 | |
Smells Like Team Spirit!Tue Jan 31 2012Been a while since by last blog but, guess what, we’re unbeaten since my last wafflings!In fact only one defeat in nine games, and yes, I know one can work wonders with statistics but getting into the habit of not losing can only be a great thing. An astonishing win at home to Maidenhead! Perhaps one of the highlights of our admittedly barren season so far. Didn't go to Thurrock and fully expected us to win, to be honest. But the divisions basement side have been in improved form of late and by all accounts have signed some quality players . Anyway, 0-0 so they fail to make up any ground on us. So onto the HSC semi-final against Sholing, already despatched, courtesy of us Hawks in the far inferior FA Cup competition. Yeah, more goals would have obviously made it more comfortable and enjoyable but what has impressed me is the way we stick at it, great application and our players seem to relish playing together at the moment. A Perry Ryan goal being enough to get us through to the semis, home to Totton or Portchester. Has a Wessex Div. 1 club ever got so far in our County's premier cup competition? One would assume it would be Totton at the Stadium of Dreams which won't be easy, at the risk of stating the obvious, as The Stags have won the trophy for the past two seasons and won't relinquish without a titanic struggle. They are also going great guns in the Southern Premier at present. Still, attitude and application is all I can ask for. Onto another basement battle at home to Hampton & Richmond. Nicknamed the Beavers, I had a full repertoire of Hampton/ Beaver/ Mush With a Bush keeper bating material prepared which was left unused as we were 1-0 down after two minutes.... Rambo's equalizer made up for his penalty miss and at 1-1 at half-time I was convinced we would go on and win and push our relegation fears further away. But when I think about it, I'm always convinced we'll win! Back to the fruity bits, played some good stuff on the deck, went 2-1 down, but us Hawks are made of sterner stuff nowadays and a Dutchy equalizer still left us plenty of time to snake it but it was not to be. Not for want of trying, it must be said, and what amazes me is the tremendous team spirit we seem to have at the moment. Don't want to go off on any anti Shaun stuff as there's been plenty of that flying about. But I would have thought all the talk of Wrigglers and press assassinations would have destroyed any of that, but we really seem to have a bit about us. Superbly illustrated by Perry Ryan, a modern day Alan Ball who covers every blade of grass in a Boys of '66 stylee. Great to see him signed up. Won't be at Bromley, hopefully at Beasts, definitely at home to Basingscrote. Missing you already. COYH, love, Ade. #secretginge Ministry of Disinformation?Wed Jan 11 2012I put it to you that we have one of the finest websites in English football!You may consider this an ill-informed boast, but I ask you to look at other Conference sites and Football League sites. Check them out for easy navigation and accessablilty. You'll be surprised. But our site is only as good as the information it is given. It does not matter if it is official or unofficial, I'm just asking our club to use it! D'you know what? It's free! Just an email to the webmaster. www = world wide web. It's our window to the world. Hawks disciples from Leigh Park to the Lebanon can keep up to date with all Hawks related matters, and once again.... access is free!! Tis absolutely the best value advert for our club we will EVER have! If we've re-signed Chris Arthur we should be shouting this good news story from the rooftops, not reading about it retrospectively in a match report. Has Ryan Woodford been one of our success stories of the season so far? Why is he not featuring? If he's got a knock tell us! Or is he a 'wriggler' A Hawks forum contributor discovers news of new signings through third party websites.... Likewise rearranged fixtures. Us Hawks are a tight nit bunch from top to bottom. Let's not build barriers between us. This lack of info breeds rumour, counter rumour and is self destructive. Cliches are cliches because they're usually true.... It's good to talk! A few of our regular forum contributors are talking about boycotting games til there's a change in manager, which is, of course, their prerogative I would respectfully ask them to think again. We need everyone we've got during these difficult time. Regardless of who the manager is or maybe in the future. #Hawks4Life #Massivecouplagamescomingup COYH, love, Ade Bitten 'Arris?Wed Jan 04 2012Our second win of the season followed by a battling draw at home to our bitter Beastleigh rivals provided some Christmas cheer for us Hawks.Both sides could have snaked the Boxing Day tickle as we both missed good chances and although I was at the other end of the ground, the Beasts seemed to have a good shout for a penalty. One thing I don't quite get is the 'that was the worst Havant side we've seen' Beast angle. With all the logic of a four year old all I can muster in response is 'er, what does that make you?' Domestic negotiations went so well I found myself and Monkey in the Cricketers at half one New Years Day, eagerly awaiting the Beast return fixture where we were scheduled to dish out one hell of a beating! Half an hour later there followed a horrible feeling of deflation as word came through that the game had been rained off. to be fair both Hawks and Beasts made the best of a cac situation and enjoyed a couple of hours chatting in the pub. Tis only 20 miles up the road and could have been so much worse as it was a couple of years ago at Bath City! It does bring home how vulnerable our game is to the weather though. Didn't seem to really start raining until about half twelve and by memory it didn't seem to have rained much during the preceding days? But by two o'clock game off.... Just shear volume of rain during a short time I guess. All clubs should appreciate this. No football club can call a game off. We took some enormous flak last season when we had loads of problems with our pitch. Dover Athletic should take note that they are just one outbreak of Humungus Fungus away from suffering a severe bite on the chuffbox! So Sholing at home in the HSC quarter-finals. If our attitude and application are spot on we should be sound as our Double Bid gains momentum. I'm astonished how quiet our forum is at present especially over the Ollie holiday confusion. We need some clarification on this! Two home games coming up over the next two Saturdays. Looking forward to the first, at home to Dartford, when hopefully a rich vein of point harvesting form will start.... Or something like that! Happy New Year. Love, Ade Historic Double in Sight!Tue Dec 13 2011After our win at Blackfield and Langley last week, we're within touching distance of achieving a historic avoiding relegation and HSC win double!Pedantic historians amongst my readership might point out that we've kinda half-done it before, when the old 'Looville beat Havant in the HSC final at Fratton Park in something like 1992 and avoided relegation. But I can out pedant that by confirming that that relegation avoidance was from the Southern Premier not the conference South. Had a lovely evening at Gangwarily. Really nice welcoming people from the barstaff to the lady on the turnstile. Good performance by us Hawks too. Although we made hard work of finishing prior to Scott's two first half goals. Enough's probably been said on the message boards regarding the sending offs, so I'll just say that if ref's played like that for just one weekend in the Premiership it would stop all this nauseating dissent overnight! Verily looking forward to the quarter-final draw whenever it takes place live on Radio Solent. AFC Porchester away for me! Not going to Tonbridge Saturday as a quick look at our forthcoming 2012 fixtures shows plenty of Saturdays taken up by Hawkaction! Tis right and proper for me and Monk to spend this weekend at home. So I wish all Hawks a very Happy Christmas and I look forward to seeing everyone Boxing Day for Monkey's first derby.... Ere!!!! I've just found something positive from the Weymouth Trophy defeat! Bobby Hopkinson entering the fray, winning tackles and majestically spraying the ball about. What a great new signing! COYH, love, Ade Poised For The Treble! (Postponed UFN)Thu Dec 01 2011Had my blog all sorted out.A comfortable win at Weymouth last Saturday, Blackfield despatched from the Hampshire Senior Cup Tuesday night and a sabre rattling commitment to storm to the play-offs! A draw Saturday followed by an abject surrender Tuesday night in the replay has scuppered me bigtime.... All I can do now is implore our club to realise we are in a massive relegation battle. Yeah, we're 4 points clear but that can become a mere point by Saturday teatime. Plus you only have to check who we've played and who we have to play to see the cac we're in. Thankfully football's not as simple as that and we'll hopefully turn things around and get favourable results against teams higher placed in the table. Don't get sucked into the 'let's see where we are at Christmas' bollox! My fear is we'll only realise the severity of our plight when it's too late.... Tuesday nights 238 attendance should serve as a barometer to where our public think we are. Particularly as Weymouth must have brought a good 70! And the apathy on our message board has been broken with first time posters voicing their disquiet. We need to realise how big this Saturday is at home to Weston and perform accordingly. Easy on paper isn't it! COYH, love, Ade Shaun's Siblings Prove Their Point!Mon Nov 14 2011Another example of the magic of football is the different perspectives and opinions people have on a game or incident.I was stunned to see on our message board after Saturdays game 'is that the worst we've ever played' and the like. I was chuffed to bits with the point we earned against Eastbourne. We had three unavailable before kick-off, Jake, Sammy and Perry. Now I don't buy into this 'we're really suffering with injuries' line. Not when we can bring in the ever dependable Hinch for Jake. Hinch will play wherever he's told so no probs with him at right back. The exciting youthful talent Harvey in for Sammy, that's almost a straight swap. Then we bring Captain Peacock in for the suspended Perry. Come on! That's hardly scraping the barrel! With the worrying injuries to Craigy and Sam Pearce we could be struggling at Staines but we could have Sammy, Jake and Perry back so, again, not the end of the world. Plus it never ceases to amaze me that we are the only team in Conference South who suffers from injuries and suspensions! Anyway, back to the game. Not being dramatic or facetious but do our players and management team need to look at out squads studs or lack of? We do seem to have trouble staying on our feet. Two more injuries sustained and Eastbourne are tearing us apart without scoring. For 15 minutes we were a shambles. But just before half-time we seemed to somehow settle and get back into it. The second half bought more waves of Eastbourne pressure, but us Hawks were very dangerous on the break with Ollie often picking up the ball in their half before embarking on astonishing runs into the Eastbourne penalty area. From my perspective it was 100% effort and application from every player. Indeed, we seem to have a great team ethic and spirit. I predict all of our player would have been shattered for the rest of the weekend. And how healthy to have so many teenagers and early twenties out there? I was incredibly proud of our team at the final whistle. I felt more elated than after games we've won! Not saying I'm right and the author of the 'worst we've played' message was wrong but it does illustrate the vast spectrum of views our beautiful game brings out in people. Here's one for you! Our next two games away to Staines and Weymouth. To be fair it would be best to only go to one of these fixtures. If you had to make a choice what would you do? COYH, love, Ade Five star rock 'n' roll petrol!Mon Oct 31 2011Great to see us sticking by the 11 that polished off Dorchy!Our young guns are looking superb but can I say how ablely assisted by one of our elder statesman? Just how good and exciting is Sammy ‘fitter than a butcher’s dog’ Igoe looking like at the mo? Great to see him carrying on the great form that he showed at the end of last season. Humungas boots and ludicrously long baggy shorts would only add to the 1930’s traditional full-back roasting flying winger image! Whilst I guess Shaun is responsible for our ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ naff signings, it’s only right and proper to commend the man with the signings of Ollie and Scott. One would be totally foolish to suggest we’ve tuned the corner, but we do seem to have a bit of collective spirit now. How lovely it is to see us play with such a massive smile! Better behind the goal Saturday as well. But we need a youth policy! Our little mob are generally in their 40s, 50s and sixties. We need some fresh faces. Hawk Yoof! Your time has come. ‘There ain’t nothing wrong, with a bit of bop ‘n’ jive!’ as R. Kelly once said. Plus I wanna get away from commenting on Shaun’s press comments. It’s been gently suggested to me that these comments are made in the heat of the moment. I understand that and I make a mistake EVERYDAY, work related or otherwise. Verily I am a chef of some repute when it comes to concocting a ‘Pigs Breakfast’ Indeed, some would suggest it’s my signature dish, as you youngsters would say. But what I do try and do is LEARN from a mistake. On Wednesday I read ‘we’ve been unfairly criticised over the last few weeks’ yeah, too right, Shaun, but mainly by you! Today I read ‘the players deserve some praise because they have been quite rightly criticised at times this season’ Make of that as you will but I’m now gonna put all the divisive stuff behind me and stress that we should all take heart from these two wins and all move forward together without airing our grief in public! COYH, love, Ade A Hawk's Nadir?Thu Oct 27 2011Let’s hope so! Let’s hope having witnessed the first half horror show Tuesday night was the worst it gets for a Hawks disciple!Let’s hope that the second half treat is a springboard to the play-offs, FA Trophy, Wembley glory and slaughtering the Beasts in the HSC Final at the New Delhi. Well if yer don’t ask…. Bollox on the pitch and bollox behind the goal, which has been mentioned on our message boards. But I guess it is a vicious circle rightly or wrongly. Thing is, although our crowds are kinda holding up our mob behind the goal has diminished…. So, please, if you can help out with a bit of bop ‘n’ jive, come and join us!! And some feelgood factor news the next day as well with Scotty committing himself to us and new deals for Ryan and Rambo. Excellent!! What was with Mr. Pericard playing for us? That’s just ethically wrong! He should be gone! Now! Having said that, huge credit to Shaun for recognising where it was going wrong and reacting accordingly. Now let’s build on it large style! COYH, love, Ade Sour grapes? YOU be the judge...Mon Oct 17 2011Done fair and square, for us the greatest cup competition in the world is over for just over a year…. And sincere best wishes to our conquerors….All I despise about the grey, sad, world of non-league football personified Saturday. Depressing is too strong a word. But a place uncontaminated by the tentacles of civilised behaviour…. Where "hope you had a good trip", "hello, what can I get you?" and "thankyou" are the fodder of fantasy…. You recall the unnerving shop in the league of gentlemen? I give you Weston Super Mare FC. I feel distinctly shabby and undignified about the whole experience as I tell my mates how good conf south is. Where the goalkeeper’s brother stands behind Weston’s custodians goal swearing at all and sundry when we get a penalty. Where in the second half said keeper heads the ball over the barrier to aforementioned brother who then rolls the ball as far away as possible to waste time…. We as Hawks fans could do better and not rise to the bait. Er, myself more than a little included…. But it’s an insult to pub sides everywhere, who carry themselves with more decorum. Let’s talk footie! Loadsa effort and spirit. Great start, cheapo goals to give away, looked like their first was a free header? Really good equalizer from Ollie. Had to hit it first time from an acute angle. Second half started well, individual mistake undone us but still had chances to grab a replay. The controversial bit: on that note do we now ding Dutchy out and try to get John Terry on loan? Forgive me being facetious, but we ALL make mistakes. Every goal is someone’s mistake. If we replace all our players that make a mistake this season, a rough estimate would show we need at least 10000 players? I so DON'T want this to turn into 'have a pop at Shaun' but the Portsmouth News on Monday makes familiar, depressing reading as in we haven't enough leaders, we'll have to get some in! Who's magic wand do we borrow to obtain these additional players and what do we do with the ones we're gonna theoretically replace? And this is the crux of the matter, who signed them? Personally I think our players are magic, it just ain't working as a team at present. On that note, Vincent Pericard! Vince is here for one reason and one reason only: no one wants him (at the moment)! Yet he decides when and where he will lower himself to play for us!!?? Does he really think he's gonna get a deal with a Football League club after playing 20 minutes against Bromley? If he deems to make himself available Saturday do we drop 2 goals in 2 games Ollie for him? Positively excellent for team spirit.... And sorry to keep on, but why didn't we research his availability prior to sorting out the deal? Sorry to involve you in my domestics but Monkey Girl has a sleepover at Aunty Katrina's Saturday so I won't be at Hampton. Looking forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday 25th. home to Dorchy with said Monk coz it's half-term! COYH, love, Ade (who promises to get out of his uncharacteristic current depressed state) XxX Hawks, a global brand...Sun Oct 9 2011Imagine what Dick Semark or Ernie Bradwell would make of it whilst being in charge of a collection of half decent local footballers who enjoyed the odd beer as part of team building!We’ve just signed a Brazilian midfielder, an u21 French international and our right backs unavailable coz he’s on World Cup duty!! Such is the weird and wonderful world that is Hawkdom 2011. The big talking point of last week was, of course, Wesser signing for League 1 AFC Bournemouth. I don’t ever recall a player leaving a club and taking with him such heartfelt wishes. I always make a massive mistake when I visit the murky world of self obsessed nerds that constitute the Conference South Forum, but even fans of other clubs were saying how richly deserved this opportunity for Wes was. It leaves me with a massive sense of pride which I find difficult to describe…. It’s like it’s one of us?? It’s like he’s still representing the Hawks even though he’s playing for another team?? Pick the deranged bones out of that if you will…. The King is dead, long live The King. Harvs, Scottie, Ollie, your time is now. Not forgetting we have the wonderful pitch length creation of Craigy BB! Thoroughly enjoyed myself at Mr. Ketchup’s party Saturday, result withstanding. One of our Directors really joined in the spirit of things by bunging some wonga behind the bar to even more oil the wheels for Guinni/ Carlsberg. We truly are one special club! The game through my Hawks bins? Evenly matched, their defence tall and strong, we need to keep in on the deck utilising our flair players and Lee’s touches and cunning, great to go in one up at half-time, cheap goals to give away, bunged three up front in a hit and hope search for a point, Vincent looked good in this desperate situation which wasn’t pleasing on the eye or effective, but I can kinda see Shaun’s thinking behind it. Half some of that Keys and Gray!! Desperately looking for some continuity with our players. Can’t stand this constant revolving door of guys playing five games then naffing off. Can’t relate to it…. Let’s end on a high. Thoroughly looking to getting back on the FA Cup trail next Saturday. COYH, love, Ade tis always darkest before the dawn?Mon Oct 3 2011Not that I’m suggesting everything is perfect in the garden of hawksville, but there was a definite feelgood factor about the place on Saturday.And a win over Thurrock, a good point at Dover and progress in the fa cup all help to fuel the fires of optimism. Whether you’re anti-Gale, total pro-Shaun or concerned of Eastney, we’re all in a better place than 3 weeks ago! Some cracking goals and approach play Saturday aswell. Some great individual performances and I’m very excited about the contribution Ollie is gonna make. And reading his twitter stuff it’s just so refreshing to read his excitement of becoming a hawk! Sholing were no mugs and came here with a positive attitude. Yer see, Shaun does have a habit of this. To me his greatest achievement was not getting us to Anfield (sniffy yawn) but turning things around two seasons ago after the infamous winter of discontent, to eventually miss out on the play-offs by a single point. Yes, he’s responsible when things go wrong but everyone must be big enough to give credit where credit is due when we get things a bit half right! I absolutely mean no disrespect to Weston but what a drab 3rd. qualifying round draw. And I bet they’re thinking the same! I was so looking forward to an away trip to some beautiful town we never play against. Could have been worse and now I have a definite positive vibe about it. First things first and its Mr. Ketchup’s Birthday Bash this Saturday where I’m honoured to be sampling the very best of hawk’s hospitality. Although suited and booted and probably elephants trunk, I will be behind the goal attempting to give it some to, in my little world, help us to more league points. You have no idea how pleased I would be if you would join me. COYH, love, Ade Would you ever want your team to lose?Mon Sep 19 2011Monkey and I loved Manny. ‘Love’ being a strange way to describe our relationship as we only actually met him once! But what a lovely good natured guy he seemed.Plus the way he genuinely seemed to love being a Hawk. The way he celebrated his many Hawk goals. The way he DEMANDED to play, even though he sometimes could hardly walk, and there he was with the captain’s armband! Fast forward to last Tuesday at Maidenhead and there he is. Playing AGAINST us! And I’m not being rude whatever you may think, but WHY! Nice couple of covered ends but that’s about as far as I can go for the plus points. Portakabin khazis with markerpen ‘female’ & ‘male’ directions. Beaten up garden fences for sides. A friendly yet downtrodden little clubhouse. Nothing compared to the splendour that is our stadia and social premise. Probably nowhere near the crowd we get. Yet Manny had chosen them over us despite reportedly enjoying two seasons with us? Someone please tell me what we are doing wrong!? The game? Oh yeah, great approach play without any real final ball cutting edge. The great Guvnor Bill once said to me ‘slaughter yer players in the changing room but NEVER in public. Do it once and you’ve lost ‘em’ That’s exactly what Shaun chose to do in the press last Friday prior to our 3-0 success over struggling Thurrock. Even criticising his players for blaming their team-mates before choosing to do exactly the same himself. Two from Wesser and another bullet header from Ryan giving us 3 welcome points. People say Thurrock were the worst side to visit the Stadium of Dreams for maybe 3 years? I say, cobblers, they don’t and won’t lose every game. Credit where credit’s due. Although it’s a pretty horrible scenario when you speak to your fellow Hawks and a good 50% WANT us to lose so our Manager gets the bullet…. Speaking of Ryan, you can stuff your Champions League medals up your Kyber! We have an actual Island Games Champion in our midst. We should be ASHAMED for not publicising this achievement! Tough away game at Dover Saturday where we need tough players. Rule number one? NO WRIGGLERS!! Er, whatever and whoever that means? Then the stomach churning magic of the finest, oldest Cup competition in the world and don’t let anybody tell you different. It doesn’t matter what team Man U choose to put out, this is the biggest and best in the world and is the envy of every footballing nation. It ain’t the German FA Cup, Scottish FA Cup, Spanish Copa Whatever FA Cup, Welsh, French, Italian, Portuguese FA Cup! It is THE FA cup! Welcome Sholing. Enjoy your day. But not too much, ay? COYH, love, Ade SuttonMon Sep 12 2011And cracking entertainment, a great crowd and a good atmosphere behind the goal it was to! I can only think of one thing to say…. why!?Sometimes there’s just no rhyme or reason in our Hawk’s world. You could flip this positive on its head and ask the question ’yeah, but just think what it be like if we actually started doing well!?’ But, with all the dialogue regarding our manager’s future I reckon I’ve finally got my head around it. Shaun will NEVER resign. Let’s face it, would you with a mortgage and family? The club will NEVER sack him. There is a bigger picture and this is what we’ve got for the foreseeable, for better or for worse. After Shaun building maybe 4 teams we are what we are and will finish the season where we deserve to be. Arguably we missed our chance, just after our amazing cup run. No good raking over old coals but I reckon that is when we maybe SHOULD have broken into the Conference National? Now we will do nothing to put our club in the red, at risk and rightly so. So long as our players try, I can live with this current state of affairs. I will no longer have words with myself, going round in endless circles. I need to concentrate on getting behind our club and trying to encourage others to get amongst it and maybe, the most important of all, ENJOYING Hawkdom again! I’m working in Thatcham for the next two days so really can’t wait to meet Mr. Ketchup for dinner in Maidenhead tomorrow evening prior to seeing my beloved football team with the clouds of uncertainty lifted from my furrowed brow. I end on a positive not, coz that’s what I do best. I suggest anyone who attended the last two home games cannot fail to have been at least entertained and will be back for more!! COYH, love, Ade What do we think of it so far?Sun Sep 4 2011Before we start, welcome back to my inane scribblings, going under the same title as ‘Now We’ll Never Be Divided’ which ran under the departed blue square south forum umbrella.Loads to talk about so far! The departures of Manny, Muz, Simps…. Personally I think we were stitched up regarding Simps which is very sad. Don’t suppose we’ll ever know the whole truth. Muz out of contract and ultimately bettered himself bigtime with a contract at a League 1 club. The Manny thing just seems weird? Apparently very happy here, injured for lots of last season, a year older but allegedly demanding more money! Must try that tomorrow with my boss J Seriously though, so sad to see him go L But our first league game gave us great reasons to be cheerful and a potential new terrace hero in goalscoring Jack Sparrow stylee Captain Lee Peacock! It soon evaporated with two consecutive home defeats, non nominated penalty takers wasting said, our new hero injured in the first game absurdly risked in the third, resulting in the obvious aggravation of the original injury. A midweek defeat at Weston resulting in the Hawks fan’s past time of discussing Shaun Gale’s future. Always a difficult time for me, a Shaun Gale fan…. But a position I’m very familiar with J But the battering of Truro with trialist striker, Scott Jones, bagging two caused optimism and have we turned the corner style vibes. Two further defeats have turned that into flash in the pan sentiments…. So we approach this Saturday’s home fixture with Sutton United with our manager again under sustained pressure and our home attendances decimated. Seriously can’t wait! COYH, love, Ade |
|
 | |