policy of dropping players who’d mouthed off before meaningless end-of-season games to protect them from the inevitable embarrassment when their performance failed to reach the (often not overly high) bar they’d set themselves. (More on that later).

He also moved Darren Huckerby back to the left in Adam Drury’s absence, pushing Simon Lappin back to left-back, despite Huckerby’s good partnership with Chris Martin in recent weeks, and decided to play Dion Dublin up front rather than in defence, despite his good partnership with Jason Shackell.

The pre-match team talk set the tone for the performance perfectly.

GRANT: Listen up, y’Sassenach pansies! I know it’s tae last game o’tae season, but that doesn’t mean y’cae prance around like skirt-wearing numpties, y’hear me? I’ve bought some songs by The Delgados, Wet Wet Wet and The Proclaimers, and the No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) EP by Mogwai to inspire you. Now don’t surrender like Bonnie Prince Billy’s men at Culloden, y’hear?
ETUHU: Bonnie Prince Charlie. Bonnie Prince Billy is an American songwriter and actor who also records as the Palace Brothers.
GRANT: You’re off the team! Fozzy, you’re in!
FOTHERINGHAM: Alright! I’m the Invisible Man, I’m the Invisible Man, incredible how you can see right through me … yeah!
GRANT: Anyone else got any songs?
GALLACHER: Yo! Check out, I’m the F-L-A, a P-P-Y, a G with a double-E, I said I go by the unforgettable name of the man they call The Flappy Gee, well my name is known all over the world-
GRANT: If y’gonnae rap, rap to a Scottish band like Runrig, o’Boards o’Canada!
GALLACHER: Sorry.
SAFRI: Do you think you could tone down the Scottishness? Just a tad? It’s just that I’m not Scottish and, well, I find it offends my cultural sensibilities.
DOHERTY: This is pathetic. Everyone knows I’m the one you should listen to, because I always play as well as I talk. Let’s go out there, we’ve got to make up for the 1-1 draw earlier in the season, me in particular, and I will. You can put that in the Pinkun if you like mate, I can’t see any way in which it would rebound on me and make me look stupid.
PINKUN GUY: Righto.
GRANT: C’mon, you’re all Bravahearts! FREEDOM!
SAFRI: Seriously – knock it off!

The teams lined up as follows:

COLCHESTER UNITED
Dean Gerken; Wayne Brown, Chris Barker, Pat Baldwin, Richard Garcia; Kevin Watson, Johnnie Jackson, Kemal Izzet, Karl Duguid; Jamie Cureton, Chris Iwelumo.
Subs: Aidan Davison, George Elekobi, John White, Jamie Guy, Hogan Ephraim.

NORWICH CITY
Tony Warner; Andy Hughes, Simon Lappin, Gary Doherty, Jason Shackell; Youssef Safri, Lee Croft, Mark Fotheringham, Darren Huckerby; Dion Dublin, Chris Martin.
Subs: Paul Gallacher, Michael Spillane, Luke Chadwick, Robert Eagle, Kris Renton.

Attendance: 5,851.

Norwich put their kick-off straight into touch with an aimless hoof, which set the tone for a scrappy first half, which passed with little incident. Martin set up Huckerby for a chance early on, Dean Gerken easily saving his shot, before Colchester hit the underside of the bar, which should have served as a warning, but (of course) didn’t. Dion Dublin might have done better with a cross from the right, but his header dropped wide of the post.

Andy Hughes’ effort could not be faulted, but his limitations as a footballer were glaringly obvious: for every one good ball there were ten crosses or shots which flew wildly off the pitch, and one shot that Hughes blasted out of the amiable, plucky little stadium was later confirmed by Essex Police to have killed seven schoolboys on an impromptu Saturday field trip to Outside Layer Road.

So the teams went in at half-time level, doubtless relieved to escape the unnecessarily agitated man who had decided that this meaningless end-of-season game was a matter of life and death, and let the whole of Colchester knew this every time a decision went in favour of the home team.

‘REF! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT REF! THAT WAS NEVER A THROW-IN! REFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS! DON’T THINK YOU WON’T PAY! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL ALL YOUR DOGS! REFFFFFFFFF!’
‘Pipe down, Colin, or you won’t get your dinner!’
‘MUM! I’M A BIG BOY NOW! I CAN SHOUT AT THE FUCKING REF IF I WANT! WHERE’S MY ALPHABETTI SPAGHETTI? REFFFFFFFF!’

With the scoreline delicately balanced at 0-0, what was needed to swing the game in Norwich City’s favour was an intelligent team-talk and possibly a reshuffle, as Huckerby was clearly being well marshalled by Colchester’s defence on the right, Doherty looked uncomfortable with the might of Cureton and Iwelumo and Fotheringham proved largely ineffectual. Fortunately, the bench looked well prepared, giving Grant a number of options, which I felt confident he would see fit to lose.

GRANT: Listen up y’clan-slaughtering thistle-haters! I’ve got Runrig’s 1987 album The Cutter and the Clan – if that doesn’t inspire you, nothing will.
LAPPIN: Make it stop!
HUCKERBY: Are you trying to send us to sleep, God dammit?
FOTHERINGHAM: I like Runrig – if you don’t pay attention to their music, you wouldn’t really know it was there.
CROFT: Who said that?
MARTIN: And it was all yellow …
DUBLIN: Do you see what Ottosson Foxtrot’s done there? You see, the lead singer of turgid, mediocre, overhyped Kraftwerk rip-off dullards Coldplay is also called Chris Martin, and from there-
SAFRI: When I said knock off the Scottish thing, I f**king meant it! I don’t march in here and put on 3 Mustaphas 3, do I?
GRANT: Rod Stewart?
SAFRI: STOP IT!
HUGHES: I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back any more than Gary Holt was when we got dicked at Blackburn I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back I’m not a full-back
DOHERTY: Look, let me assume an unearned air of pompous authority for a moment. Let’s make up for our poor first-half performance and show the fans what we’re made of. Write that down, too, I want it on the record.
PINKUN JOURNALIST: I’ve got one from the Plymouth game, I’ll just use that.
DOHERTY: Whatever. Come on team, let’s do it.
WARNER: That’s good enough for me.
HUGHES: Yes, contained enough tactical nous to make me feel I know what I’m doing.
CROFT: There’s no way we can lose now.

I didn’t hear anything from the dressing room at half-time because someone – I don’t know who – was screaming, ‘REF! WHEN’S THE FUCKING SECOND HALF KICK OFF? MY FEET ARE COLD! MUM! WHERE’S MY CRESS AND MUSTARD SANDWICH? REF!’ So instead I had to be content with a penalty shoot-out involving a group of schoolchildren and a man in an owl costume (or something), with the children who scored for Colchester running up to the Norwich fans behind the goal and kissing their U’s badges. ‘REF! WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING SEND THAT LITTLE RAPSCALLION OFF? FOR FUCK’S SAKE REF, IF ONE OF OUR PLAYERS DID THAT HE’D BE STRAIGHT OFF! REF!’

So the second half started much in the same vein as the first, with no changes either to personnel or performance. In the stands, most of the (limited) chanting involved who hated Ipswich the most, so the Colchester ground staff told the bold step of playing the U’s crowd ‘noise’ over the PA system, so it sounded like four people rather than a mere two were rustling crisp packets and coughing a bit.

There were also absurdly protracted ‘Ah’ noises for Dean Gerken when he took a goal kick, which continued well after his long clearances had frightened the life out of Gary Doherty by bouncing. This pretty much stopped when former Canary Jamie Cureton – who once scored against Ipswich with green hair acquired during a loan spell with the computer game Lemmings – scored against us for the second time this season, respectfully keeping his celebrations subdued, perhaps because he felt pity for Doherty, whose failure to clear on the edge of the area contributed greatly to his fortune.

At this point, the crowd were desperately willing Grant to change the game with a substitution. Huckerby was having little luck on the left – often failing to beat his man and, when he did, not finding anyone with his cross; Dublin contributed disappointingly little up front; Fotheringham was completely anonymous. The smart move would have been to remove Doherty, put Dublin in defence, move Huckerby up front and bring on Eagle or Chadwick to play on the left. Grant did nothing, except point a lot and shout “Which of you f**kers spilt tea on my kilt? Eh” in a Groundskeeper Willie-type voice.

Having messed up for the first goal, Doherty immediately gave a quote to a passing journalist saying, “I’ll put this right”, then failed to challenge Johnnie Jackson, who set up the second goal for Richard Garcia. Game over, so Grant then brought on Chadwick … in a straight swap for Lee Croft. He opted against using the youth team products – Michael Spillane, Robert Eagle and 16-year-old Kris Renton (elevated to the first-team set-up because he shares his surname with a character from Trainspotting).

It didn’t help: Colchester scored a farcical third goal (a proper description of which is on the Canaries World site: I don’t really want to talk about it, to be honest), securing East Anglian bragging rights for the season, and completing a thoroughly miserable afternoon. It was nice to go to a ramshackle old stadium rather than a hideous Identikit modern monstrosity (cf The Madejskidrome and St. Mary’s, from my experience) but not to watch Norwich City in it.

Never mind: a new season with meaningful games starts again in just five months or so. Hopefully Grant will have learned how to change a game with tactical substitutions by then, and will have further developed his policy of dropping anyone who writes grandiose cheques to the local press that their asses can’t cash. Especially if they’re nicknamed the Ginger Pele. (Which – Gary, if you read this – is ironic. Understand?)

RATINGS (FWIW)

TONY WARNER – 5. Never really looked in command of his defence, and at fault for the third goal in particular.
ANDY HUGHES – 4. Horrendously limited. He tries hard, though. But you knew that already.
SIMON LAPPIN – 6. Supported the attack well, one or two decent crosses. Better on the wing than at full-back.
GARY DOHERTY – 2. He’ll make up for it next week. He promises.
JASON SHACKELL – 5. Not our worst player.
YOUSSEF SAFRI – 5. His tackles were often ill-judged and his distribution was less useful than normal.
LEE CROFT – 5. Some very good first touches, especially bringing the ball down from long passes, but still a little too slow and didn’t beat his man often enough.
NAMELESS MIDFIELDER – N/A.
DION DUBLIN – 5. Struggled to become involved. Might have been better used at centre-back.
CHRIS MARTIN – 6. Intermittently looked a threat. Might have benefited from Huckerby playing alongside him.
DARREN HUCKERBY – 5. In the Premiership, left midfield looked like the best place to use Huckerby, because his finishing was so poor. At this level, perhaps it’s still his best position, but not for the team. Huckerby gets goals playing up front at this level because he can make inroads to goal more easily, and the team is more balanced when he does, so why not play him there?
LUKE CHADWICK – 5. Made no difference either way.

That’s my final match for this season, so no more until next year, when Grant should be close to having his own team together and will hopefully have learned plenty about how to motivate a team (and who he wants in it) from these end-of-season affairs.

In the meantime, I’ll never be condescending towards Plucky Little Colchester again. After all, it’s sweet that they can maintain Championship football in such a cute, quaint little ground, with only two fans who sing. Especially given that most of their songs are by Mogwai.

Posted By: Ottosson Foxtrot, Mar 31, 23:46:16