Chelmsford City Away

What with the season drawing to a close, and City looking comfortably secure in their midtable obscurity, the question has to be asked could anyone be arsed travelling across the country to Essex, to watch the stripes take on Chelmsford?

Surprisingly the answer was yes, as it’s a Saturday so what else will you do? It also gave me a convenient excuse to travel to London to see my mates who live there now. So I travelled over on the Friday, and spent an enjoyable evening in The Bricklayers Arms, Putney (a pub I cannot recommend highly enough) before getting up Saturday morning to head into the heart of Essex.

A quick tube to London Liverpool Street, a pasty, then onto the quick train to Chelmsford, before stepping into the sunshine just past 1pm, to see the living stereotypes of Essex girls, all fake tan, fake tits, fake eyelashes and bleached blonde hair, proving the point that stereotypes while not always true do have a grain of truth to them (currently as I am in the West Country I am drinking cider and eating cheddar…this may not be true)

 Chelmsford City, currently play at an athletics ground called Melbourne Stadium, that is on the outskirts of Chelmsford, we wandered there via a massive 1950’s suburban housing estate, that I am sure formed the basis of modern urban dystopian stories. The rabbit warren nature of the estate necessitated much use of smart phone map technology as we struggled to find our way there.

As an aside on Chelmsford City, they have a more unusual story on their foundation, while lots of clubs were formed as works teams, or church teams (Manchester City are one formed via that route) Chelmsford City though are the continuation of Chelmsford FC who were founded by the Chelmsford lawn tennis and croquet club in 1878, lawn tennis and croquet being posher than the usual miners/mill workers!

On finding the ground, we went to the nearest pub, which was the Red Beret, the pub was a modern, purpose built pub, and in actuality while not being the best it was much better than the exterior suggested, however, with no ale on tap I had my first pints of Guinness in many a year.

On exiting the pub, we walked the short distance to the ground, and paid the £11.50 entrance fee (why the 50p? every other club is round pounds) squeezed through the turnstile and was asked to vote for player of the year before he spotted my City pin badge.

The ground is as to be expected, pretty crap, but then athletic stadiums are made for athletics not football. There are a couple of temporary stands on the edge of pitch inside the running track, a seated stand down one side which is the running track distance away, then the main stand which has the sandpit as well, and is miles away from the pitch. The main problem with football in athletic grounds is the distance from the pitch, and the fact that they look so disjointed as nothing within the ground merges, so it doesn’t feel like a football ground.

Chelmsford do though, have an amazing little club shop that is in a shed! Literally, your off the shelf, B&Q standard shed, which now finds life selling claret shirts and scarves, however, given that Twerton Park doesn’t have a club shop, who am I to mock?

Sheddy club shop delight

Despite the dead rubber nature of the game, a surprisingly large number of City fans had made their way to Chelmsford, and watched the same side (minus the ill Preece with Allen taking his place) that started against Salisbury take the field.

City started quite well against a Chelmsford team who were massive fans of the long ball, and had a few good crossing opportunities, which were either marginally overhit or that Griffin headed over the bar when he did connect.

That said the Clarets were making the City defence deal with some pressure as well, and there were a few heart in mouth moments, with Mellor forced to pull off a couple of saves, one that only just went wide after his touch.

From a corner Griffin almost smuggled the ball home, this was despite the fact Stuart Searle was clearly fouling the Bath born forward by pulling his shirt and generally fouling the front man, this was seized upon as a sign the keeper didn’t like the pressure, and from subsequent corners Gethin Jones surrounded the keeper, and it was nice to see footballers thinking and taking advantage of a weakness in the opposition team.

Gethin almost scored soon after from an Aaron Brown free kick, and both the long serving centre back and fans could not work out how the ball had not gone in from his header.

Soon after the Chelmsford fans and players were even more perplexed as to how they had not taken the lead, when a cross from Cook was met powerfully at close range by Slabber, the ball cannoned against the crossbar, down onto what I can only assume was the line, before up into Mellor’s hands. A mightily close shave for City.

Look how far from the pitch the stand is

Neither side managed to score and the half time interval arrived with the score at 0-0.

The stripes broke the deadlock soon after half time with the easiest goal they have scored in years, Sekani Simpson took a quick throw down the line to Josh Low that took the whole Chelmsford defence by surprise, Low took two touches before floating over a delicious cross, which Griffin despite the close attention of two defenders expertly headed back across Searle into the net. One nil to the stripes and Chelmsford were furious with themselves.

Chelmsford then brought on a centre forward who was taller than Peter Crouch, and resorted even more to the long ball, but City were weathering the onslaught well, although did settle into their annoying habit of sitting back a touch too deep, inviting pressure on themselves.

Nevertheless, it was Bath City who came the closest to scoring again, Noah Keats, easily my pick for player of the season, burst forward showing the drive and tenacity that has been the hall mark of his game, he kept coming and defenders kept backing off him, until he was in the area, it seemed to open up for the shot, but for some reason he opted not to shoot and tried to play a square ball into substitute Marc Canham’s pass, the ball sadly was behind Canham and the chance was lost. It is an increasingly frustrating habit of some of City’s midfield to refuse the opportunity to have a shot when in the area, but it wasn’t to matter as the whistle was blown and City had beaten play off chasing Chelmsford and secured themselves (baring a whole host of unlikely results) Conference South football for next season.

The 6^th game unbeaten was celebrated in The Railway Tavern, a much better pub than The Red Beret, which had a good array of beers on, and some superb railway memorabilia on the walls that a certain missing stripe would have enjoyed. A surprisingly enjoyable away day was had, and if they don’t get promoted one I will probably do next season. UTC.