Cambridge United: March 2011

Hello friends and welcome back to my Football Manager Story. We left of last time with Cambridge making a charge for the BSP title and a potential Wembley final if we can beat one of my old clubs Wrexham in the FA Trophy. Lets see how the month played out….

The first game of the month was away to 23^rd place Kidderminster who got off to a dream start scoring before I even managed to sit down in the technical area sending their home fans into wild celebrations. Kidderminster were giving it a real go in their fight for BSP survival but finally we began to settle caught them on the counter attack and a low driving cross by Fofana deflected off a Kidderminster defender and it was 1-1. Early in the second half a similar breakaway down the left, a similar cross by Fofana but this time Chamberlain was there to drive into the net from 8 yards out. The home side were not giving up though and launched a series of attacks keeping us in a defensive mode for some time but we finally broke free and a long ball out of defence found Chamberlain who sprinted into the 18 yard area, squared the ball to Fofana and the big Ivorian made no mistake and it was 3-1. We controlled the game for the last 20 minutes without incident to come away with all three points.

Our following game was at home to promotion hopefuls Newport County who lined up in a very attacking formation in an effort to keep us busy in our own half. The strategy failed to work at least for the opening half an hour as ML Andrew Spencer gave us the lead with a delicate glancing header off a Stuart O’Keefe free kick after 20 minutes and three minutes later a toe punted ball into the box by O’Keefe found Danny Wright to drill it past the Newport keeper.  From there on though it was all Newport for the best part on the next 60 minutes pulling a goal back on the stroke of half time. They were doing a great job of keeping N’Goma quiet until he finally managed to break away with his speed being too much for the tiring Newport defenders and his final ball into the box found Wright who said “thank you very much” and it was 3-1 and another check mark in the win column.

Next up was our FA Trophy semi –final 1^st leg away to Wrexham. I was expecting a hard fought battle with Wembley as the prize and sure enough it was with the conflict happening for the most part in the midfield. Danny Wright gave us the lead after 30 minutes finishing off a great run by N’Goma who had eventually laid the ball into the path of Wright to fire home. Wrexham though staged a well worked equalizer some 10 minutes later but from that moment until the final whistle the game fizzled out for a bore draw.

It was back to BSP action and a long trip to Cumbria to face Barrow. Connor Henderson out on the left flank gave the Barrow back four plenty to think about in the opening 15 minutes but it was the home side who took the lead heading in off a set piece. Try as we might we could not recover and Barrow defended courageously seemingly having a 12^th man in defence. Trailing by a single goal we poured on the pressure in the second half and found the equalizer through MR Robbie Willmott with a spectacular curling shot into the roof of the net from just outside the box. Barrow fought back but we held firm and deep into injury time we forced a corner that Traore headed back across the box and Chamberlain was there to force the ball over the line for the winning goal. Barrow really deserved a point from this though I was very proud of the lads’ comeback victory.

The following game was the second leg of the FA Trophy final against Wrexham at the Abbey Stadium. With the first game ending in a 1-1 draw there was still much to play for in order to reach the Wembley Final. The first half was very much an even contest with both teams creating chances but it was N’Goma who broke the deadlock with a powerful shot from 18 yards out after some intricate passing through the middle found him totally unmarked and Wrexham paid the price. A fired up N’Goma came out for the second half and doubled the lead picking up the ball just inside the Wrexham half with his speed leaving 4 Wrexham players for dead and burying the ball into the right hand corner of the Wrexham goal. Partner Danny Wright added a third with a sweeping shot in the 72^nd minute before the visitors got a deserved goal three minutes later. However it was all they could muster and we will be on our way to London for the final to the delight of the 4,000 fans on hand to join in the celebrations.

We stayed at home for the visit of Grimsby in our next BSP encounter. Elliott Chamberlain got us off to a flying start scoring after just five minutes being first to react to a penetrating ball into the box by Shane Williams. Grimsby attempted to get back into the game but Dominic Shimmin who was returning from a long injury put in a stellar performance at right back thwarting any Grimsby challenges.  Seven minutes from the interval MR Stuart O’Keefe found Chamberlain unmarked in the box and the young Welshman easily added his second of the game. Just after the hour mark Fofana showed great vision after a fantastic run down the left flank picking out Chamberlain who struck the ball first time into the net to complete his hat trick and an absolutely stupendous performance.

Before our final game of the month we were dealt a bitter injury blow as our star keeper Dean Bouzanis broke his finger in training and will be out for the rest of the season. To add to this our other keeper Conor Devlin was away on international duty with Northern Ireland.

As match day arrived it was veteran Simon Brown who found himself between the sticks for only the second time this season to face the visitors Southport who sensed a massive opportunity and kept us under pressure for the opening 12 minutes until Karl Moore broke on the counter attack and was supported by Elliott Chamberlain who turned the ball into the net from Moore’s pass. Three minutes later Moore took off again down the left this time turning inside and sliding the ball through to N’Goma who buried the ball into the back of the net. Moore was far from finished having a shot of his own pushed away by the Southport keeper straight into the path of Williams….3-0. If all that effort wasn’t effort a free kick by Moore picked out Scott Wootten whose powerful header flew past the now demoralized Southport keeper for goal number four to cap an amazing first half. With the expectation of a massive victory looming the second half was like a really bad movie that you couldn’t wait to be over and we allowed Southport a late consolation goal though the three points had been won a good hour earlier in the game.

Following the game the news came through that the victory was enough to secure the Blue Square Premier title and we were on our way to League 2 sparking wild celebrations in and around The Abbey Stadium.

The board immediately issued a statement….

Results Summary

League Table

We won the title with six games to spare and have already broken the 100 point barrier, sitting a  comfortbale 18 points clear of Luton which I just find simply astonishing and is all due to the speed and finishing of Dorian N’Goma and of late the talents of Elliott Chamberlain who unsuprisingly are in my top five players seen below.

Fixtures

So, we have six league games and a Wembley final to look forward to next month though as the title is already won my «season finale» post will most likely be a lot shorter and will probably just feature the match report from the FA Trophy Final.

Thanks very much for reading and have a great day!!

PS:  My next post will be from my MLS Experiment saved game featuring Toronto FC.