With Colchester United heading to Spotland on Saturday, we grabbed a Colchester supporter to answer a few questions for us as part of the build up.
1) Who are you and how long have you been supporting Colchester?
My names Daniel and I’ve been following the U’s for nearly 20 years now. For the past 11 years I have ran the club’s only independent website, The U’sual, which was formerly known as ColU Online, and like your site has bounced from Rivals, to Club Fanzine, to the Fans Network.
2) Despite being a proper Division 4 for the 80’s and 90’s, the U’s seem to have established themselves as a proper League One side. How’ve you managed that?
If we knew the answer to that one we could bottle it and sell it! To be honest I’d say it’s been down to the way the club has been astutely run in not spending money we don’t have and not setting our targets too high. We got lucky along the way, we found a gem in Lua Lua who we sold for £2.25million to Newcastle which gave us a bit of money to spend and the season we got promoted to the Championship, League One was a pretty uncompetitive league to get out of compared with now. The biggest influences were our former Chairman Peter Heard and manager Phil Parkinson who got us promoted out of League One in 2006. He managed to attract some good talent to the club on a small budget and many of those players were sold on for good money and went on to play in the Premier League.
3) What are the finances like down with Colchester? Are things being done by the book or is there a black hole of millions of pounds worth of debt?
It’s a bit of both nowadays. When we were in the Championship we were taken over by a local businessman called Robbie Cowling, and I could be completely making this figure up, but I believe I once read he’s worth £120million! He hasn’t thrown money at the club like many multimillionaires do, he’s come in with a five year plan of making us a sustainable Championship club. Along the way so far the club has been making a loss and the season we moved to our new ground this was in the millions, but he’s written of this debt in the same way Abramovich does with Chelsea.
4) It’s been a while since you lot left Layer Road now. How’s that changed your average Colchester fan’s matchday experience? Is it better all round, or as the soul of the club disappeared?
Twinned with the fact that we now have an owner with money this has definitely changed the club. We were always ‘little old Colchester’ punching above our weight, but that’s not the case anymore and has resulted in us losing quite a few fans over the past couple of years. The soul of the club we all knew and loved has gone unfortunately. In its place tough we have a whole new matchday experience. We can have a beer at the ground (even if it is overpriced and not that great) and we’ve got one of those fancy big screens too as well as TV’s in the concourses. However it’s dress up though, it will never beat a game at Layer Road.
5) What are the hopes of Colchester for this season?
Since being relegated from the Championship we had hopes of shooting back up, but two poor seasons and all we really want now is to see some decent football. It would be nice to be successful this year, but having been let down last year and the year before, I have no expectations. I think the league is going to be more open compared with last season, so maybe we could get ourselves in the play offs.
6) How far can a club like Colchester realistically go within the 4 divisions?
I’d like to think that within my lifetime I’ll see us do a Blackpool and reach the top tier. Realistically though I share the chairman’s ambitions in establishing ourselves as a Championship club.
7) We love David Perkins. Can we have him back please? And if not, is he going to be more established for you lot this season?
No you can’t. He’s had a weird experience with us so far, but I can see us getting the best out of him this season. In this first year with us he was getting games, but I understand he was struggling to settle down south (perhaps it had something to do with seeing the sun down here!). Last year he put in a transfer request and was loaned out to Chesterfield and Stockport. However, this year he’s a whole new player. He’s getting games for us and is putting in man of the match performances. I can only assume that he didn’t get on with Aidy Boothroyd last year - which is understandable as he’s a midfielder and Hoothroyd’s tactics involved bypassing the midfield.
8) We were surprised that you sold another of our old boys Clive Platt. Was that as out of the blue for you lot?
We were probably as surprised as you were. We signed him after losing Chris Iwelumo who was a great player for us, and everyone expected him to be a like for like replacement, which he wasn’t. He was a good average player at this level and under four managers in his time with us, they all liked him, so he must have had something. We were definitely on the better end of the deal when he left for Coventry.
9) Have you been to Spotland before, and if so what are your memories of it?
It’ll be my first ever trip tomorrow. I didn’t start going to away games until about 10 years ago, so I’ve never had the chance to visit your place as we’ve not played each other in that time. I haven’t done that bad though, clocking up about 70-odd grounds watching the U’s.
10) Dull prediction time, what will the score be on Saturday?
I’m predicting a 2-0 win for us with Perks getting one of the goals. We’ve been unfortunate in drawing both of our league games so far after conceding in the last five minutes, so hopefully we’ll get it right this weekend.
Click on the link below to visit Daniel's Colchester website