It's the Standard Verdict - an exclusive weekly look at Colchester United (From Essex County Standard)

It's the Standard Verdict - an exclusive weekly look at Colchester United

12:00pm Saturday 13th March 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

ESSEX COUNTY STANDARD U's REPORTER SIMON SPURGEON DELIVERS HIS THOUGHTS ON Colchester United IN HIS WEEKLY COLUMN:

THE world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

Those words of wisdom were spoken by Helen Keller, who overcame the twin disabilities of blindness and deafness to become an inspirational educator in the last century.

And how Colchester United could have done with some inspiration on Monday night.

I came away from their stalemate with Brighton pondering the result – was it two points dropped or was it a valuable point earned?

The answer came to me the next day when I heard Helen Keller’s quote on the radio.

Her thoughts were on a grand scale about the advancement of the human race, but, in a lesser way, I applied them to the battle for promotion in Coca-Cola League One.

Whoever makes it into the Championship next season will have done so through a steady accumulation of points and some of those will have been earned with big results like the 7-1 humilation of Norwich or the 3-0 win against Charlton.

Those are the “mighty shoves of the heroes”, but added in will be the “tiny pushes” of the points picked up with scrappy performances when ones could so easily have been zeros – the Gillinghams, the Stockports and the Brightons.

Aidy Boothroyd was as honest as ever in his appraisal and admitted it wasn’t a good performance, but he also pointed out that it is important that you don’t lose when you are having an off day.

There are a dozen games left and no-one in that top echelon of teams is going to be firing on all cylinders every week until May.

As regular readers of this column will know, I do try to look for optimistic aspects if I can find them, but one had to search to locate them on Monday.

Let’s not kid ourselves, it wasn’t a good night for the U’s.

The Sky TV cameras were there and I’m convinced that contributed largely to the fact that less than 4,000 – a figure boosted by a reasonably-sized and very vocal away support – turned out at the Weston Homes Community Stadium.

And there appeared to be a rather lacklustre response on the pitch in the first-half.

A spark of magic was desperately required, but where were Paul Daniels and the lovely Miss Debbie McGee when we needed them?

In fact it was less a case of David Copperfield and more one of the Great Soprendo in that opening period.

Colchester rode their luck on more than one occasion at the back, looking strangely vulnerable from set pieces and they had the superb keeper Ben Williams to thank for not going in behind at the break.

But it was going forward where I was most exasperated.

I know Boothroyd’s physical and direct style of play draws some criticism, but I have always defended it as it has been effective, however, that approach has to be intelligent for it to be effective and it wasn’t in the first 45 minutes.

We have seen balls forward into channels either for players to run on to or in to the big guys up front and the U’s have prospered, but there was little evidence of that against Brighton as balls forward looked aimless. It did improve after half-time with the addition of Ashley Vincent on the right as the Seagulls were stretched more, but it was a frustrating night and one where the game could have gone on till midnight without a goal.

Credit to the Seagulls, though, as they battled all the way.

Their away record is extremely solid recently and they worked incredibly hard all night.

So how can you wrap up a game like that?

Well, I think it’s best to look at it as one of the “tiny pushes” and be thankful it wasn’t tinier than it was.

It was important not to lose after the disappointment of defeat at Bristol Rovers.

Don’t forget how gutted everyone was after the hammering by Norwich and the team responded with a 0-0 stalemate.

That one was at Gillingham, but it was a steadying result that – aside from the defeat at Leeds – began a great run of form that propelled the U’s on to the coat-tails of the leading pair.

Watch out Norwich here we come!

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)