Boro hit Wood for six

July 29, 2008 Leave a Comment

A strong looking Stevenage squad travelled down the A1 this evening to face Ryman Premier side Boreham Wood at Meadow Park. Boro won the game easily 6-0 in their most convincing victory of pre-season so far. A brace from Mitchell Cole, who started up front, as well as goals from Eddie Anaclet, Steve Morison, Michael Bostwick and Lee Boylan, from the penalty spot, gave Boro a morale boosting victory after the 2-2 draw at Bognor Regis on Saturday.

With Westley playing a strong side tonight, I expect a few more youngsters and fringe players will get the opportunity to impress at Northwood on Thursday night. The first team will then be back in action at Broadhall Way on Saturday when they face Leyton Orient in their last real test before the trip to Wrexham the following weekend. A trip to Slough is also scheduled just 4 days before the season starts, but again I think that game will be for reserve & youth players only.

Boro reject Shaun Batt has signed a one year deal at newly promoted Peterborough United. Batt played in the recent pre-season friendly at Broadhall Way while on trial and has now signed permanently for the London Road side. Another player who was thought not good enough at Stevenage, but is now plying his trade in the football league.

Lastly there is an article on Soccerlens which talks about how teams in the football league look into the non league, now more than ever before, for their next signing. It isn’t just Gillingham either…

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Boro appoint new Youth Coach

July 27, 2008 130 Comments

With a lot of talk over the last few weeks about what is happening with Stevenage Borough’s youth system and the EFCO, Phil Wallace has announced that Colin Read, formerly of Tottenham and West Ham has been appointed as Youth Manager. Read spent some time at the club last season as reserve team manager. The club have been looking for someone to manage the youth side since Darren Sarll left the club to join Brentford and with the appointment of Read, Boro look to have got a good experienced coach in to take the academy further. Steve Greaves, who was an academy assistant at Ipswich, can also help Boro as Phil Wallace plans for the future.

Wallace obviously wants to completely transform the youth system at the club as it is just not developing players good enough to play for the club.

“What I’d like to see is a select group of six players aged 18-19 years old that we give full contracts to each year, in addition to anyone that may excel in the EFCO scheme. These players will probably have been rejected by Football League and/or Championship clubs, just as George Boyd was, or come from our own School of Excellence and be the best talent that we can find. Possibly even from overseas. We will contract these six as full time pros, provide digs and see how they do with a year of intensive full-time training alongside the first team squad.”

It’s interesting how this summer seems to have seen a lot of change with regards to the coaching set up and youth academy. When Peter Taylor left he said he had given the chairman a few pointers where he felt the club could improve upon.

“As for the club itself, the support is good and the training facilities are okay. There were one or two things I said to Phil about which need improving.”

It certainly looks like Wallace has taken them points on board as he looks to try and get Stevenage into the football league. The coaching set up is arguably the strongest it has ever been. I can’t remember having 5 different coaches as well as a separate youth coach ever before. The playing squad is also, again, big compared to other clubs in the division. At the moment we have potentially 9 players who can play up front! It also makes you wonder if Westley has come in not just as manager, but also to help finance the club as well?

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Bognor Regis Town 2-2 Stevenage

July 26, 2008 Leave a Comment

Boro went 2-0 up thanks to goals from Craig Westcarr and Lee Boylan in their latest pre-season friendly down at Bognor Regis, but goals from Duncan Jupp and ex Yeovil winger Gavin McCullum levelled things at Nyewood Lane.

Westcarr opened the scoring on 6 minutes after cutting inside and shooting past the Rocks goalkeeper. After 20 minutes it was two when Lee Boylan opened his Boro account, heading in a corner. Boro though couldn’t hold on to their lead and Bognor halved the deficit when a James Russell goal kick only found it’s way to a Bognor player who was subsequently brought down just outside the area. From the resulting free-kick ex-Wimbledon defender Duncan Jupp shot into the bottom corner. Bognor continued to threaten and just before half time they equalised with ex Yeovil and Weymouth winger Gavin McCullum finding the net.

At half time Graham Westley brought on Calum Willock for his first game of pre-season after injury. He replaced Jerome Anderson, but couldn’t find the net in the 45 minutes he played. Bognor continued to make chances against a Boro side who looked tired with most of them only playing Hendon on Thursday night as well as some who also appeared against Wycombe. Boro have a bit of a break now with their next game at Meadow Park against Boreham Wood on Tuesday night.

Boro team: Russell, Bradshaw, Laird, Oliver, Wilson, Balderson, Drury, Bridges, Anderson, Boylan, Westcarr
Subs: L Cole, Buchanan, Willock, Brinkman, Bostwick, Burke

Elsewhere in today’s pre-season friendlies, Rushden beat Peterborough United 2-1 at Nene Park. Goals coming from Jon Challinor and new signing Dean McDonald. Peter Taylor’s Wycombe were also in action again today and they went down 2-1 to Blue Square South side Chelmsford. Ex Boro midfielder Ollie Berquez opened the scoring for the Essex side. Crawley lost at home against a youthful Arsenal XI. Kieran Gibbs getting the only goal of the game. Finally, Cambridge were beaten 3-1 at home by Coventry City. The U’s were 3-0 down until Ben Farrell scored from the penalty spot.

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Boro 1-2 Wycombe

July 26, 2008 Leave a Comment

Boro lost their third home game in a row against league opposition after tonight’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Peter Taylor’s Wycombe Wanderers. Boro welcomed back Ashley Bayes in goal, while Steve Morison returned to partner Anthony Thomas up front. Wycombe started in a 4-3-3 formation, but Taylor opted to leave former Boro loanee Gavin Grant on the bench. New signing Nathan Ashton came on after the break.

Boro started the better and were in front within 7 minutes after Anthony Thomas ran onto a throw by Steve Morison and fired Boro in to the lead. The partnership between the front two of Morison and Thomas has arguably been the biggest plus point of pre-season so far. They seem to have developed an undertanding very quickly and compliment each other on the pitch. Daryl McMahon had a free-kick saved well by Wanderers keeper Scott Shearer after 20 minutes as Boro continued to impress. Thomas was lively all evening and the Wycombe defence couldn’t seem to handle his threat in the first half at all.

Taylor and Wycombe made changes in the second half and within minutes they had worked after Chris Zebroski had equalised for Wanderers. Zebroski, who always seems to score against us, rounded Bayes before putting the ball into the net. It wasn’t long after the Zebroski goal that Wycombe were ahead. Gavin Grant put midfielder Rice through who had his shot well saved, but Scott McGleish was on hand to hammer in the rebound. Within the space of 8 minutes, Wycombe’s improved fitness had made the difference.

Midway through the second half Westley began to make some changes. Boylan came on for the again impressive Thomas and Jerome Anderson replaced Steve Morison after the ex Oxford striker impressed after scoring 2 goals in the 4-1 win over Hendon on Thursday. Trialist Scott Barron also made another appearance coming on for Scott Laird. Barron is an ex Ipswich trainee who has also had a spell at Millwall. I assume GW has brought him in to see if he is good enough to challenge for Laird’s position at left back. At the moment that position is the only one that looks like it will be strengthened before the start of the season.

So another defeat against league opposition at home, but Boro’s performance in the first half would of pleased Graham Westley. Although Wycombe didn’t play well in the first 45, Boro looked much more livelier than what they did on Tuesday night against Peterborough. Next up for Boro is Bognor Regis, away, tomorrow afternoon. It will be a similar team to that what beat Hendon at Vale Farm on Thursday night.

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Wycombe Preview

July 24, 2008 Leave a Comment

After what was a dull affair on Tuesday night against Peterborough United, Boro are back in action against League 2 side Wycombe Wanderers, now managed by former manager Peter Taylor. There has been a lot of changes since PT left Boro in April and it will be a fairly unfamiliar line up to the ex Crystal Palace boss. Two other members of Boro’s staff from last season have joined him at Adams Park. Player/Coach Junior Lewis, thankfully, followed him to Bucks in May while one of Taylor’s first signings for his new club was Gavin Grant who joined after being released by Millwall. Along with Tommy Smith, Grant was one of the more impressive signings that Taylor made in his 6 month spell at Broadhall Way.

Boro will field a strong team tomorrow night after playing Hendon tonight (Thursday) and again away at Bognor Regis on Saturday. There has been no news concerning Morison, Bayes and Willock. I assume they will again miss out. In tonight’s game Boro beat Hendon 4-1 at Wembley FC’s Vale Park. I’ll comment more on that game when I get more information as currently there is not much on it. From what I’ve read and heard so far though we played fairly well and looked more dangerous going forward.

Also there was a rumour flying around the Conference forum today that Boro are set to bid £25k for Weymouth defender Scott Doe. He began his career at Swindon before moving to the South coast side last summer. He can play centre back or right back. I can understand Westley maybe looking to sign an extra centre half who could also play left back to cover for Scott Laird, but to sign another player who could potentially challenge for the already busy right back position is baffling. Anyway, it’s probably not true, especially as £25k seems quite a hefty fee to pay for a relatively young player.

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Stevenage 0-2 Peterborough

July 22, 2008 1 Comment

Boro were comfortably beaten 2-0 in what was their most disappointing display of pre-season so far. After a tough week which has seen Boro play 4 games in quick succession the team looked tired and were chasing shadows for most of the second half. They started well though continuing where they left off on Saturday with good spells of possession, but had no real cutting edge, although Boylan did hit the post after a mistake by Chris Westwood. Anthony Thomas looked a threat again, but couldn’t finish. Mitchell Cole put in a performance we were too used to seeing last season under Peter Taylor. He was hardly in the game and needs to improve his work rate if he is to have an impact on games.

It was a quite uneventful first half until Luke Oliver came on for Ronnie Henry just before half-time. Within a minute Peterborough had scored. Boyd ran at Bostwick before setting up Aaron McLean who had lost his marker and put Posh in the lead. The change at the back seemed to disrupt things and a few minutes later Posh had doubled their lead after Rendell scored after a mix up in the Boro area. Boro went in at half-time 2-0 down.

Westley brought on Andy Drury and trialist goalkeeper Michael Jordan in the second half. Gary Mills, who I’ve been pretty impressed by so far this pre-season and James Russell were the players to make way. The second half was one of the most boring halves of football I’ve seen in a long time. Peterborough had one shot cleared off the line by Scott Laird, while Westwood nearly put through his own net at the other end. That was the closest Boro came to reducing the deficit.

Although it was another defeat, it was another good workout for the squad. A thing I noticed tonight was just how much we rely on Steve Morison. Tonight we didn’t look like creating a chance, let alone scoring. Morison isn’t just someone who can stick the ball in the back of the net, he also closes people down and has good movement off the ball. That movement allows others to get into spaces where they can create. That didn’t happen tonight. Let’s hope he stays fit if we are to make a serious push for promotion this season.

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