Dorchester Town Story: The League One Debut

Hello folks, welcome back to the exciting Dorchester Town FM 2010 story! The transfers were made, several players left the club and more players and staff joined us at the Avenue Stadium during the summer transfer window, now it was time to finally face the real deal, the League One matches! Let’s see what happened in our first month as a League One team.

Our first game was quite a tough one, we had to face promotion contenders Preston away from home. They were predicted to finish sixth and they surely proved why as we started the game well and showed a couple of good attacks but it was Preston who scored the very first time they came forward. Five minutes later our opponents doubled their lead with a corner kick header, League One was looking a bit too tough for us at that point. My players reacted pretty well though, the team started pushing forward and we managed to claw one back 15 minutes before half time through right winger Tiberiu Paduraru (click on player’s name to view his profile). We resumed our attacking display after the interval but Preston were defending very well and also looked quite threatening on counter attacks. Time was running out on our hopes of a good debut but Preston‘s keeper felt bad about us so he gifted striker Michael Garrity a golden opportunity by coming out of the box to intercept the ball and missing it completely. Garrity kept cool and slotted the ball home for a late equalizer, I was pleased with the fightback. Unfortunately the physio had bad news for me at the end of the game, Barbero was going to be out for three weeks while Koroma was going to be sidelined for a month.

Our next game was the Carling Cup clash with fellow League One side Colchester. They were freshly relegated from the Championship so they were considered as strong promotion contenders in the league but I was hoping for a good display in front of our own fans. The team played pretty well during the first half, we dominated the game and finally managed to convert that into a goal just before the break when Simon Ferry showed good awareness to push in a parried shot. The second half was like a dream for us… First left winger Matt Richards curled in a beautiful free kick shots from 20 yards out, the ball went past the keeper and in off the post. Then Szymon Kazmierowski netted his first goal of the season from inside the box and Aleksandar Mladenov came off the bench to complete the rout with a placed finish. You can’t imagine how happy I was to see the team playing so well, pre-season was pretty tense and I was finally having reasons to rejoice. It was too early to celebrate though, we had to confirm this performance in the following matches.

We had another home game coming up, this time in League One, Bournemouth were coming to pay us a visit. They were predicted to finish 19th so not too far above our predicted 24th :) The game didn’t start too well for us though, Bournemouth had a good chance to score an early goal but our young goalkeeper Gabriel Nicolau pulled off a great save. Then the lads got going and Jonathan Obika rounded off a team move to score his first goal for the club in the 25th minute. His good movement off the pall paid off again 11 minutes later, he coolly slotted the ball home from inside the box. Unfortunately we were caught napping on a counter attack and Bournemouth clawed one back just two minutes later. We missed another couple of chances until half time but Michael Garrity restored our two goal lead just after the interval by pushing in a good assist from Obika. We were playing very well, creating (and missing) lots of chances until centre back Tom Thorpe settled the score with a corner kick header. I was quite pleased with the amount of chances that we created, the team was looking determined to succeed.

The next game was expected to be a lot tougher, away at promotion contenders Colchester. We just beat them 4-0 at home in the Carling Cup but I was fearing their desire for revenge… In fact, we found ourselves under pressure right away but managed to withstand it somehow and take the lead 23 minutes into the game thanks to a great pass from Obika and a good finish from Revy Rosalia. Then we defended pretty well with a bit of luck too as Colchester hit the crossbar a few minutes later. I was hoping to keep the lead until half time but the pressure was too high and Colchester netted the equalizer during stoppage time. We started the second half with a slightly better attacking attitude and that eventually showed its fruits as young striker Peter Singh showed good personality in skipping past his marker and powering the ball home from just inside the area. Our joy was short lived though, my centre backs lost one of Colchester‘s strikers on a quick move and it was all square. We were under a great deal of pressure again but goalkeeper Nicolau did very well again to keep us in the game. Colchester were knocking on our door but it was us who opened theirs in the end, captain Ryan Carolan banged in a corner kick header 4 minutes from time! You could say that we stole this win, Colchester had quite a few chances but we survived and won it somehow.

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

Our last league game of the month was at home with MK Dons, a team that was predicted to finish 18th. We got off to a great start this time, Jonathan Obika managed to get on the score sheet again nine minutes into the game with a placed finish from inside the area. Around 20 minutes later Romanian centre back Alin Ratiu scored his first goal for the club with a corner kick header and we controlled the game until half time. Things were fairly quiet after the interval, we were keeping possession but not doing much with it in attack. Our opponents managed to score a late corner kick goal but the three points were ours!

A draw and three straight wins, it was certainly a lot more than I would have expected. I can only hope that we’ll keep this sort of for although I am quite sure that we will not be able to keep going like this all season long.

We had another game to play before the end of the month, the Carling Cup second round game against Premier League team Stoke. We were totally up against it and I have to say that I was fearing a good beating after I saw that Stoke had a certain Didier Drogba in their starting line up. The Ivorian is 34 years old in the game but he still has tremendous physical and technical attributes. Anyway, Stoke did outplay us in front of their own fans but we defended pretty well throughout the game. Drogba made the difference with a powerful header, my centre backs were unable to mark him because of his tremendous strength. We tried a reaction in the second half but my players were too slow to cause any damage. However, I congratulated them for the effort, a narrow defeat is a good result under the circumstances.

Unfortunately our best player of the month, striker Jonathan Obika, got injured during the Stoke game and it’s quite a bad injury that will keep him sidelined between four and five months! That’s a big blow for us but hopefully Omar Koroma will recover from his own injury and make us forget all about Obika…

Jonathan did very well so far, scored three times in four competitive appearances and also made two assists. He also netted a hat-trick in the first friendly game of the summer so I guess the good signs were there from the beginning.

We’ll have two interesting games next month, first against fellow newly-promoted side Exeter and the last game against my old acquaintances from Notts County…

That’s how it was my friends, I couldn’t have wished for a better start. Well, I would have spared all those injuries in my dream-start but I guess we’re doing well overall. Thanks for reading ;)