Dorchester Town Story: January 2014

Hello dear friends and welcome to the year 2014, a new year in our club’s history! As you already know my Dorchester Town enjoyed a fantastic December and managed to climb up the table, up to 7th spot just below the play-off positions. We had nothing to celebrate yet though, we still had months of hard work ahead of us and a pretty uncertain future in the Championship.

The first game of the new year was a special one, away at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup. Chelsea obviously were strong favourites to win the game despite sending in quite a few backup youngsters along with star players like Frank Lampard or Joe Cole.

There’s not much to say about the actual game, it was a pretty one-sided affair but we defender with great passion but with some intelligence too. Chelsea dominated the game but we managed to restrict them to only one clear cut chance so we walked away with a draw from Stamford Bridge and earned the right to welcome Chelsea at Avenue Stadium for the replay!

The transfer window was open again and I already agreed to offload two players before the Chelsea game: left winger Jacob Lensky to FC Koln for 190,000 pounds and troublemaker striker Mark Simmons to Birmingham for 750 K. The wage budget was still in red so I was still trying to sell one more player. I didn’t want to sell the likes of Packie Doolin though, I think he’s a great prospect but the board decided to accept an offer from Sunderland!

I resorted to my only chance and offered young Packie a new contract with Dorchester and, to everybody’s surprise, he signed! He won’t be going to Sunderland this time!

I couldn’t afford to sign any new players but I did find a good one on loan. Actually I found him in the cup game against Chelsea, young full back Mark Parker. He played very well against us and I was pleased that he accepted to join Dorchester on loan as I think he will really improve our left flank in defense.

Our first league game of the new year was at home with 8th placed Fulham, a game that was expected to be quite tough. My boys started the game pretty well and found the breakthrough on 19 minutes when Mohammed Tchite showed great vision to pick Mancini‘s run with a good pass behind the defense and the Brazilian winger coolly slotted it home. We kept the game under control until half time but I admit that it was rather boring for the fans. Things were looking more lively after the break and we managed to double the lead nine minutes into the second half when centre back Stefan O’Brien powered in a corner kick header, his first goal of the season. The game was at our mercy but an error in defense let Fulham back in with 10 minutes on the clock. Luckily we managed to stand firm during the last minutes of the game and earned the three points.

I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate though as the board finally succeeded in selling a player against my will right after the game, Middlesbrough made an offer for our young striker Neil Hayter and I was unable to stop them… He was anything else than a first team regular but I was very fond of him because he was the only talented player that ever came through our youth setup since I took charge of the club… Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Moving on to the next game, the FA Cup 3rd round replay against Chelsea. We were playing in front of a capacity crowd at Avenue Stadium but that didn’t impress Chelsea and they didn’t give us too many chances to survive the game. Joe Cole scored the opening goal and then Pato stepped up and netted a brace, we didn’t have enough quality in the squad to reply.

I didn’t expect to beat Chelsea though so I was very happy to collect the new gate receipts record, 110,000 pounds! :)

Back to the Championship, our next game was a tricky one away at Doncaster. The first half was fairly even, the two teams looked like there was no difference between them. Unfortunately there was a difference on the scoreboard at the end of the half as Doncaster took the lead thanks to a beautiful shot from 25 yards out. We tried pretty hard to level the game after the break but our attacks were rather wasteful. Maybe we would have deserved to get a draw but we surely didn’t play well enough to win the game.

We had a perfect chance to get back on track as the last game of the month was at home against bottom of the table Coventry. Things didn’t set out too well though: we wasted a couple of chances early on and then our opponents took the lead on a corner kick! Mohammed Tchite leveled the game for us 10 minutes before the interval and then on-loan striker Liam Parker scored the winning goal 15 minutes from time. We dominated the game and Tchité made the score line more realistic with a last minute goal.

The month was over and we were up in 6th place, we were in a play-off position for the first time since the start of the season!

Young centre back Stefan O’Brien impressed me this month, he had the chance to step up and replace injured Fabricio Coloccini and he played very well. I hope that he will finally start to fulfill his potential.

Next month will see us playing five games and two of them will be important clashes with promotion contenders Derby and Swansea.

I don’t know if we can hand on to that play-off spot but I have to admit that it feels quite nice to be sixth in the Championship at the end of January :) Thanks a lot for reading and for your continuous support.