Southam
United Bench Talk
Saturday 3 January 2004
Happy
New Year to everyone and a special welcome to players,
management, supporters and committee of Southam United
for the first fixture of 2004.
Our
last game was the 1-1 draw with Meir KA on the Saturday
before Xmas where a 0-0 all draw looked the likely outcome
as we approached the closing minutes of the game. Chances
were few and far between until the game suddenly burst
into life with 3 minutes remaining. Mark Bellingham's
fierce low shot from the edge of the box was parried into
the path of Chris Burton by their keeper leaving Chris
a simple chance, which he duly tucked away. Game over!
Not a bit of it as Meir KA equalised within 10 seconds
of the re-start when we failed to defend a simple long
diagonal ball into the box and the next thing we know
is that the balls in the back of our net. My comments
are not for printing!
Whilst
today's opponents Southam may be struggling at the bottom
of the league you can never take anything for granted.
We almost did that to our cost in the early season encounter
and struggled to a two-nil win. Our recent form has not
been the greatest and I am fairly certain that this will
be a pretty close game. Southam will definitely be looking
to recover from the 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Leamington
last Saturday.
Player
availability is a complete unknown at the time of writing
this article on Tuesday but I am hopeful that the two-week
break will allow the minor niggles to heal and leave us
with some selection problems. We certainly need to pick
up some points in the early part of the month as the end
of January fixtures consist of games with Rugby Town and
Feckenham.
Andy
Reece returns from his Australian hols next Monday and
Mark Langley is on a fourteen-day break, which makes him
unavailable for today. Lyndon Price is also away this
weekend and Gagy Bedi is out with a back injury. Richard
Frost's slow progress in recovering from his back injury
continues to be that, simply 'slow', and so he is also
likely to be out of the selection frame for at least another
2-3 weeks.
Enjoy
the game and we hope to see you down here for next weekend's
game against Highgate United.
Jim
Scott
