retired_taja

Tuesday 15th August 2006

York City 2 vs 1 Exeter City(Conference - Game 2)

Being a favourite on the road away from home is never easy. Actually probably being the favourite at home is tougher. Today though we were away to York City and we were favourites. So the fans back home were pretty much expecting a good result and three points. Well, so was I yet I knew how football went. You win some and you lose some. It just depends on how you go on the day. I decided to stick with the same line up I had against Woking. A winning line up is a good line up I always said. However, it wasn’t looking like it would be our day on this day. We were on the back foot from the beginning and went down a goal in the 27th minute when Paul Conway found an opening in our defence and easily slotted it past a helpless Paul Jones. Things got worse in the 42nd, when striker Jamie Mackie went down injured and had to be substituted. So I threw Richard Logan into the attack. Dean Moxey wasn’t at his best either, getting himself booked finally in the 45th after spending the whole half arguing the refs every decision. We went in at half time 1 goal down and the guys knew I wasn’t happy. Moxey came off straight away, and Billy Jones started the second half. It didn’t take long for things to become even more disastrous. In the 52nd minute, loanee Keith Barker had to be subbed off with an injury also. This was not looking to be my night. In the 62nd we gave away a silly free kick just outside our penalty area and Conway grabbed his second before substitute Bertrand Cozic who had come on in place of Keith Barker, also went down and had to be stretchered off in the 74th minute. We would now play the last quarter of an hour with 10 men but not as a result of a send off. Our subs had been used up and I was regretting subbing off Moxey at half time. Despite the setbacks, we did grab a consolation goal. Andy Taylor moving in from the right wing to finish off a cross from Challinor in the 90th minute. But there just wasn’t enough time.

Exeter Goals: Andy Taylor – 90’
Exeter Cautions: Dean Moxey, Steven Hunt
Exeter Send offs: None

Man of the match: Paul Conway (York)

retired_taja

Waiting for the doctors diagnosis’ was not an easy task hearing the results was even worse in this case. Cozic tore his calf muscle and would be out for 3 to 5 months, Mackie would be out for 2 months after spraining his ankle and Barker’s injury turned out to only be a dead leg and he would only be out for a week.

It didn’t take long for the players to find some way to criticise me. The day after the game, The local paper had the back page devoted to me. Never mind the result. They were more interested in the fact that we had three injuries and were down to 10 men for 15 minutes as a result of not having any more subs left. The photo was of me on the touchline in York giving orders to my players. Inset was a photo of me walking out of Warehouse and Boxes. The headline read “Too drunk to concentrate”. I threw the paper into my cupboard where it would eventually stay for quite some time before I would eventually take it out and cut the page out and put it into my scrap book as a memory.

retired_taja

Saturday 19th August 2006

Exeter City vs Morecambe (Conference – Game 3)

Despite the loss to York, the media still felt we were able to win this one. Even with the injured players not in the line up. After the media had approached me following the loss to York, asking if Phillips would be the one to cover for the injured Mackie, I had responded saying that there were several strikers that could, not really confident of Phillips’ game. Well he sure wanted to prove me wrong. I had decided to start him and it turned out to be a great decision. In only the 3rd minute, Phillips got the ball in the middle of the park and took on 2 defenders before sending a 25 yard strike past Morecambe’s Steven Drench to give us an early lead. The lead didn’t hold though, with the away side finding a scrappy goal mouth scuffle goal off a corner in the 31st. Poor defence once again lead to the 2nd goal 3 minutes before the break, and I was beginning to feel uneasy in my seat. We had started the game off with a bang. Controlled the ball for 80% of the match so far, yet we were down 2 goals to 1. What had gone so wrong? We went into half time down by a goal for the second game in a row and once again I let the lads know my anger. They were playing like a bunch of donkeys in defence. They needed to clear the ball as quickly as they could, but they weren’t doing it! My half time anger didn’t mean a thing to the guys obviously because 5 minutes from the restart, Morecambe found a third. It didn’t help either when Hunt decided to play a 40 yard pass back to Paul Jones in the 85th and Jones who was in la la land watched the ball roll into the back of our net. I had had enough. I left the bench and went into the sheds. I couldn’t watch another minute. It had been an embarrassment. We had lost the match 4-1. Was this to be a sign of things to come.

Exeter Goals: Lee Phillips – 3’
Exeter Cautions: None
Exeter Send offs: None

Man of the match: Craig Stanley (Morecambe)

retired_taja

Of course the board were disappointed. I couldn’t blame them. An almost perfect pre season. An excellent first game and then...2 embarrassing defeats. And embarrassing is being nice! We were supposed to be second favourites for the conference this season. The way the last two games went, we would have been lucky to avoid relegation.

I was so furious that I decided to look up some of the players left on the lists from the previous scouts. However, in order to afford the wages of these new players, I had to release a few. The clearout started this week with Patrick Ada, Neil Martin and Chris Wright.

knowing we didn’t have the funds to buy players, I would only be able to go for players on free transfers. Lucky for me, a few of the players on the lists I had still were available for free. So I began making calls.

I made numerous phone calls, after watching some of the videos the scouts left behind when they left. The following players were the only ones who decided they wanted a contract offer. I had no time for trials. I decided I would practically go in blindfolded as they say.

* Scott Gallacher – Scottish – 17yrs – GK – product of the Rangers youth academy
* Robert Munroe – Australian/Italian – 25yrs – AM R –
* David McGeown – Scottish – 22 yrs – MC – played 2 games for Hearts and 7 for Stirling
* Michael Buhagiar – New Zealand/’Malta – 20 yrs – SW, DC
* Michael Panopoulos – Australia/Greece – 29 yrs – M RC – best known for his years with Portsmouth in the Championship(old 1st division)
* Michael Terrell – English – 18 yrs – M LC – product of the Newcastle United youth academy
* Jamie Ness – Scottish – 16 yrs – M RLC

The lads knew not to **** me off that week. I was fuming all week. I gave them tough training after tough training. They ran their butts off.

Within days of the phone calls, Terrell, Mcgeown, Panopoulos, Gallacher, Munroe, and Buhaglar had accepted the contract offers and signed them. I was keen to get my new players on the field to see what they had. Ness was the only one who declined their contract offer in the end.

With so many new faces around St. James Park, the other players were beginning to worry about their spots in the line up. It didn’t bother me one bit because they should have thought about that when we lost the second game of the season.