Railway men north v Railway men south

[redjed]

thought i would start a tread..........hmmmmmmm
We have quite a good record against Crewe , they have not beaten us since 2012, we have won 18 , drawn 6 and lost 12 in all games.
Big blow is that Doughty still not available, but Knoyle is ready to return after his 3 match ban, so more than likely to play RB.
We are playing quite well at the moment , last 2 games we haven't conceded so im going for a good win, but saying that would be happy with a draw. Tuesday night at Crewe will see the hard core 300 making the trip north!

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Both teams training hard for this

 

[TimeyWimey]

I didn't even realise we were playing tonight until this morning such is my enthusiasm.

I'm still adamant we won't be drawn into too much of a relegation scrap, though the team are doing everything in their power to prove me wrong. We're just hitting a point where it's a case of just don't fooking lose.

 

[Crewelad87]

cant see anything other than a Swindon win. Were not scoring goals, not really creating much either.

Crewe 0-2 Swindon.

Will be less than 3000 Crewe fans, the crowd might just edge over 3k if Swindon bring 300.

 

[JJ1532]

Given our form, I'd take a point tbh. Hopefully we can get start to get our shit together soon, don't want another season down the drain by Christmas and definitely don't want a relegation scrap. Artell needs to get his head out of his ass as well.

Fingers crossed we can get back to playing well at home.

 

[Agombar stool]

Going to watch this on the ifollow malarkey.

2-0 win. Knoyle back is a boost but left back is a concern.

 

[The Alex]

Another terrible team selection for us.

 

[Crewelad87]

Another terrible team selection for us.

Injuries really aren’t helping Nolan, Ng, Pickering and Green are some of the 1st names on the team sheet, all out. But I agree no way should Porter and Bowery play together it never worked. We play best with Miller playing Bowery, but somehow Artel seems to ignore this.

Swindon should fill there boots tonight, the defence looks awful, Hunt and O’Connor really worry me.

 

[JJ1532]

It's just hilarious. Literally every mistake Artell made in the first half of last season is being repeated 12 months on. Square pegs in round holes everywhere. Yes, the injury to Ng can't be helped, but because of the U23s, Raynes played yesterday and obviously can't start tonight.

That means Hunt, who was supposed to be a stop gap option, is making his 9th start. Ok, the defence is what it is.

It's in midfield and upfront that things get rather silly. Why is he putting Ainley in central midfield again? He tried it a few times last season and it didn't work. Why is he trying it now?

And he's putting Bowery on the wing in a 3 man attack, why exactly? Again, that was also tried last season, Colchester away rings a bell. Also didn't work. We don't have the players to play 4-3-3 and this is exactly what happened last season where Artell constantly makes changes and adjustments. We'll get humped 3-0 tonight and in response, he'll switch it to a 3-5-2 for Lincoln.

Now, maybe those who have seen us can tell me I'm wrong, but I think he should leave it at 4-4-2, pick as strong a side as he can(defence aside, a midfield of Kirk, Jones, Wintle and Ainley and a strike pair of Bowery and Miller) and just let the players work through their issues. But nope, this is just a game of whack-a-mole all over again.

Hopefully this rant looks silly come full time.

 

[The Alex]

Once again the other team should be down to 10 men but are not, refs are a disgrace.

 

[Agombar stool]

Why did I bother paying £10 to watch that dirge?

2 games in a row we haven’t worked the opponent keeper. Extremely poor game scored by the best player on the park.

Since we scored 3 at Yeovil we’ve been so toothless.

 

[JJ1532]

Seems like a scrappy grind of a game, important win though. Crowd number is a shocker, not that I blame anyone for not going, can't expect people to keep paying good money to watch losing football. The club need to take notice of this and work out ways to get people back through the gates.

 

[jbet]

Seems like a scrappy grind of a game, important win though. Crowd number is a shocker, not that I blame anyone for not going, can expect people to keep paying good money to are losing football. The club need to take notice of this and work out ways to get people back through the gates.

I wouldn't say it's just a Crewe thing, we were on the back of four unbeaten and a real feelgood factor around the place and nobody outside of ST holders turned up.

Is midweek football dead?

 

[valefan16]

I wouldn't say it's just a Crewe thing, we were on the back of four unbeaten and a real feelgood factor around the place and nobody outside of ST holders turned up.

Is midweek football dead?

With ifollow I would say so, it’ll only get worse in the depths of winter when you can watch it for half the price in your warm living room rather than freezing your bollocks off watching yourselves get done over by Morecambe or something.

For people who pick and choose games down to cost, location etc then you’d go the games non streamed surely to see more games live (it’s what I’m doing anyway as i have to pick and choose as I have two little kids who I cant leave every weekend like I used too before)

 

[Agombar stool]

Usually under the lights the atmosphere can be ‘electric’, but last night I could hear the players shouting at each other, it was akin to an old fashioned reserve match. This isn’t a negative on Crewe, it’s exactly the same at the County Ground, there just seems to be a bit of a malaise around lower league football at the moment.

 

[Crewelad87]

Pretty sure I read it was our lowest turn out for a league game since the early 90’s. I’d expect Cambridge in November to be even lower.

 

[JJ1532]

We have been hovering around the 3k home fans mark for Tuesday games for a long time, but this was the first crowd this low. For me, it's no surprise that it's come with the £10 iFollow offer being open to domestic fans for the first. I would be willing to bet we had a fair few pay the £10 match pass and view it on a tablet or phone, plenty from within 20 miles of Crewe as well.

 

[The Alex]

iFollow is the beginning of the end

 

[Douglas_Valley_Reds]

The crowd was always a banker to be low, poor form, Champions League bullshit, a toss night in October, plus we dropped 400 home fans at the Vale match from Aprils derby, so if we are dropping fans in a derby match this fixture was never going to buck the trend in any shape or form. It's more to do with the quagmire of bottom half league 2 same old same old hell. The fact we average over 3000 home fans is a minor miracle. Since leaving the Championship in 2006 we have had one promotion season in 2011/12 and one 10th finish in 2009/10. The other ten seasons have all been bottom half finishes, the final league placings since 2006 look like this,

13th, 20th, 22nd (relegated), 18th, 10th, 7th, 13th, 19th, 20th, 24th (relegated), 17th, 15th.

They are shit statistics, still better than the 70's though.

The crowd averages for these seasons are as follows,

2006/7 - 5461
2007/8 - 4932
2008/9 - 4537
2009/10 - 4075
2010/11 - 4119
2011/12 - 4124
2012/13 - 4903
2013/14 - 4932
2014/15 - 4732
2015/16 - 4551
2016/17 - 3882
2017/18 - 3876

Surprisingly we have only dipped below 4000 in the last couple of seasons, it will go down again this season unless we do much better.

 

[The Alex]

When I started going we averaged around 6-7,000 with the occasional 8 or 9 in there. Those days are gone. Maybe we could do a Lincoln, go down and magic up 4,000 fans from somewhere.