February 13, 2016 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…again

Enfield Town 2 Lewes 1 – The Queen Elizabeth II Stadium – Saturday 13th February 2016
OK – let’s start with the positives. We all got a free pint to drink during the first half thanks to a great gesture by Enfield Town, a thank you for our support in their campaign for justice at the end of last season. Not just your run of the mill fizzy-pop either. A fine pint of Redemption’s Rock The Kazbek no less. And boy did we need it in a first half where the pre-match instruction from our management team to “make sure Whitely doesn’t cut inside onto his right foot” lasted approximately 200 seconds when Whitely cut inside onto his right foot and scored.

The goal came as a bit of a shock to be honest, even though a) Enfield Town had won their last four home games, b) We have the second worst away record in the league, conceding on average 2.3 goals per game and c) We hadn’t gone behind in a game this year. Could we have another beer voucher?

The scars of last season’s debacle have been forgotten by most at the club, although the initials FA certainly don’t mean the Football Association in these parts. It’s fair to say that our governing body didn’t come out of the whole affair very well, and even at a meeting before Christmas with the chairman of the Ryman League, looked to deflect blame from their failings. Fortunately, plans are afoot at our league level to change rule 6.9 which would now mean the Ryman League could handle the situation very differently if it occurred in the future. How difficult was that? Well as simple as changing the word “shall” to “may” in terms of how the league penalise clubs. It took 30 seconds for the votes to be counted back in December’s League Meeting for that to progress.

Anyway, back to the action. We always looked like we would concede another in the next thirty minutes but somehow we didn’t. Then we started to remember how we had beaten Dulwich Hamlet, Canvey Island and Merstham. We started passing the ball, stretching Enfield’s midfield and defence. We had a great chance for Laing to run in on goal in the last-minute of the half. However, the ball never reached him as the Enfield Town full-back decided to play basketball with the ball in front of the linesman, who tried to justify the fact he wasn’t looking by pointing to his chest. The Enfield player walked off at half-time hardly able to contain his laughter.

We kept pressing in the second half, chipping away at the back four, looking for a way through. Laing had a great shout for a penalty turned down when he was pushed to the floor. No penalty, yet no card for “simulation”. So what was it then ref? Jonte Smith’s far post header was turned around the post by an Enfield leg and with seconds left we could sense something was going to happen.

Laing again bamboozled the defence and his cross struck and outstretched arm. Referee points to the spot. Could it be? Smith stepped up in the most languid of ways and rolled the ball into the corner of the net. We’d take a point our jumping around on the terraces said. We’d hardly had time to tweet using the hashtag “unbeatenin2016” before we’d conceded again.

Back in August we took the lead at home to Harrow Borough with a penalty in the 87th minute. 67 seconds later we conceded after switching off and had to settle for a draw. Today our point lasted marginally less. Enfield Town were given a free-kick on the left-hand side, pumped it into the box and someone (later identified as full-back Doyle) headed it in.

It’s hard to smile and share pleasantries post match in the boardroom when you lose like this. Enfield Town’s hospitality was second to none and whilst the conversation, according to the unwritten boardroom protocol, completely avoided the a) result, b) the last gasp goal, and c) the fact we were still bottom, you couldn’t help thinking what could have been.

The positive was that other scores down at the foot of the table didn’t work against us. We will pick ourselves up, regroup and refocus on three points next Saturday against Grays Athletic. Perhaps it was the beer after all? Yep..*makes note to turn down free beer*

December 27, 2015 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Merstham Tanned in Battle of M25 Junction 8 and 9

Since 1965 Christmas football has been the preserve of Boxing Day. One of the most eagerly anticipated days of the season, where crowds are bumper, especially in Non-League football. This is despite the complete lack of public transport. Take Brighton & Hove Albion’s trip to Brentford for a 1pm kick off. The Seagulls fans had to set off around 8am, get three trains and a rail replacement bus to arrive by 12.30pm for the 60 mile journey. Then, of course there is the weather. Fortunately, the South had been spared, for now, the torrential rain that had caused widespread flooding in certain areas.

Every December there is a call from various Premier League managers that they play too many games and that there should be a winter break. This nearly always comes from manager’s who have just lost (again) and need to blame something other than the fact their team was actually crap. The BBC News reported that “Even Premier League players had to train on Christmas Day”. So , someone who is paid up to £500k a month (and the rest!) has to work on Christmas Day? How is that a story? Policemen, nurses, firemen and soldiers also had to work. Did they get a mention? No of course not.

With an impending trip to the North and the need for a bit of intel on our opponents next week, I navigated around the shopping traffic, or as the BBC said “Millions braved the Boxing Day sales” (no hype there then) to take in the South M25 derby. To sum up the game in five phrases – Muddy, End to End, Howling misses, No burgers, Late chested winner.

Merstham 1 Leatherhead 2 – Moatside – 26th December 2015

December 20, 2015 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Economic Theory explained by Football – The Concept of Marginal Gains

Just down the road, 2 1/2 hours before Lewes kick off in their game against Farnborough, The Football League Championship’s two clubs go head to head. Brighton & Hove Albion are the last remaining unbeaten team in the top 10 divisions of English football, a remarkable turnaround from last season where they avoided relegation in the last few weeks of a season characterised by dull, scoreless football. Back in the Summer, Chris Hughton brought his first team squad down the A27 and could count themselves lucky to go back with a 0-0 draw. Confidence was high from the Lewes camp, whilst the draw against a team five divisions lower hardly increased the membership of the Hughton Appreciation Society.

Six months on and the situation could hardly be more different. Hughton is being hailed a messiah by the North Stand faithful whilst Lewes are still looking for their first home win and are looking up the skirts of every other team in the Ryman Premier League. We could spend hours debating why, but it is more important to touch on what the future holds in my opinion.

In the last few days I’ve read a couple of interesting pieces about the finances of The Seagulls. The superb Swiss Ramble analysed the numbers in detail on his website last week, There can be no denying the investment by owner Tony Bloom in the club, both on and off the pitch, and for the sake of their loyal fans I hope they do reach the promised land of the Premier League, not only because they deserve a crack at it, but to also give Bloom some financial return on his huge investment. Footballing history has given us plenty of examples as to where the single investor model turns sour at some point, and whilst Brighton fans may say “It’ll never happen to us with our Tony around”, I’m sure that is what Bolton Wanderers fans said when Big Phil was splashing the cash for Big Sam at the Reebok.

But what about Lewes? We don’t have the ownership model that means we are indebted to one person. However, we are bottom of the league. In such situations managers tend to grab at any straw going. How often will you see them bring in a raft of new players to try to solve an issue, normally expelling a fair few out the back door. It is very rare that the financial situation in such cases ends up with the club making a profit on the dealings or paying less wages. We all deep down know that, unfortunately, Chelsea will not get relegated this year. Whoever comes in in the short-term will be given some patience and will make small changes that turn defeats into draws, and draws into wins. Before you know it they will be knocking on the door of the top seven. Why? Because in most instances, teams do not become bad teams overnight or even over a pre-season. If you can keep the same core of players then with small adjustments they will become better gradually.

This is the theory of marginal gains. The concept is that if you improve in every variable underpinning or influencing your performance by just 100% then cumulatively you get a significant performance improvement. The Performance Director of British Cycling, Dave Brailsford is often quoted as the biggest proponent of the theory, but it was actually Sir Clive Woodward to first openly admitted to using the concept in the preparation for the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia, that England would ultimately win. “Winning the World Cup was not about doing one thing 100% better, but by doing 100 things 1% better” he said post tournament.

So what does that actually mean for a grass-roots club like Lewes? It means working with the management team to make sure when the team step onto the pitch they are 100% prepared. Kit may seem a small issue, but for one player having a pair of shorts that aren’t too tight could be that 1%. Energy drinks – another 1%. Ensuring the showers are hot – 1% and so on. That’s obviously not going to be the reason why Chelsea improve but their 1% gains may come from preparation patterns, pre-match meals, warm up routines as well as personnel changes.

Lewes manager Darren Freeman has been used to winning both as a player and a manager. He has a formula as to the type of player that he wants to see pull on the red and black shirt each week. Coming into the club where it was already in the bottom four and three months into the season, his marginal gains are a lot tougher to deliver. But that doesn’t stop him trying. There’s not going to be one single event that can turn the current situation into a rosier one – unless half a dozen teams all play ineligible players for 5 or 6 games in which they win and get 15 point deductions. So the club has to look at improving marginally, and more importantly, within budget, in a multitude of areas. Obviously, players will come and go such as this week where a new winger and a new centre-forward have come in, replacing an existing proven scorer. Unusually, the net effect of the transfer dealings is financially positive. Two for the price of one – a marginal gain in terms of squad numbers.

Fans obviously play a part as well. Any Brighton & Hove Albion supporters heading back to Lewes that could be enticed in, irrespective of the price they pay should lead to a marginal financial gain. The cost of admitting one extra fan is essentially zero. There is a stewarding cost, but you can only set that prior to the game based on what you think the crowd would be. If an additional 1,000 fans turned up today it would cost the club nothing extra but we would gain from whatever they pay through the turnstile and then food/drink/merchandise and so on. That revenue would then boost the budget which would then be re-invested in different aspects of the club and thus delivering that marginal gain.

It’s fair to say that the biggest marginal gain from today’s game though would be three points. In fact, anything less than three points would be a significant blow to the club. Farnborough’s off the field problems are well documented, falling from being just one game away from the Conference Premier four years ago to facing expulsion from the league. We’ve been there and know how the fans pain feels, knowing that their fate is often out of their hands. But for today it would be all about the Lewes win. Still without a home win this season, Lewes could at least look to Farnborough’s away record of drawn one, lost ten as a positive omen.

The marginal gains philosophy and approach is hardly rocket science. It’s a simple idea, but with many simple ideas, takes some energy, commitment and discipline to see the positive results. Alas those three words are often lost on fans who want immediate results. As a club we have to balance both.

Lewes 1 Farnborough 0 – The Dripping Pan – Saturday 19th December 2015
It has only taken 269 days but finally we have a home win to celebrate. 25th March was the last time we really got to dance a silly jog of delight on the Philcox at the full-time whistle but yesterday we got that winning feeling again. In terms of marginal gains the result was huge. We got 3 points, 3 more than the six teams above us. In the grand scheme of things it makes little difference to the table or the threat of relegation, but we came out of the day the winner at the bottom end.

Farnborough were poor. They lined up with a 5-3-2, failed to get one shot on goal, picked up five bookings and the only threat they posed was when Estonian striker Vastsuk threw himself to the ground in the penalty area and picked up a caution – interesting that we normally only see antics like that from players with league experience, and Vastsuk is no different, on loan from Reading. Good to see the professional game teaching players the importance of ethics.

Lewes were good. They started strongly and could have had a couple of goals (and at least one penalty) before Phil Appiah’s 25 yard blockbuster on the stroke of half-time put The Rooks in the lead. By then the curse of the new striker had struck as George Landais limped off on his debut. His replacement Trevor McCreadie was denied a penalty in the second half by yet another poor performance by the officials, being tripped in exactly the same spot as last week in the area. OK, it wasn’t a vintage performance, probably not as convincing as last week’s draw against Leiston BUT you could see the 1%’s. Winger Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe beat his man more frequently, the two centre-backs blocked more shots on the edge of the area, James Fraser looked a little more match fit. Marginal gains.

So we danced all night to the best feeling ever. Three points can make or break your weekend. Hopefully the couple of dozen Brighton fans who decided to stick around after their painful first defeat of the season will have enjoyed a pint of Harvey’s, a slice of Christmas Pie and a goal worthy to win any game.

December 13, 2015 by stuartnoel - 1 Comment

Economic Theory explained by Football – The Doom Cycle

In the last year I have written a number of articles trying to explain some common Economic Theories using football as a reference point. Up until now they have all been hypothetical but today there is a real link between the theory and the reality that Lewes are currently experiencing.

The “Doom Cycle” is a phrase often used to refer to the current boom-bust-bailout structure of the financial sector that leads to economic crises. The pain of the last few years is still too real for many people to have forgotten. The Doom Cycle has been defined by The New York Times as: “a virtueless circle in which banks take ever-greater risks to boost returns”

In footballing terms, it means trying every possible variable to try and break a cycle of bad results. Just like Lewes’s current run which has seen us exit all four cups and take just one point from the last fourteen Ryman Premier League games. I think you could say that was a bad run of form. Yet within that sequence there have been many positives. Alas, football is a cruel game and failure to take chances when presented, or convert possession into something meaningful. The virtueless circle where you try anything different, whether than is a formation, personnel, preparation or set pieces to find a win. It is fair to say that you get to a point somewhere along the line where you will take any win, irrespective of how it comes.

“You can’t buy any luck when you are at the bottom” said someone to me at a League meeting last week. Every club has sympathy with teams at the bottom (well, at least to your face), saying platitudes such as “your luck will turn” or “It will turn out alright”. To those 23 other teams in our league they will hope we stay down at the bottom – after all it is one less position for them to worry out. Last week at East Thurrock we felt the full effect of fate – three players ending up in hospital, one of which with a long-term injury just days after signing a contract plus a sending off that embarrassed the basic rule of refereeing about being impartial and not influenced by the actions of the teams.

Capture As results continue to be poor, crowd numbers fall. Football fans are either unconditionally loyal (circa 20% of the fan base) or are results driven (70%) with 10% sitting somewhere in between. When times are good, the crowds come and watch and spend money in the ground. When scores go against you, those results-driven fans decide to spend their time and money elsewhere on a Saturday afternoon. That is totally understandable. Alas, when budgets are set at the start of the season you do not factor in being bottom of the league – you set realistic targets for average gate revenue and yield per spectator. You can’t factor in those 2 or 3 big games that provide some extra insurance being postponed or being moved. Today we were supposed to be welcoming Dulwich Hamlet and their army of beer-thirsty fans. Instead they are in FA Trophy action. With no disrespect to Leiston, but their dozen or so fans will not make up for the hundred or so from Dulwich.

So as results decline, so do the crowds and match day revenue. To keep a balanced budget that means having to cut spending in other areas, which potentially impacts the performance of the team even further. And so on – the club enters a Doom Cycle or a virtueless circle of short-term decline. I think we have dispelled the myth now that the answer to any problem is to “increase the budget”. Most fans understand that we are not in a position to do that. We have our cloth, cut to size and we have to wear it.

Some fans have questioned the commitment and focus of the club, even suggesting that there is foul play at work on the board in how we manage the club’s finances. It’s tough to have the answer the same questions time and time again, especially those around the budget. There is no secret fund, piggy bag or plastic bag full of cash. Sure, we could take money from elsewhere – not paying our electricity bill or income tax, but we’ve been there, done that. Still some think that the responsibility of the individual board members is to constantly put their hand in their pocket.

The game would also see the launch of our new 12th Man scheme – a different approach to adding to the first team budget. Launched at 12:12pm on the 12th of the 12th (clever, eh?) the concept has been used with some success elsewhere but even this initiative was scorned upon by some fans on Social Media – suggesting that the move was an admission of failure and neglect from the board for not putting in money the club didn’t have into the budget. Sometimes I truly wonder whether the stress is really worth it.

Of course, all of the pressure would be worth it if we could grab that first win at home this season. It would be nice for once to head home with a smile on my face.

Lewes 1 Leiston 1 – The Dripping Pan – Saturday 12th December 2015
This was one occasion when a draw felt like a win to the 370 Lewes fans in the ground (plus 25 Dulwich Hamlet ones – more on that later). Seven minutes into injury time and Lewes launched a final ball into the box, looking for a goal that their pressure deserved. The ball must have hit every player, bar Lewes keeper Winterton in the box before James Fraser got a final touch and the ball trickled over the line. The outpouring of emotion was clear to see. There was no time to restart the game, alas as I genuinely thought we could go onto win the game.

For 93 minutes of this encounter The Rooks had dominated play. Unfortunately, the same old issue haunted the team in the opening few minutes – a failure to clear the ball, a missed tackle and an opponent left unmarked. The result? 1-0 down after 4 minutes 43 seconds.

The strong wind certainly played into Lewes’s favour in the first half but no matter how many times the ball went into the box, there was never a head or a foot on the end. Last week a fellow Ryman League chairman made a valid point. “The reason why week after week we have poor officials is that anyone with any potential is fast-tracked up the leagues, so we are left with those who will never get any better” Those words echoed around the terrace when the officials failed to see a clear push on Pacquette in the first half when he looked to get on the end of a Redwood cross, and more clear-cut, failing to see that McCreadie was fouled in the box in the second half, despite the marks in the turf, giving a free-kick a yard outside.

The Rooks pressed in the second period, but once again the goal was leading a charmed life. At the other end Winterton was an almost spectator. This had been the story of the season – playing well for long periods but failing to convert possession into goals. That’s not down to us being a community club, the beach huts or our match posters. That’s down to not being able to find an out and out goalscorer. In fact, that is something the club have been missing for years – someone who could score us 20 goals a season and probably win us 15/20 additional points.

I’m sure we all felt we had run out of time, but it was actually our opponents who gave us the goal. Despite Leiston having a goal kick, one of their players decided to make a comment to the referee. Cue long lecture and a yellow card, allowing us the additional time to score. Thanks for that!

The whole crowd appreciated the point – even the 20-odd fans from Dulwich Hamlet who had come down for a stag do, arranged before their club’s progression in the FA Trophy and consequently the cancellation of our game with them.

Perhaps that goal was the tipping point for our season? The one moment where our luck changes. We know that we are still in Intensive Care but for the first time in weeks we had a faint heartbeat. Has the Doom Cycle been broken? Well, we will see in 7 days when fellow critically ill patient Farnborough arrive in East Sussex.

October 24, 2015 by stuartnoel - 1 Comment

Ten out of ten

Words have been hard to come by in recent weeks. I’ve not let up in the number of games I have been watching, although for once my work trips haven’t coincided with any games (they’ve wised up to my little games perhaps?)I’ve just been short of motivation on what to write. Being a fan of a team who go through a poor run isn’t much fun. Being in a position of accountability of a team who go through a poor run is even less fun. Match days become longer and longer as you examine every little detail to see what you can do to end the run.

Today’s 4-3 defeat at the hands of mid-table Leatherhead marked the tenth consecutive defeat for Lewes in all competitions. The game, as the scoreline suggests, was pretty decent – five of the seven goals coming in the opening quarter of the game no less. But I’m no longer able to walk away at full time as a neutral or even a fair-weather fan and have simply enjoyed the thrilling game. I have to analyse where we as a club went wrong both in terms of preparation but also execution. Whether we lost 4-3 or 7-0, we came away from the game with the same number of points – zero and our league position worsens.

You look for crumbs of comfort in this situation. We’ve lost seven of those ten games by just one goal. Seven different bounces of the ball, seven shots that the keeper could fumble, seven crosses we head to safety. Seven different decisions could have given us seven points we don’t have today. There’s no satisfaction in scouting a team, documenting their yellow belly but then falling foul to the sole threat they offer. You can draw positional play diagrams to your hearts content, play videos of set-pieces all night or write detailed notes on tactics but if the players don’t take it on board then there is little you can do. Leatherhead’s star man Karagiannis scored two superb, almost identical goals yesterday. He’s a left-footed player who plays on the right. He hugs the touchline then runs inside the full back and shoots from distance. He’s done that twice in games I’ve seen. Yesterday he did it twice in a few minutes and scored on both occasions.

Someone recently wrote on the club’s forum “Being a director isn’t about being popular. It is about doing the right thing.” Yes, we are all fans but that doesn’t make us immune from not being accountable. You need a thick skin at times – every decision is open to scrutiny. Football fans at all levels see the game through different eyes and are satisfied by different things. Growing up as a West Ham game I was always told it was better to play the “West Ham way” and lose 4-3 than to play direct and win 1-0. I saw exciting players such as Alan Devonshire, Ray Stewart, Alan Dickens, Frank McAvennie and Paolo Di Canio. But some of the most memorable games were those where Julian Dicks, Martin Allen and David Cross were at their best. They weren’t “flair” players – they played with their hearts and had a “win at all cost” mentality. However, when you are deep in the relegation myre you will take a win at all costs. We can all comfort ourselves that we lost whilst still playing some good football, but we still lost.

Earlier this year we took a tough decision to change our management team. We were on a bad run and whilst we could have potentially scraped through without making a change, there was enough of a risk that we could be relegated for us to take the tough decision. The majority of the fans backed the decision and we brought in someone who had managed at a higher level but limited knowledge of football in Sussex. We battled and won games at all costs. We retained our place in the division without any outside intervention yet some still questioned the style of play. Our sole objective was to stay up yet some expected that “West Ham way”.

Lewes may be very different from other Non League Clubs in that we think about the future as much as the present. The past is gone – we cannot change it BUT we can learn from it. Coming within a whisker of not having a club at all is a sobering situation. That near death experience will never be forgotten by those who went through it. Thinking about the future means ensuring that we need to live within our means, not mortgaging today for something that will almost certainly not happen in the future. Football is littered with the casualties of this blinkered view. Leeds United, Coventry City, Blackpool, Portsmouth, Torquay United, Hereford United – the list goes on of clubs who have ignored the lessons of the past. Some, such as Portsmouth and to an extent Coventry City now think in a very different way.

I would like to think that in five or ten years time we have a very different board at Lewes than we have today. Change is good – a fresh perspective, new ideas not encumbered by the past. But none of the existing board will renegade on their responsibilities today. Nobody tells you what the “right thing to do” actually is. What is right to me may be wrong to one, two, ten, two hundred others. Our frame of reference is and will continue to be until we are 100% self-sustaining “what impact will this decision have on the club tomorrow?” The club has been criticised from some quarters that we concentrate too much on the off the field activities – the posters, the beach huts, the 80’s band as a shirt sponsor. Without these things we would almost certainly be playing at a much lower level than we are today. We are very good at creating media interest and consequently more revenue that can be invested on the pitch because we have that expertise within the club.

Fans come to football for a number of reasons. Escapism, to meet up with friends, to be entertained, to play our their dreams. You can fall out of love with football if you start seeing the game as a millstone around your neck, knowing that someone decisions made by 11 men on the pitch are your collective responsibility.

Yesterday could have ended up 5-5 or more. Lewes created more chances in one game than they had done in the previous five or six. Less than sixty seconds after we drew the score back to 2-2 the Leatherhead keeper made a save that he knew nothing about, keeping the ball out with his cheek. At 4-2 our centre-back found himself with the ball at his feet with only the goal keeper to beat and poked the ball wide. Alex Laing hit the post. That in itself brought some of that love back. It made me realise the team did care, that the ten defeats to them meant something too. For some fans it still wasn’t enough. They wanted a win, a win at all or any cost. I can understand that too. But going back to something I said earlier, we didn’t lose because the club promotes its beach huts, its posters or its catering. Likewise when we win (and we will do very soon) it has nothing directly to do with those things either.

When teams win every week, everything is right. The team and the club can do no wrong. But then when things do start to falter they are blown out of all proportion. Chelsea’s start to the season has been average in comparison to other Premier League sides. But they aren’t considered to be “another” Premier League side. The media prefix their name with “reigning Premier League Champions” all the time. The past is past. There is no sense of entitlement in football. West Ham’s win over Chelsea yesterday was down to the referee, goal line technology and Mourinhio’s half time spat. Bilic’s tactics or the performance of players such as Payat become irrelevant. Chelsea lost the game rather than West Ham winning it apparently. According to the loyal fans, Chelsea’s predicament is down to the manager not getting the players he wanted to sign in the summer. The fact that other teams have invested their smaller resources in a better way is irrelevant.

So back to football in East Sussex and our losing streak. Defeats hurt, especially when you are hopelessly second best. For the first time in quite a while I saw hope yesterday. Hope that the players are caring as much as I do, hope that we can create chances and more importantly take them, hope that come what May (or April) that we will be looking down the table rather than up it. Football should come with a health rather than a wealth warning at our level