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The morning of The U’sual Ramblings #26, and we bid a warm welcome to Ben Garner as the new Head Coach of Colchester United Football Club. Including the infamous Ron Meades, Ben is the 54th manager in charge of the U’s, and the 44th different person to hold that role since the glory days of Ted Davis got the ball-rolling before the war. Ted Davis is still the most successful U’s manager (using the points per game metric) in our history, if you don’t count Steve Foley’s single caretaker manager win between Mike Walker and Roger Brown. It might be a tall order to expect Ben to challenge Ted’s record but given since Aidy Boothroyd we’ve struggled to find a manager who challenged even getting into the top half of the PPG rankings, I’m confident Ben Garner will at least do that. Not unreasonably, given his appointment was only announced on Thursday, today he will adopt a watching brief, whilst Ross prepares the team for the tough trip to Valley Parade.
The world outside U’s World Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, the gift that just keeps on giving, is in more hot water, which is particularly entertaining given he ran the bath in the first place. A government cross-party committee has allegedly found significant and damning evidence that he deliberately misled MPs over the infamous lockdown parties, and almost certainly knew that he was breaking his own rules. There remains a possibility that he could be suspended from the Commons for more than a month, which would automatically trigger a by-election for his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat. Given his majority is relatively slender (the think-tank Onward classify the seat as “vulnerable”), and the current lead in the polls that Labour have, it is a by-election he would be by no means certain of winning.
With a country-wide and unprecedented 72-hour strike of junior doctors from March 13th onwards looming, the government has reassured no one by calling on medical students to step in and provide clinical support. Needless to say this has prompted both outrage and heightened safety concerns from doctors’ unions, who have called on students to “refuse to undertake tasks that fell outside their competence or capability”. Should you have the misfortune to find yourself in hospital during this period, do please ask to see a diploma first.
Talking of gifts that just keep on giving, as part of a concerted effort by far-right Republicans to try and portray the January 6th insurrection, which left five dead, as a political act of defiance, Donald Trump has released a single recorded (in part) with men already convicted and imprisoned for their role in the insurrection. The single, which was recorded at Mar-a-Lago, includes the inmates (dubbed the “J6 Prison Choir”) recording their contributions on a prison phone. The single, entitled “Justice for All”, mashes Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance into “The Star-Spangled Banner”, with profits allegedly to go to the families of those imprisoned — though quite how much they receive from grifter-extraordinaire Trump remains to be seen.
…and finally, the Falklands debate is back on the table, after Argentina pulled out of the “agree to disagree” pact with the UK this week. The pact was originally put together in 2016 to allow the countries to improve relations whilst both maintaining their sovereignty claim over the islands. Hmmm, beleaguered Prime Minister under siege and a dispute over the Falklands looming, this is all sounding disturbingly familiar.
U’s World Not surprisingly, most of the column inches, social media and messageboards regarding the U’s has been dominated by the appointment of Ben Garner as Head Coach, probably the worst kept secret ever once the bookies closed betting on the outcome at the beginning of last week. To recap briefly, Ben is one of those rare breeds, a football coach without a significant playing career behind him.
Parreira entered football management with the Ghanian national side at the tender age of 23, and in a career spanning 40+ years, his CV includes winning the World Cup as manager of Brazil in 1994. He is one of only two managers to have lead five different national teams to the World Cup, comprising Kuwait (1982), United Arab Emirates (1990), Brazil (1994 and 2006), Saudi Arabia (1998) and South Africa (2010). Parreira celebrated his 80th birthday on Monday.
Anyway, I digress, the point being that having a career in professional football is not exactly a prerequisite for a successful career as a football coach, and Ben Garner does have a very solid CV in that regard. Ben has been in football coaching for nearly 20 years, after joining Crystal Palace as head coach of their U11s in 2004. Working his way up through the age categories at Palace, Ben at various times coached players such as Zaha and Victor Moses.
Promoted to first team coach in 2012 by Ian Holloway, Ben was part of the coaching team that saw Palace promoted to the Premier League via the play-offs in his first season, and retain that status for the first time ever not just for the following season, but the season after that (and throughout working with Holloway, Tony Pulis, Neil Warnock and Alan Pardew).
Reuniting with Tony Pulis at WBA in 2015 as first-team coach, Ben was promoted to assistant head coach less than a year later, and in 2019 moved to Indian Super League Club ATK, a role which Ben has stated was formative in his development as a coach.
Although his first break into first team management at Bristol Rovers didn’t go particularly well, he sent ripples throughout English football when he took over at Swindon Town (ironically taking up the role vacated by John McGreal) in 2021. Under a transfer embargo at the time, and with only seven registered first team players, Ben set about building a team dominated by players making their professional debut and taking the Robins to the 3rd round of the FA Cup for the first time in a decade, and the play-offs at the end of the season.
Although Swindon didn’t win the play-offs, Ben was snapped up by League 1 Charlton Athletic at the beginning of this season, though can consider himself unfortunate to have been sacked in December, with less than half of the season completed. Club chairman Thomas Sandgaard cited lack of consistency as the main factor behind his decision, but others also point to Sandgaard’s failure to invest in the club ahead of a rumoured take-over bid being a significant contributing factor. It is of note, and I believe a measure of the man, that Ben Garner led his last first team coaching session at Charlton before informing the players personally that he’d been let go.
Charlton’s loss will definitely be our gain.
Stat attack Today the U’s face the home of my alma mater, Bradford City, at Valley Parade. Although U’s game against the Bantams go right back to October 1958, when Benny Fenton’s U’s won 3-1 at Valley Parade in front of over 12,000, there has only been a relatively few 39 matches, including one FA Cup tie, between the two sides.
Overall, our record is pretty good too against the Bantams, with 16 victories, 14 draws and only nine defeats, one of those victories of course being our record 9-1 league win under Benny Fenton on 30th December 1961 (and still Bradford’s record defeat, though they did lose 8-0 to Manchester City back in 1927). We did of course equal that 9-1 record in the FA Cup against Leamington Spa in 2005.
The main reason why there have been only 38 league games between the two sides is down to Bradford City’s sustained success throughout most of the 80s and 90s (certainly compared to the U’s), culminating in promotion to the Premier League in 1999. This was their first time back in the top flight since shortly after the First World War, and they defied the odds by staying up the following season under former player Paul Jewell. Promotion to the Premier League also resulted in their first and only foray into European football in the UEFA Intertoto Cup. They breezed past Lithuanian side FK Atlantas 7-2 on aggregate in the 2nd round and Dutch RKC Waalwijk 3-0 in the 3rd round but went out to Russian FC Zenit St Petersburg 4-0 in the semi-final.
Apart from the obvious name of Phil Parkinson as a very successful manager for both sides, the playing staff over the years is littered with famous names who have pulled on both the blue and white and amber and claret stripes. These include Tony Adcock, Guy Branston, Barry Conlon, Kurtis Guthrie (cue pantomime boos), Isaiah Rankin, Ben Williams, Theo Robinson, Paul Tierney, and of course both Fiacre Kelleher and Connor Wood, both of whom I expect to see starting this afternoon.
Match of the Day Colchester United v Bradford City 6th November 2010 FA Cup (1st Round) Attendance 2,736
Match of the Day for this blog, and as a special we go back to that one solitary FA Cup game against Bradford City, as John Ward’s U’s took on Bradford City at the JobServe back in November 2010. This wasn’t a game I was at unfortunately, I’d been at Bournemouth the weekend before for our 2-1 win, and would be at Swindon the weekend after for our 2-1 defeat (see MoY#04), so unfortunately couldn’t swing another weekend pass in the middle. Hence, I don’t have a programme but have tracked down the team-sheet on Ebay, optimistically priced at £2.00.
The U’s, lead by John Ward in his first season in charge after the departure of Aidy Boothroyd, had made a pretty decent start to their third successive season back in League 1, and with three wins on the bounce in late October and early November (including that win at Bournemouth) we were in 3rd place. Bradford, under Peter Taylor at the time, were doing okay in League 2, after a very poor start, and were sat in 10th place.
For his Colchester United FA Cup debut, John Ward’s line-up was:
1….Ben Williams 6….Paul Reid 20..Brian Wilson 28..Matt Heath 31..Tom Williams (23. Marc Tierney 45’) 10..Kem Izzet (captain) (22. Anthony Wordsworth 70’) 14..Andy Bond 17..David Perkins 7….Ashley Vincent 15..Kayode Odejayi 19..David Mooney (27. Liam Henderson 85’)
The U’s didn’t have long to wait for something to celebrate, when on just 7 minutes a quick counter-attack allowed David Mooney in past the backline, with his pass across the penalty area right on the spot for Andy Bond to side-foot past the helpless Lenny Pidgeley in the City goal. So, situation normal then, as high-flying Colchester United take an early regulation 1-0 lead over their lower league opponents.
Not so, and within barely a minute, the Bantams were level. Beating our offside trap just as easily as we’d just broken theirs, James Hanson latched onto Louis Moult’s through pass and was in on goal with only Ben Williams to beat. Although Williams got fingertips to Hanson’s low shot, it wasn’t enough to prevent the ball going in off Ben’s near post. Ho hum, back to square one then.
In a game that was very much end to end, and quite open, it was the U’s who regained the lead barely ten minutes later. From a long punt upfield, an excellent header from Kayode Odejayi fell right into the path of David Mooney, who from a very difficult angle managed to hook his shot over his shoulder and beyond the reach of the goalkeeper into the far corner of the goal. But back Bradford came again, with David Syers heading their second equaliser from a Luke O’Brien deep free-kick just after the half-hour mark, and that’s how it stayed to half-time.
Into the second half, and our regulation FA Cup victory was looking anything but certain. Chances came and went for both sides, before the U’s finally inched their noses in front again on 54 minutes. This time, it was a delightful Brian Wilson free-kick which caught Pidgeley napping, curling it low around the wall and into the bottom nearside corner of his goal.
And finally, ten minutes later we finally had the two goal lead cushion we wanted, when Luke Oliver bundled Matt heath over in the box, and David Mooney made no mistake from the spot for his second of the match. Now we could relax, and start thinking about who we might get in the 2nd Round. Not so, Bradford weren’t done, and with just over ten minutes to go, halved the deficit with Hanson heading home his second from Tony Adeyemi’s cross, to make for a nervy finish to the game. But the U’s held on, and into the hat for the second round draw.
Colchester United 4 (Andy Bond 7’; David Mooney 20’, 64’p; Brian Wilson 54’) Bradford 3 (James Hanson 8’, 79’; Dave Syers 32’)
Remarkably, given we’d been in the new ground for over two years, this was our first FA Cup victory at the JobServe, and our reward was another home game in the second round, this time against non-league Swindon Supermarine. By coincidence, alongside the post-Lambert Gillingham game featured last week, the Bradford City FA Cup game is another of Jon Waldron’s top 10 matches that he’s seen at the JobServe.
After squeezing past Swindon Supermarine, who we only narrowly overcame 1-0, the U’s crashed out 4-0 at Championship Swansea in the 3rd Round, a game that I (and no doubt several others here) had the misfortune to attend.
Our form faltered in the league despite the FA Cup victory, losing at Swindon and at home to Brentford in short order, but it was really the weather that put the kibosh on our promotion hopes, with four games out of the next five postponed due to snow and/or frozen pitches. Our form never really recovered after that, and with fixture congestion playing its part, we finished 10th in a league we really should have at least made the play-offs.
If you’re not of a nervous disposition, there is still a highlights reel on YouTube you might want to watch:
Didn't realise that Wood had played for Bradford. Sam Hornby was also at Bradford last season and made a "save" outside of the box in our 0-0 draw away in December 2021 before joining the U's in January 2022 on loan.
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