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| Globe Way, home of Buckley Town F.C. |
With the season steamrolling on
at a frantic pace I have again slipped with my blog posts, so here’s the latest
instalment, which includes a look back at Town’s matches against Buckley, Cefn Druids and Guilsfield……
Following the victory at Bangor,
the side faced a tricky looking League Cup tie at Buckley and if ever there was
a case of coming back down to earth with a real bump then the first half at
Globe Way was it! To be fair to the players, they didn’t play too badly in the
opening forty five minutes but two errors resulted in goals for the hosts and
at half-time it seemed an uphill struggle awaited the team. Thankfully, the
players rallied in the second period and dominated the match to score three
times without reply to clinch their place in the next round.
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| Nathan and the supporters celebrating his winning goal at Buckley. |
Although it had been a tough
match, I thought it was a great sign that the players dug deep to get the
result and it was also pleasing to see two debutants slotting seamlessly into
the side, Rob Jones and Danny Brookwell, the latter in particular making a big
impact when he came on for the second half. I was also more than pleased to see
the return of Carl Owen, who had signed during the week to boost the squad. Carl
has a strong season with Town last year and I look forward to seeing more of ‘The
Punisher’ in the coming months!
Away from the action itself, I
was amused to see a fellow member of the club’s committee, who is probably the
quietest amongst us, becoming much more animated than usual at the start of the
second half. Sitting in the Stand, he was partaking in a bit of ‘running banter’
with Buckley manager Tom Taylor, who had made his way from the dug-out to the
opposite side of the field to encourage the players on his side’s right flank.
I’m sure you will have noted I used the word encourage and not coach because
managers are not allowed outside to coach the team from outside their technical
areas in front of the dugouts. Now, those of you who have happened across
Taylor will know that he’s no shrinking violet, so exactly how he thought he’d
get away with coaching from where he was is beyond me and so he was quickly
sent back to his bench. He was not happy about it, my friend on the committee
was! And talking of the Buckley manager, his post-match comments are interesting
to say the least, because he must obviously have been watching a different
match to me!
Pearls of wisdom from him include
the BlackAdder–esque ‘cunningly setting traps for the Canaries which they fell
into (I kid you not!), and whenever a losing manager talks about laughable sending
off decisions and his player being too
honest when he could have won a penalty then you know he’s feeling more than disappointed
by the defeat. Oh dear….
Next up was the visit of league
leaders Cefn Druids to the Oval and, having been eagerly looking forward to the
match, I can only say that I was equally disappointed with how it turned out. The
team had not performed well against another side relegated from last season’s Welsh
Premier League, Prestatyn Town, earlier in the season and so I was looking
forward to seeing how they would fare with Druids who also suffered the drop.
Firstly, I must say that the players deserved more from the match than they got
and a draw would have probably been a fair result but, having enjoyed the
majority of possession, we did not look like scoring and unfortunately Druids made
the most of their best chance to clinch the win.
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| Just one of those days for Breesey and the team against Druids. |
If I was to take a leaf out of
the Buckley manager’s book I could say all sorts about how Caernarfon should
have won etc but to be fair to Druids they arrived with a plan to stifle
Caernarfon and did just that. They are not the most entertaining of sides but were
effective on the day and headed home with the points, and all credit to them.
Just for fun, however, I will try and explain how I really felt about the match
in five words:
Bus. Parked. Dick. Turpin. Gutted.
On a much more positive note, it
was great to meet up with my old friend Mark McKean, who works on the Druids’ website
and match reports etc. I have known Mark for many years and he’s been unwell
for the last few of them, so I was pleased to see him. Hope you enjoyed the
book Mark!!
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| Catching up with an old friend at the Druids match. |
There are no easy matches in the
Cymru Alliance League and so, having just hosted the leaders, the team had
another really tough match to play seven days later when they travelled to
second placed Guilsfield.
The sides met four times last
season and each match had been very close. The Guils are a physical side and
travelling down to the match with committee member Elwyn Jones, we both felt it
was going to be another tough challenge against Danny Barton’s side. I think it’s
also fair to say that, whilst we both hoped for a Caernarfon win, we may very
well have accepted a draw as a decent result at such a difficult place.
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| Clive Williams. |
Scoring goals had been a problem
for the team thus far (the Buckley tie excepted) and so it was interesting to
see a change in the team’s formation, which saw Jamie Breese partnered up front
with Jamie McDaid. I had been hoping to see the two Jamie’s spearheading the
attack since the beginning of the season and was impressed at how well it
worked. In another change, Clive Williams stepped up from defence to midfield and, having started the match impressively in the middle he had to drop back into centre defence early on due to an injury to Gareth Edwards.
In short, the team was superb on
the day, and thoroughly deserved the 4-0 victory. The scoreline could easily
have been much more than it was and the performance was probably the best of
the season up to that point. Guilsfield were workmanlike and obviously missed the
injured Barton but Town were certainly superior on the day. In fact, so good was Caernarfon’s
performance that my only concern on the day was for the referee and his
assistants, who all looked about fifteen years old! I’m all for getting younger
people involved in the refereeing side of the game as we seem to see the same familiar
faces in the middle and running the lines every other week, Andy Harms being an
excellent recent example (!), but I also think the FAW is doing a disservice to
these youngsters when they put three inexperienced officials together to run a
game in the second tier of Welsh football. I’ve been told that the FAW are fast-tracking
young officials due to lack of referees in the game and, if this is true, then
I can understand why they’re doing it, but surely they would be better off, and
be much fairer to the officials, by having at least one experienced official
for each match, thus giving the youngsters some much needed support and
encouragement? After all, they’re not going to get much of that from any of the
supporters!
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| Guilsfield were struggling so much against the Cofis that even the Main Stand could not bare to look. |
I am sure that having an elder
statesman on hand at the Guilsfield match would have helped the young referee
who was being slaughtered by one of the home supporters for over-ruling a
linesman for Town’s second goal. The
linesman had put his flag up for an offside when Jamie McDaid scored but the
referee, quite rightly, pointed out that the player who may have been offside was
standing on the far side of the field and nowhere near the ball, and so the
goal stood. This was like a red rag to a bull for a purple-faced gentleman in
his sixties, or maybe seventies, who was still shouting obscenities two or three
minutes later! This is obviously not an isolated incident and I wonder how much
it affects the confidence of such inexperienced officials?
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| The officials had a tough day at Guilsfield.... |
To be honest, the inexperience of
the officials on the day did not really ma
tter as Caernarfon would have won no
matter who had been in charge of the whistle and as we left the Community
Centre Ground I had a feeling that the victory, and the successful change in the
team’s formation, could prove a turning point for the team. The two Jamies had
proved too hot for the Guils defence to handle and I’m sure we’ll see plenty of
goals from them both in the next six months. Cup Fever will feature in the next blog as I take a look at the recent cup ties with Bala Town and Llanrug United.
Happy Days....
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