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Post by hatter_in_macc on Mar 7, 2018 12:40:05 GMT
Oh no - not them again! This is fast becoming the 'Brackley Match Thread' section of CH.
Let us hope, having played them three times in succession this past fortnight, we will, by 5pm on Saturday, have made it third time lucky!
Or even fourth time lucky, if last season's sequence of results against the 'Saints' is repeated:
2016/17 - L, D, L, W.
2017/18, so far - L, D, L...
Ooh!
Post your equally desperate crackpot theories, and all the rest of the malarkey, here...
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Post by countyfan on Mar 7, 2018 14:25:21 GMT
For this one I am predicting that once
Again Brackley will come away as the
Champions after beating us by
Two goals to one!
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Post by another_ruined_saturday on Mar 7, 2018 20:10:23 GMT
yeah, well i'd take a cushy 3-0 like we got down there last season. they played weirdly badly that night.
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Mar 8, 2018 12:24:20 GMT
Here is my updated 'Take Five' piece - appearing at a COWS near you shortly...
*****************************************************************************************************
TAKE FIVE (2018)… Brackley Town
By Hatter in Macc
1. Right, then - next up: oh, Saints preserve us… Brackley, AGAIN?!
‘Fraid so. We really are getting to know each other rather well, eh? And not only over the past fortnight - which, of course, has seen our teams face each other three times, without having contact with another set of opponents - but also in the last five years, during which we have played the ‘Saints’ competitively on a whopping 13 occasions ahead of this weekend.
That, for County, is more frequently than against any other club over the same quinquennium. Not, perhaps, what might have been expected from what is now the National League North’s only representative to be found below the Watford Gap!
2. Our visitors have been waiting a while to become the NLN’s southernmost club, though?
Indeed so. They were actually more northerly than three others following their promotion, without a hint of irony as Southern League Champions, to non-league’s second tier in 2012 - when the NLN also contained Bishop’s Stortford, Gloucester and Oxford City. All members of that trio have since moved across to the National League South - with Gloucester’s transfer last summer leaving Brackley as the sole representatives located within the lower half of the map.
3. Our paths never crossed before playing in the NLN. Where had theirs taken them earlier?
To a number of places where County’s feet have never trod. Following their formation in 1890, the Saints started off in the Oxfordshire Senior League, where they remained until the First World War - before dividing their time for more than half a century, until 1977, between leagues covering Banbury and North Buckinghamshire and their respective districts. Spells in the higher-level Hellenic and United Counties Leagues followed - including Hellenic campaigns that saw them crowned champions for 1997 and 2004 - and for 10 of the 15 seasons preceding promotion to their current level five years ago, they were members of the Southern League. Brackley are also the only current NLN outfit to have won the Northamptonshire Senior Cup - a trophy they have lifted three times, all within the last seven seasons and most recently in 2014/15.
But even before the club’s National League North days, Brackley might well have felt in need of a geographical identity. While plying their trade in the Southern League’s second tier, inside just five seasons, the Saints found themselves transferred between the Midlands, the Southern and (following SL restructuring) the Western Divisions! This nomadic existence did, however, see them rub shoulders with the likes of Corby, Oxford City and Solihull Moors forerunners Solihull Borough and Moor Green - all of whom would subsequently reappear at various times with them as part of a southerly-northern vanguard two levels higher.
4. Surely to God, given our locations and only a recent shared history, no Hatters have played for the Saints as well?!
You might quite reasonably have imagined so - as did I - but, Heavens above, one has! Not only that - but he is midfielder Simon Travis (at County from 1997-99), ’The Man Who’ (see what I did there?) first saved this part of the column when we visited Leamington back in August (although our one-time loanee-winger, Kaine Felix, has started playing at the New Windmill since - thereby doubling the ex-Hatters’ roll-call at the club who will be our next Saturday afternoon visitors)!
5. So, as we return our focus to League business, can County win this one?
Well, historical precedent is not particularly on our side when it comes to the Hatters’ record against Brackley at Edgeley Park, where we have lost twice and won only once.
But history is so far repeating the two teams’ sequence of results from four matches with each other last season - when County lost the first and third, either side of drawing the second, but then won the fourth. To date this term, the sequence again reads ‘L, D, L’. Now, for the statto-purists among us, if no-one else, is that not just begging for a ‘W’ to complete it on Saturday?!
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Post by hermannsays on Mar 9, 2018 11:14:34 GMT
"Chris and Martin discuss the back to back games with Brackley Town. Chris also talks to Hatter's boss Jim Gannon as he steels himself and the squad for the fight for the playoffs and interviews Paul Turnbull on his return to the club."  soundcloud.com/user-415776765/brack-to-brack-with-bully |
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Post by hermannsays on Mar 9, 2018 20:03:13 GMT
Dear Mr Turnbull,
League, our average goals for per game
2016/17 = 1.4
2017/18 = 1.77
League, our average goals against per game
2016/17 = 0.98
2017/18 = 1.47
You know what to do.
Thanks,
Everyone
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Mar 9, 2018 20:58:37 GMT
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Post by jimboslovechild on Mar 10, 2018 15:52:10 GMT
Ten corners for County in the first half... How many do we need before we score a goal?
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Post by hermannsays on Mar 10, 2018 20:58:00 GMT
Before the game, there's was a minute's applause for Kieron Durkan. The Brackley fans stood very deliberately to clap towards our fans in the Pop/towards the Cheadle End which was nice to see. To the game...
For all our effort, possession and territorial advantage, it was Brackley leaving EP with a single goal victory while they also saw another 'certain' goal cleared off the line by Clarke and two efforts come back off the woodwork.
Brackley are an extremely well-organised, physically strong and balanced team, with several leaders on the pitch. Defending set plays, their personnel looked the more commanding (too many teams do if we're honest - nothing wrong with deliveries today) and they abided by the management's shout of "concentrate" which rang out before every one of our deliveries.
Out of possession, they stayed compact horizontally and unless teams on the ball drop defenders to expand the pitch vertically or have a highly intelligent #8, Brackley are unlikely to have much trouble closing out the #10 space. As such, and a bit similar to the Nuneaton game, Warburton was very rarely in this one - in fact, it was mostly on breaks where he started to impact things.
In possession, they play simple football to the strengths of their workmanlike personnel. While we seem to need to put good pieces of play together or to do something individual to open up sides, this season has seen Duxbury (our entire left side) pretty regularly overloaded without anything other than short, simple passing. Although Ball (I think) got over to try support, their first woodwork hit came from getting in down that side.
Anyway, in the first half, we fashioned a few bits and bobs. Dux got down the side and rolled the ball across to the near post and Oswell (I think) flicked it into the centre of the 6-yard box only to find no-one was there. Turner was involved on another occasion with probably our best chance, when the ball fell to him central and 16 yards out but he dragged the shot wide. One of Dux's corners was saved by the 'keeper and another somehow rolled past everyone in the 6 yard box. Cowan put in an excellent deep diagonal for Oswell who almost made something of it, applauding Cowan's delivery (as did the fans).
While we continued to dominate most of the possession second half too, and about 10 early minutes of the half was surprisingly stretched, as the last 20-25 kicked in, it looked like there were a few tired bodies and heads. Thomas, who had looked a bit like a rag doll (he's very lightweight) was struggling to get any quality in and Cowan's final ball was also letting him down. Although it seemed like we were doing well - having so much ball and getting it worked down the pitch on the right - ultimately our weaker attacking players (Cowan/Thomas... when compared with Dux/Warburton or Dux/Stephenson) were having most of the ball. I think Brackley would have taken that every day of the week.
Their goal came when the ball was slipped through in the box and, unfortunately, Clarke seemed a few yards behind all our other players which I think played their goalscorer onside to finish well. It felt a cruel blow because of the effort everyone had put in and some of the performances were genuinely good (Winter, in particular, who I thought was the 'surefire' MOM). We ended the game with Stopforth and Turnbull our deepest players but it was a case of more heads headbutting the same wall rather than having an answer to defeat the wall.
Boos rang out at the end which perhaps was more to do with the feeling of the season already being over rather than what the lads had put in today.
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Post by hedgegrower on Mar 10, 2018 22:32:23 GMT
Match Report- County v Brackley with Photos Now published inc over 2 dozen photos ( Andrew Machin's to follow tomorrow) hedgegrower.blogspot.com |
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Post by another_ruined_saturday on Mar 11, 2018 0:04:49 GMT
happy talking talking, happy talk...
it really has got away from us now. we know they're a decent side, but today was very frustrating. all the ball and none of the penetration.
i had been celebrating my mum and dad's golden wedding anniversary with them yesterday, and hung on at their house too long (until man u v liverpool went into injury time!), so i missed the first 15 at EP. i arrived to see a clearly dominant county win corner after corner to no avail. like herm says, there wasn't a delivery problem, but brackley were organised and we didn't seem to be making devious enough runs or attacking it with enough conviction. what efforts we had were mostly lame - winter hitting a tame low shot that their 'keeper nevertheless had to parry away, scott duxbury beating both their wide midfielder and full back to put in a decent low cross that we didn't make anything of, rhys turner dragging a weak low effort off target when well placed. jimmy ball turned the skill and tenacity up to eleven with a powerful run past half their team, but his attempt to finish with a 'worldie' saw the ball leave the earth's atmosphere.
as so often when we are dominant in possession, the opposition still looked the more dangerous. brackley conjured up a move which one of theirs should have finished but pulled past the left post, and then close to half time, they thundered a header onto the right post which hinchliffe was beaten by.
second half seemed more of the same, only duller. never entirely sure whether this is because the cheadle end goal is further from where we sit than the railway end one. we started to make some changes and saw paul turnbull pull on a county shirt for the first time in years. didn't seem to improve things though and i noticed one effort in particular where he tried to get a foot in as one of their players carried the ball into our attacking third. failed to get a toe to either the ball or the man in a potentially dangerous situation and we need more from a screen than that. however he's apparently not fit so hopefully that will come.
stephenson came on a bit too late to make anything much happen, turner was quiet as brackley dominated the aerial exchanges. nothing much doing really.
then it looked like brackley turned on the cheat codes with five minutes to go. all of a sudden the ball was perpetually loose inside our box. we'd already resigned ourselves to going behind before a blurred michael clark somehow blocked on the line. it wasn't a tame 'off the line' effort - it was a certain goal. then they rattled our post with hinchliffe beaten. with time rapidly running out, it seemed that they'd missed the best chances of the game. and they had. but sadly, they got another one...
i left early into the 5 mins of injury time and was back in my car before the boos rang out. 'fortress edgeley' has evaporated into 'stockport welcomes competent opponents', and i'd be quite pleased if we could chuck in the towel for the season and not have to play any more.
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Post by dudleyhatter on Mar 11, 2018 9:19:09 GMT
My first game in quite a while, didn’t think there was too much between the teams. I definitely felt I was watching 6th division football.
Brackley didn’t seem too dangerous until as ARS put it they applied the cheat codes in the last 5. To me there send a real lack of cohesion amongst the midfield and forwards. They didn’t know who was going to run or pass where. Often either too close to each other or so far apart as to be isolated. Three or four times as midfield were moving forward you could see Oswell looking at them trying to decide whether to come short for a give and go or to break for a through ball. I was watching Oswell quite closely as he has become such a divisive figure. Didn’t think he did much wrong, lots of effort and desire always looking to move for the ball he just didn’t know where the ball was going to be.
The saddest part of the day for me was that despite all our control of times of the game, nothing made me even get out of my seat
See it next season county...
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Post by dudleyhatter on Mar 11, 2018 9:21:30 GMT
My first game in quite a while, didn’t think there was too much between the teams. I definitely felt I was watching 6th division football. Brackley didn’t seem too dangerous until as ARS put it they applied the cheat codes in the last 5. To me there send a real lack of cohesion amongst the midfield and forwards. They didn’t know who was going to run or pass where. Often either too close to each other or so far apart as to be isolated. Three or four times as midfield were moving forward you could see Oswell looking at them trying to decide whether to come short for a give and go or to break for a through ball. I was watching Oswell quite closely as he has become such a divisive figure. Didn’t think he did much wrong, lots of effort and desire always looking to move for the ball he just didn’t know where the ball was going to be. Several times he was surrounded by 4/5 players but when I looked around I couldn’t see any other county players finding the gaps that must have been there. They were a solid defensive unit who defended well The saddest part of the day for me was that despite all our control of times of the game, nothing made me even get out of my seat See you next season county... |
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Post by hedgegrower on Mar 11, 2018 10:18:58 GMT
Additional Gallery- County v Brackley Town. ....25 terrific..... quality photos just in from Andrew Machin,now added as an Additional Gallery & published.... hedgegrower.blogspot.com |
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