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ALL FOR THE LOVE OF K'S
As all Ks fans will obviously know, we won the league on a
glorious Thursday night (although as it happened, we could have lost 8-0 and still
gone up) at Court Farm, Oxford. But what 99% of Ks fans don't know is how close
we were to being crowned champions 48 hours earlier. The width of this fanzine
close.
Boreham Wood v Aylesbury
A huge game for both sides. The Wood needed to win to have
any chance of promotion and Aylesbury desperate for the points to stay up. But
it was an even bigger than that for Geoff Chapple's red and white army. Following
a comfortable victory over Heybridge at Kingsmeadow on Saturday, if Wood didn't
collect all three points, the title was ours. Ali and I set out on the journey
to Wood's ground. At 5.30 after successfully negotiating the trains we got to
the ground. Due to previous encounters with the Wood, Ali had decided that if
anybody asked, we were Hampton supporting ground hoppers, looking for our 173rd
ground, but then realised Hampton had their own promotion decider on that same
night. In the end no-one asked us why we were attending, the attendance was one
man and his dog, and a small collection of vocal and surprisingly high spirited
Aylesbury fans.
We took our place in the shitty old stand (the last game it
would see as they are building a new 550 seater cantilever stand. 550? Their fans
will have 10 seats each). Anyway, back to the game. The first half was quite exciting,
for us at least, due to what was at stake. Shaun Marshall missed a sitter within
seconds of the start, and then it happened… Jermaine Darlington of Aylesbury,
who, Mr Chapple please note is just a bit good, took on and beat the entire Wood
defence, squared the ball and Nigel Swazland rolled it home. 74 minutes from the
conference. The rest of the half was spent discussing the two females in front
of us. 1) Whether they were Boreham Wood or Aylesbury, and 2) Were they worth
chatting up. The answers as we later discovered were Aylesbury and no. Oh yeah,
Shaun Marshall equalised a minute before half time. 45 minutes from the conference.
Me and Ali were worried. What if we won the league? We wanted
to celebrate with other Ks fans. The vision of every TV set in Kingston locked
on Ceefax was quite amusing to us (I suppose you had to be there), but on the
other hand we would be there if Ks won the league. Whilst Ali was contemplating
getting some food (just for a change), a mysterious figure wearing a tea cosy
on his head appeared with a cry of "Oi, Oi" It was Jon, Gary and Gary. They had
been on the other side of the ground, waving, shouting and generally trying to
attract our attention, but we somehow missed them. And then there were 5, 6 of
us. We know who you are (a pint may retain your anonymity).
The second half kicked off and we were 34 minutes from the
conference, as Jon kept reminding us, when a mistake at the back allowed Marshall
to score a smartly taken second, to the delight of the 4 mentally deranged fans
and their pitbull terrier. If the ducks could equalise, we would be champions.
Aylesbury were camped in the Boreham Wood half for the remaining half hour. Justin
Skinner (who had a close encounter with Dean Hooper's forehead at Buckingham Road)
went close twice. Jermaine Darlington (remember that name Mr Chapple) hit the
post after another mazy run. And then the almost moment of ecstasy…
A long clearance from the Aylesbury keeper. The Wood keeper
came running out, he didn't make it. Swazland did. He headed goalwards. Cue wild
celebrations from the K's on the terrace, we'd won the league, conference football,
Woking derbies, but no. As if from nowhere, in a puff of smoke a defender appeared
and headed it off the line, "B*st*rd" shouted Ali, but wait Mr Kazemi, the ball
fell straight back to Swazland.
It was a deserved 2-2 draw, a valuable point for Aylesbury
and K's in the conference all on his right foot, unfortunately he used his left
and inexplicably fired wide from 4 yards. We couldn't believe it. Gary and I sunk
to our knees. But that didn't dampen our spirits. Two days later, Geoff Pitcher's
30 yard screamer and Chesham's 1-1 draw with Wood gave us the deservedly won league.
We collectively celebrated long and hard.
Well if you think that was sad, our excuses are: 1) What if
Aylesbury won - we were there, 2) We just had to be there.
Us Sad Bastards have also been seen at:
- The semi-pro match between England and Holland, just to watch Dean Hooper.
- Carshalton Athletic v Boreham Wood (bit of a spying mission this one as we
played the Wood 3 days later).
- Corinthian Casuals v Hemel Hempstead (The game at Whyteleafe is called off,
so obviously you go to Casuals). We spent the 90 minutes trying to work out who
was who as Hemel had to wear the Casuals away kit, or was it Casuals who had to
wear their away kit? Anyway Hemel won 1-0 and later won the league. We sang a
song for Kingstonian - we were the loudest set of fans there.
- Sutton v Dagenham - just to make sure it was mathematically impossible for
Sutton to win the league.
The reason behind our madness? All for the love of K's!
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