weymouthPIE

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Portsmouth 0-2 Notts County Notts bounced back from Saturday's dissapointing result at Leyton Orient with an extremely hard-faught victory at Fratton Park last night. It was built up really as being a must win game for Notts, anything less would have been a bad result. Going into the game I felt fairly confident with the starting XI boasting an arsenal of attacking options in Zoko, Arquinn, Judge and Boucaud. However it was never likely to be a classic with the wind swirling around Fratton Park and the rain flying into the players faces no matter what direction they ran in. Portsmouth, as they seem to most games - started very brightly and had the games first chance when Connolly beat Alan Sheehan, crossed the ball into the area which drifted goalwards in the wind but was well saved by Speiss. Just minutes later the young goalkeeper making his first full start had to be on his toes again when another ball came into the area, which was this time punched clear. The game then settled down a bit but Portsmouth continued to press with their ever bouyant home crowd behind them. Their best chance of the whole game came when Wallace's close-range shot was well saved by Speiss at the expense of a corner. Notts did get forwards quite a bit but we kept trying to play one pass too many, almost trying to walk it in which wasen't going to work. Also there was some very sloppy play from virtually all Notts' players, as they seemed to struggle to adapt to the tricky conditions on the south coast. We did however, have the ball in the back of the net from a corner midway through the first half when one of Pompey's defenders headed into his own goal. We celebrated, but only realised there was no goal when the Pompey fans began a rendition of "sit down shut up!" - turned out the goal has been dissalowed for a push. Half time: 0-0, and it must be said we didnt really look like a side chasing the play-offs. We were very sloppy and things had to improve in the second half. We began the second half much brighter with Pompey struggling to clear a number of balls into the area, but we just couldnt find that final touch. That was the story of the next 35 minutes really - we kept getting into decent positions but we'd try and play a bit too much and Pompey would break up field. But I honestly can't remember Speiss having a save to make in the second half. They kept getting forwards but they never really had any chances. Alan Judge, Neal bishop and Francois Zoko all went close for Notts but finally, a breakthrough goal came ten minutes from time. Yohann Arquinn, who it must be said put in a very lazy shift, crossed for Jeff Hughes to volley home from close range to send the 135 Notts fans wild with delight, or was that just relief? Probably a mixture of both. It had been said in the buld up to the game that Portsmouth had a habbit of starting games very well until they conceeded, at which point they'd fall to pieces, and this was too true. Suddenly Notts had more energy about them, and seemed to play more positively and with more freedom. Within 5 minutes of that opener, Francois Zoko made it 2-0 scored from inside the six yard box from a Bishop ball. That killed the game. All the travelling fans seemed very relieved to have the points in the bag. What seemed like a pottential bannana skin before the game looked like becoming one until the last ten minutes. But credit to the lads, they proved once again that they can dig in and adapt their style of play when neccesary, and get the job done. It wasen't pretty, and it wasen't the walkover that some fans were demanding but our goal difference is pretty strong as it is. I dont think there's much point in going all out to score bags of goals and risk injuries. Just get the 3 points in the bag and move onto the next game. The only big dissapointment on the night was the red card shown to Neal Bishop in injury time. Now quite what this was for I personally cant be sure. What I saw was Bishop play a pass forwards, and while we were watching Boucaud attempt to take on a defender a few fans began shouting. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and I looked to see Bish and a Pompey player squaring up to eachother. One fan stood next to me said the Portsmouth man had had Bish by the throat and a small scuffle broke out. I suppose retaliation is a difficult one, but it does beg the question if the whole away end (well, seemingly apart from me!) saw a Pompey man start on Bish, why did none of the two assistent referee's or the ref himself? So it wasen't a pretty performance or a classic by any stretch of the imagination but job done, a wins a win, and we move up to 9th in the table - 5 points off the play-offs with a game in hand. I also want to mention Portsmouth's loyal and ever-vocal supporters. Not only did the players give it a real go until the first goal but their fans just didn't stop singing all night. To keep going back, and supporting their team as loudly, loyally and proudly as they do when they're getting beat week in week out takes a hell of a lot. I really hope they survive, it would be such a shame to see such a wonderful club with a rich history like that of Pompey die. Next up for us, we go to the opposite end of the country completely with a trip to bottom club Hartlepool United on Saturday. It's another must win game for us, anything less would be a big dissapointment. COME ON YOU PIES

Well that was an interesting weekend of football! So much to talk about so please do bear with me, I'll break this down into sections. My Own Saturday Thankfully this Saturday I was spared that gut-wrenching feeling of waking up to the news that the game was off, because Weymouth's trip to second placed Hemel Hempstead Town had been postponed on Friday morning with the pitch a good few feet under snow! For once the Southern League saw sense in allowing the game to be called off early. For some reason they dont usually allow clubs to call matches off until the day of the game, which causes everyone disruption when its clear for all to see that the match wont be on. So for me and my mate it was down to the ground still to watch the ever improving Weymouth Reserves play Wareham Rangers in the Dorset Premier League. The team line-up was interesting, with an outside goalkeeper coming in as an emergency replacment as the other two keepers who were both suspended, and three first team players lining up with defenders Ben Doidge and Ashley Wells (for me, our standout player this season), while seasoned striker Matt Groves reverted to a midfield role. Old Groover seemed more interested in shouting at the poor youngsters though than having an impact on proceedings himself. Wareham took the lead roughly ten minutes before the break via a freak goal. A corner came in and there was a scramble which resulted in the keeper having his hands on the ball. Play seemed to stop for a minute, and the keeper let go of the ball. So a Wareham striker tapped the ball into the net and everyone got set for the restart. Took us spectators a few moments to work out weather the goal had been given or not, quite what was happening with our keeper I dont understand. Second half our lads came out and played with a lot more intensity which had been missing through the first half, although that might be understandable given that this was their first game in over a month! Highly rated among us fans, Sean Zima took on and beat a couple of defenders before prodding the ball home to make it 1-1 around the hour mark. Then within 5 minutes the turnaround was complete when Ashley Wells (what he was doing so far forwards god only knows!) stole the ball from the Wareham left back, ran at the keeper and at the second attempt - slotted home to give the Weymouth Reserves the lead. The rest of the game was a scrappy affair with the refferee and his two officials taking centre stage. One linesman had absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the offiside rule. How can our man be offside if he's had to beat the defender who had a head start of a few yards to reach the ball?? Then the ref suddenly discovered a mysterious yellow card in his pocket! He loved it so much he decided to show it to 5 players in as many minutes. Still, I suppose there's a reason these lot are refereeing at this level.. Full Time: Weymouth Reserves 2-1 Wareham Rangers. 3 points lift the Ressies up to 9th in the DPL, although for us the table isn't important. What's important is helping these players develop and feed them into the first-team. And it must be said there's some great young talant in the reserves side which bodes well for the future of our club. All good news after years of turmoil, but maybe I'll tell you that long story another day. Notts County With the Reserves game having been a 2pm kick off, on my way home I checked our score which was 0-0. Was very sad to hear of Bialkowski's injury though. I think I speak for all Notts County fans when I say that he's proved a lot of people wrong so far this season. When his signing was announced in the summer, a large section of supporters dismissed Bart as "****" on one youtube clip from his now infamous appearance for Southampton against Blackpool last season in which he had an absolute stinker. But everyone has bad days and I was all for giving the guy a chance. He's since proved himself to be argubly one of the best keepers we've had at Meadow Lane in many years, producing a string of fine performances that have earned us plenty of points so far this season. His heroic stand against Swindon Town at Meadow Lane in November was probably the easist Man of The Match award to be given at Meadow Lane for years! Fabien Speiss came on to replace Bart and quickly set about showing us just why he's been watched by some of the top premiership clubs. A string of fine saves, and some very good kicking lead to him being unanimously named as Notts' MOTM for the afternoon. He's got a bright future ahead of him, what a great young prospect he is. It proves that Bart certainly has some competition - can 'Polands number one' keep his place? With regards to the result, it was bitterly dissapointing to lose, but the incredible away run off 22 games without defeat under Keith Curle had to end sooner or later. We'll just have to start a new one now! What dissapointed me more than the result though was the reaction of some of our fans. If your reading this, you may have read my rant on one of the forum threads on Saturday evening, so I wont go into it all again, but the point I'd like to make is that yes - it's always dissapointing to lose a game, but I really do think some of our fans expect too much. It's as if the fact we're not loaded like we thought we were hasn't sunk in with some and they expect us to carry on sacking managers whenever we hit a bad patch of form and sign 30 goal-a-season strikers. We cant do that. How people can be calling for Curle's head is beyond me. I'll be the first to admit I was completely mystified at his appointment but he's certainly proved me wrong and I for one am fully supportive of the guy. At the end of the day, we dont have a divine right to win anything. What do we do if we sack Curle? Who could be realistically afford to bring in? Who in their right mind would want the hottest seat in football? And if we found someone who we could afford and was mad enough to take the job on what would happen? We'd enjoy the honeymoon period, then sack him once we hit some bad form and start the cycle all over again. We're not a rich club. We need stability. Jimmy Sirrel didnt achieve success constantly during his time at Meadow Lane, but we stuck by him and look what he did for our club. Brian Clough took over at Derby, and actually took them to a finish of one place lower in his first full season, but they stood by their man and the rest is history. It's a shame there's no patience in football anymore, with everyone demanding instant success. FA Cup A rather sore subject still after our exit to Rotherham, but I still want to mention this weekends Cup action. Anyone who feels that the FA Cup has lost its magic need look no further than this weekend's action. Millwall, Leeds United and Oldham Athletic all beat Premiership opposition as did Luton Town. The Hatters have had a well documented tirbulant few years, and they deserve more coverage for their win at Norwich than they got. It was the first time EVER that a Premiership club had been knocked out by a non-league side. The last top division side to fall to non-league opposition was Coventry City at Sutton in 1989. Their reward - a home tie with Millall. That could be carnage! Also, Brentford managed to hold the European Champions Chelsea to a 2-2 draw at Grifiin Park, and they get another crack at Stamford Bridge. The winner of that tie goes to middlesbrough in round 5. Next Game Well the Magpies next game should be away to Portsmouth tommorow night, but I'd be surprised if its on with the forecast being for torrential rain in Portsmouth all day tommorow. I pray they have an inspection and call it off nice an early (it seems likely to be the case). If I have to get there to find its been called off again someone somewhere at the Football League or FA or whoever it is that sorts match officials out will be recieving a strongly worded letter! IF, however the game goes ahead, its simply a must win game for Notts. The next two away games are Portsmouth then Hartlepool, so anything less than 6 points would be pretty bad. I kind of feel sorry for the players in that they're basically in a no win situation this week. They're expected to win both games, but if we dont, "the usual suspects will be out to complain" in the words of Captain Neal Bishop. He's not wrong, always the same people. As ever I'm confident we can get the win and get our play-off push back on track. Fingers crossed tommorow night's game at Fratton Park is on, but I'm not feeling too optomistic about that. If you've somehow managed to keep yourself awake to read through this whole blog i salute you! COYP

Good read mate, glad your two little'uns enjoy going to games, glad you all wrapped up warm though, bet it was freezing!

Notts picked up their first win of the New Year last night with a 1-0 victory at home to free-falling oldham Athletic, to move up to 12th in the table. When the line-up was announced around an hour before kick-off, it's fair to say there were some mixed opinions regarding Enoch Showumni being given a chance to impress up front, although it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise with Zoko being suspended. I was somewhat dissapointed to read so many negative comments about the guy prior to the match, with few people giving him any hope of making an impact. I said on Twitter that I hoped he'd score to silence some of the doubters - he does after all, wear the famous black and white shirt, so we should be behind him! So what happened? He went and got his first goal for the club on 35 minutes. In my opinion, this was one of the best worked goals from Notts we've seen this season. Boucaud and Campbell-Ryce combined to set up Enoch for a tap-in. A goal is a goal, it gets a money off his back, and I really wouldnt be surprised to see him go and grab a few more now. We certainly need him to! The first half, Colin Slater described as some of the best football Notts had played this season, and for once I felt rather calm listening to the game, although the longer we went without scoring the more I began to wonder about it coming back to bite us on the backside, so it was a relief as much as anything when we got that first goal. Second half sounded somewhat scrappy. Oldham appeared to play with a bit of tempo (I reitterate the phrase "a bit") which had been absent from their first half performance. The latics came close to an equaliser middway through the second half when Matt Smith saw his shot cleared off the line by Gary Liddle. At this point, my commentary actually cut out briefly, and when it came back on the first words I heard were "equaliser for the visitors", by heart sank. Thankfully, Dean Yates went on to say what a brilliant clearence off the line it was by Liddle. To me, it felt like a second goal - phew! The longer the second half went on the more nervous I became listening on Magpie Player, and you could sense the tension around Meadow Lane aswel but oldham failed to ever really test Bart Bialkowski and on the whole the Magpies deserves the 3 points. I must mention the 80 Oldham fans who made the trip aswel. They were not exacly vocal, and it's easy to dismiss their support as "crap", but credit to those who did make that journey, at this time of the year, in this weather with their team in their current poor form - dedication of the highest order. Something else that will have gave many home fans something to smile about was the presence of Lee Hughes at Meadow Lane. I suppose it shouldnt really be much of a surprise given that he played for Oldham prior to his time at Notts. Still, it was great to see him there with that big smile. I think we'll see plenty of more of Lee at the Lane in the years to come. It seems that the club found a place in his heart just as he did in the fans'. Hopefully his presence will put to bed rumours of a bust up with Keith Curle which led to his departure or any ill feeling towards the club. If that was the case he wouldn't have been allowed pitchside. So on the whole then a succesfull night for the Magpies. An important 3 points, a first win since November and perhaps more importantly a win on home soil. After the weekend's game with Sheffield United I said we needed to use that result as a springboard to get back to winning ways and get some confidence back into the side, and I suppose, get a feel-good factor back into the fans again. We've started doing that. We're 6 points off the play-offs, with 2 games in hand and plenty of winnable games coming up. I think we can soon get back up into the mix if we can string some results together. We havent yet won 3 games in a row this season, now would be a good time to change that statistic. But lets not get carried away and take things a game at a time. Russel Slade's Leyton Orient are next on the agenda. A game against a Russel Slade side is never easy, but Orient - like ourselves have been pretty inconsistant this season. It took them weeks to get their first win of the season, then they went and won 8 in a row; It really is a funny old game... Still, as ever, I'm confident the lads can go there and get 3 points. COME ON YOU PIES

Are there many worse feelings than waking up to the news that your match is off? Whilst Weymouth's grudge match with Frome Town in the Southern League being postponed due to a frozen pitch was hardly a big surprise, it was still dissapointing after spending half the week looking forward to it. Whilst that wasen't surprising, the news that the Magpies home clash with Sheffield United WOULD go ahead was certainly a surprise. Massive credit has to go to the groundstaff of both Notts County and Nottingham Rugby, along with the countless volunteers for their hard work, particularly on Friday and Saturday morning. They did the club proud, and certainly proved a lot of people wrong! I wonder if they were wondering why they bothered after seeing Notts fall behind just two minutes into the game against an out-of-form Sheffield United side. Listening to Colin Slater and Dean Yates commentary on Magpie Player certainly wasen't a pleasent experience for the first ten minutes of the game, with Notts seemingly struggling to get the ball out of their own half. And just when the home side were beggining to find their feet and come into the game a bit, we recieved a second sucker punch when Francois Zoko got himself sent off. Initially he was given a yellow card for a foul, but he took his protests too far and was then sent off. Some Notts supporters defended Francois claiming it was never a foul in the first place. Having seen it a couple of times now I think it's one of those things whereby we've seen them given, and we've seen them not given. Either way, Zoko should know better than to continue his protests in the manner he did. I for one have never seen an official change his mind on a players word. Manager keith Curle certainly didnt seem pleased with his front man during his post-match interview, and told Radio Nottingham that he would be taking disciplinary action. It must be said that Notts' disciplinary record this season is a cause for concern - SIX red cards so far this season is unacceptable weather they were all the right decision from the official or not. Having conceeded such an early goal, and being reduced to ten men it would have been easy for the Notts lads to buckle and think it was going to be another one of those days, but to their credit they kept fighting and once we got to half time at 1-0, I still felt we had a chance of nicking something from the game. The second half certainly sounded like a tense affair, the next goal was crucial. When the second goal of the game did come ten minutes from time, it fell for ten man Notts. Alan Judge heading home from Sheehan's free kick, sending the Meadow Lane faithful wild; and me in my front room slightly more mad! I should probably apologise to the neighbours for the noise when we got that equaliser. A point in the circumstances was an excellent result although we had our chances to win the game! Its been no secret that our home form has held us back dramatically this season, but hopefully that battling point against a promotion contender could be the springboard for us to turn the home form around. If Tuesday night's match at home to Oldham Athletic goes ahead, it's certainly a must win game. Their FA Cup 3rd Round victory over the river has papered over the cracks at Boundary Park, with the team falling down the league table. Their latest set-back was yesterday's 2-1 defeat at Coventry City. Despite equalising on 89 minutes, they went and lost it on 95 minutes! I like to remain as positive as possible, and I'm confident that if the match goes ahead we can get the 3 points. Yesterday's result will no doubt give the lads a lot of self-belief which seems to have been missing in recent weeks. We know from earlier in the season what this team is capable of, lets get back on form and start moving up the table. COME ON YOU PIES

Our two clubs couldnt have been furtner apart 5 years ago, we were struggling at the wrong end of league 2 while they were more than competetive in the premier league. Such a shame whats happened to Pompey, they're a magnifficent club. I hope they can sort themselves out, but come 3pm on Saturday I'll have no sympathy! Great feature this, as Steve says above me, keep it up!