November 2012

A 2-1 home win against lowly Barrow began November, taking us up to 4th in the table. Goals from Michael Noone and Ryan Charles won it for us, after an early goal from the visitors. We then travelled to Fleetwood Town, who were also struggling and found themselves in the relegation zone. It was a game which we were expected to win, obviously, and an early goal from Richard Offiong, his 10th of the season, gave us the advantage going into half time. We had the lead until the 65th minute when Fleetwood equalised through former Faroe Islands international Claus Jorgensen, and then gave it all away 10 minutes later when they scored again. Although the stats showed we had wasted several chances, we just didn't really have enough fight towards the end to overcome our visitors.

Our next game gave us a chance to forget about the league, at least for a week or so, as we hosted Hartlepool in the 1st round of the FA Cup. They were obviously favourites for the game, but weren't doing anything special in League One, so we knew we were in with a chance. And it was us who drew first blood; Lewis Montrose played the ball to Ryan Charles' feet, who turned and shot from the edge of the box, and into the top corner. A perfect goal. However, we were brought right back down to earth in the first attacking move from Hartlepool's kick off, just 2 minutes later, when James Brown (Jeff Stelling would be making some sort of joke at this point) found the net to level things up. Things looked destined for a replay back up north when, with a minute to go our hearts were shattered when Ritchie Jones hit a first time volley from 25 yards after Adrian Nevins' failed clearance, and the ball whistled past a hapless Alex Cisak. With hardly any time left on the clock, a late surge was out of the question, and the final whistle went to signal our exit from the competition. However, it wasn't the end of the world; at least that was one less thing to concentrate on.

As if we weren't drained enough after the loss against Hartlepool, we found ourselves up against top-of-the-table Rushden at New Bucks Head. Things started badly; Lewis Montrose picked up a yellow card early on, meaning he'd miss our next game, but was then carried off injured with a twisted knee, leaving him out for upto five weeks. Rusden midfielder Ryan Brobbel then opened the scoring 2 minutes later. However Jake Simpson equalised on 26 minutes after his first shot was saved by Dale Roberts. We had a massive chance to take the lead on 51 minutes when Curtis Osano brought down Netan Sansara in the box, and we were awarded a penalty. Denis Behan stepped up, only to have his spot-kick saved by Roberts. Neither side had any real chances for the rest of the game; Michael Noone and Jake Simpson had the best ones for us, although they were from some distance and never really troubled the Rushden 'keeper.

An away trip to 4th placed Kidderminster followed, and it was an overal disappointing game, in which we were totally outplayed. Lewis Montrose missed his first match of the season through suspension (although he was injured so wouldn't have played anyway) so Adrian Nevins stepped up from centre back to replace him in midfield. We ended up losing the game 4-0, the biggest defeat I'd endured whilst manager of AFC Telford.

Lewis Alessandra returned to the squad, and the starting line up, for our final match of the month against Burton Albion. It was the 100th game of my managerial career, so that added a little more incentive to come away with three points. We had a good start; Ryan Charles netted after only 5 minutes but the visitors drew level shortly after. Charles was then taken off injured and replaced by Richard Offiong, leaving him out for upto 6 weeks. However, Offiong proved to be a more-than-capable replacement for him, as it was his two goals in the space of 3 minutes that sealed the win for us.

The victory left us in 7th place at the end of November, a standing which has been greatly helped by our superb home record, the best in the league; we'd played 11 at home and were unbeaten, winning eight and drawing three, whilst scoring 26 goals, and conceding just the nine. Next month brings my tenure at AFC Telford to its year anniversary, so everyone will be hoping to continue our good set of results.