Some late eighties vintage Iron Maiden (head) tuneage for the title for this piece. It comes from the album, ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son,’ which is kind of doubly appropriate as this marks the seventh game of the seventh managerial appointment under WAGMI.
It is a break from the league action after another disappointing loss away to Northampton Town last weekend, saw us mired in the relegation zone. It is FA Cup first round action and an away trip to National League Maidenhead United. A return to Berkshire two weeks after the previous disappointing visit for the 4-1 loss to Reading.
Reggie the Red was spotted in Redz bar on Thursday night. So, still not actually in the ground then. Some of the players were in attendance in Halloween fancy. None of them looked half as scary as our defence does.
Maidenhead have one of the longest FA Cup histories of all clubs, with them being one of the fifteen clubs to take place in the first ever FA Cup in the 1871-72 season. They were quarter finalists in the next three seasons’ competitions.
It was pointed out by Mick Fox (from a club historian Tony Pope reminder) that we have played Maidenhead United before, back in the 1968/69 season in the Premier Midweek Floodlight League where we played them twice and won 2-0 home and away.
Their ground, York Road is acknowledged by The FA and FIFA to be the oldest continuously used senior association football ground in the world by the same club, and it has been home to the club since 1871. A blue plaque commemorating this is placed just inside the home turnstiles on the York Road side of the ground.
It was also pointed out by someone that their manager is Alan Devonshire, the former England and West Ham player, and another who was captured on a Topps football card in the seventies.
We left Crawley early to get up to Maidenhead in time for brunch and a chance to look around. It also meant my first trip on the Elizabeth line, which as a bit of a tube geek is a lot later than it should have been.
Coming up to Maidenhead, the train goes over the Maidenhead Railway Bridge, also known as Maidenhead Viaduct and The Sounding Arch, which spans the River Thames. It is a masterpiece of early Victorian engineering, specifically that of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and when it was built (completed 1838, opened 1839), the two elliptical brick arches were the widest and flattest in the world. The bridge was immortalised in JMW Turner’s painting, ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway’ which hangs in the National Gallery.
Both Helen and I walked under this bridge back in 2012 when we were doing the Thames Path Challenge for charity, walking the 50k from Runnymede to Henley (along with hundreds of others) for Marie Curie. We didn’t really have time to stop and take pictures or test out the echoes under the sounding arch back then. Standing under it, there is an amazing echo. I clapped, there was a second’s pause before what sounded like a rifle retort came back at me.
Overall Maidenhead is a strange place, it has some lovely old buildings, but looking at some of the pictures in its heritage centre it looks as if they just demolished most of the town centre and rebuilt it in drab concrete in the nineties and noughties.
Maidenhead do do programmes, just not for sale at the ground on the day, you have the download option, or you can order a physical one to be printed and delivered to your home address, and I went for the latter because I hate downloads and reading stuff online, which is somewhat ironic seeing as I write and publish loads of stuff online myself.
The seats in the stand are obviously open to all for normal games. A bit of hazard tape and a couple of plastic barriers mark the separation requirement for the FA Cup game, and it is hilariously causing mayhem for the home fans who usually sit where the away fans have been allocated. They keep wandering past the front, finding the way blocked and then stand looking confused at the seats they normally sit.
Crawley are in all red apart from the white/grey socks of the away kit, so they don’t clash with Maidenhead’s red socks they have with the black and white shirts and black shorts.
We don’t start well and should be behind a minute in. A ball played to the left finds Maidenhead attacker with no one within ten yards of him, but fortunately he puts it wide.
There is a lot of possession, but it is so slow and ponderous. We are just not getting the ball forward. It is like there is a forcefield at the halfway line repelling us there and making us turn and pass it backwards.
It takes a while, but we do get the ball forward a couple of times. Yet the final ball is to the invisible man or too strong and out of play. And again, Jack Roles down the right and into the box, he plays it to Panutche Camara on the penalty spot only for him to completely fluff the attempted shot.
Nearly half an hour has gone when we get our first corner. The cross is cleared, played back in and a header on target is caught and carried out for a corner. Cleared again, but Jeremy Kelly picks it up and his cross is deflected for another corner. It is played short to Kelly, and he plays a ball in towards Cameron Bragg who goes down in the box, appeals for a penalty are ignored, and their keeper is down pretending to be injured.
There are two added minutes at the end of the half, enough time for a Maidenhead corner which comes to nothing, and the half time whistle goes with the score Maidenhead 0, Crawley lucky to get 0.
Half time sees the mass migration of home fans from one end of the pitch to the other and closer to our fans. Who they enjoy barracking all through the second half and beyond.
We start the second half more brightly, getting a couple of corners from attacks down the left. There are no shots forthcoming though. An attack down the right sees Rushian Hepburn-Murphy win a corner, again no shot. We win a free kick thirty-five yards out. And waste it.
Maidenhead wake up a bit and attack. They have a long throw that bounces around in the box and have a couple of shots blocked. We break and even that is done slowly but win a free kick on the edge of the box after RHM is blocked off. The free kick hits the first man. Then Roles robs a defender twenty-five yards out and runs into the box but at an angle away from goal and his shot from a narrow angle is pushed over the bar for a corner. The keeper makes a hash of claiming it, but the shot (didn’t see who by) is skied.
We make our first substitution with Ade Adeyemo coming on for Kelly. Another corner from a blocked RHM cross is caught easily by the keeper this time.
At the other end, a tackle is made just as a Maidenhead player gets a shot off and goes down. For a second it looks as if the ref is pointing to the spot, but he isn’t, it’s a goal kick.
Joy Mukena steps on the ball towards halfway and Maidenhead are on it in a flash, driving forward and the shot flies into the top corner and we are behind 0-1.
From the restart we work it down the right, lots of passes, and work the ball to Camara, whose shot from twenty-five yards out is wide.
Maidenhead get a corner given which is clearly a goal kick. From it JoJo Wollacott is clobbered collecting the ball and is injured. To the extent he has to be subbed. Fortunately, we have a keeper on the bench for the first time in weeks and Jasper Shiekh is on. We also substitute Benjamin Tanimu and Camara, bringing on Will Swan and Bradley Ibrahim.
So, we have Shiekh and Roles on, we just need someone to give the team a bit of a rattle. And a few minutes later we do just that when Bragg is replaced by Harry Forster. He almost plays Swan in with his first touch, but it just won’t fall for him.
Ibrahim wins the ball in midfield, but the ref gives it as a free kick to Maidenhead. He misses the kick out at Ibrahim by the Maidenhead player and in the melee that follows, Ibrahim, Roles, and a Maidenhead player pick up bookings. Ibrahim and their number nine have to be separated thirty seconds later as they square up again.
There are eight added minutes.
Forster coming on, along with the melee seems to have galvanised us. We get a corner which won’t fall for anyone to get a shot off. Then Roles has a shot blocked. Forster drives down the right and into the box, gets a cross in, the initial shot is blocked on the line but falls to captain for the day Toby Mullarkey to bundle it home and five minutes into added time we are level 1-1.
We break again and Tola Showunmi is pulled back thirty yards out and there is a yellow card for the defender. Roles takes the free kick, and it eludes everyone in the box. Another crude hack down the left brings another Maidenhead booking and another free kick. It hits the first man, and the full-time whistle goes with it 1-1 and extra time is incoming.
It is like the team has remembered they are two divisions above Maidenhead and start ramping up the pressure in the first half of extra time. Roles has a shot wide. RHM shot goes over the bar. Maidenhead have an attack which is cleared over the stand behind the goal for a corner and the only ball loss of the day. Back at the other end determined work from Roles sees the ball played back to RHM whose shot is curled just wide. Adeyemo gets into the box and his cross is fumbled into the net, but the ref blows for a foul on the keeper. Another attack and RHM’s cross is caught by the keeper. Ball in the box again, two blocked shots and the pressure is only alleviated by the award of a dubious free kick to Maidenhead.
Which sets the bloke a couple of seats down from me off again. Somehow, I always get to be sat near the person giving the ref shit through the entire match.
Maidenhead get the first shot of the second half of extra time, just over the bar. A free kick is punched clear by Shiekh. We make a final substitution with Gavan Holihan making way for Max Anderson.
Then with about three minutes left there is a long ball forward, Swan heads it down to Showunmi and his shot from the edge of the area trickles into the bottom corner of the net and we lead 2-1. Which causes a mini fire drill exit from the seated home fans.
We are playing keep ball as far up the pitch as possible, and manage to play the game out through the two added minutes to hear the relief of the full time whistle and a win, and we are through to the draw for round two of the FA Cup, which is being drawn tomorrow evening on BBC2, and we are ball 34.
The crowd was announced as being 1,814, no split of how many away fans, but the stewards on the way in were under the impression we’d sold about 450 tickets, so that plus any last-minute pay on the doors bods.
It’s been a long time, but I was there for a win. This means Grant, you’re the jinx, not me.
Post match it is round the corner from the ground for a curry, and very nice it was too. Followed by the trek home as I typed most of this up on my phone to pass the time. And I get home to find the match day programme has arrived. It’s not bad, quite ad heavy, but does have a piece on the Premier Midweek Floodlit League season 1968-69 mentioned by Mick Fox. I wonder how much the print on demand and post option costs them to do, and if it is something Crawley could do (isn’t it time for issue three of Reds magazine?)
During the day I lost count of the number of times Helen referred to us playing Maidstone and not Maidenhead, but it doesn’t matter who it was (or even the mainly turgid way it was achieved), a win is still a win. Let’s keep that going Tuesday night away at Burton Albion, we can’t afford to lose to teams beneath us in the league.
Come on you reds.