Dorking Wandering
The Dorking Wanderers FC Fans Forum
Back at Meadowbank yet again as we face local rivals Farnborough tomorrow. The Hampshire side currently sit in the relegation zone on goal difference and have picked up just the one win in their last 5 matches.
The weekly update announced that Casey has gone back to Charlton for tests on his hamstring injury, but the hope is that he will only be out for a week or so. Alfie Rutherford returns to the squad from his recent hamstring injury.
Predictions:
Dorking 4-2 Farnborough (McCallum, Lewis, Muitt, Rutherford)
1,621 att.
A bit tricky to predict the XI for this one due to the Casey injury. Will Marc choose to go with both McCallum and Prior considering how many midweek games we have coming up? I wouldn't expect them to risk Rutherford from the start but they could play McShane up top with one of them.
Foulkes
Camp Annesley Norville-Williams
Muitt Gallagher McManus Lewis
McShane
McCallum Prior
Subs: Craig, Francomb, Vincent, Knight, Sidwell, Moore, Rutherford
Wasn't there a similar beer throwing incident from same area of the ground with Tony Craig the victim a while ago?
Maybe pitchside drinking isn't such a good idea and needs to be stopped.
Can anyone explain the drop ball law? It’s happened two matches in a row now: play is stopped when we have the ball in attacking position (head injury & second ball on pitch) and is restarted with the keeper having the ball. Baffling. So any fan can lob a ball on when their team is under pressure and get the game stopped and secure possession??! Have I missed something here? 🤷🏻♂️
Sat next to the referee's 'trainer' today - and he explained that the (ridiculous) rule is that if the play is stopped with the ball in the box, it is automatically given to the keeper as a drop ball. Utterley stupid and unfair, but them's the rules...
Thanks @AdeB. Bonkers.
Tuesday night I will be at the front of the Bank with a bag of balls, ready for when Hornchurch get near goal.
It’s the only way to get this madness charged.
The second ball think is an unfortunate by-product of having multiball sadly - Palace had it at Macclesfield away in the FA Cup when chasing a late equaliser and an opposition fan literally grabbed a spare ball from one of those cones and threw it forwards to waste time...
Two questions from yesterdays 'second ball' incident though -
-where did the second ball come from? Was it the one from Sidwell's free kick over the bar?
-why weren't Dorking given possession given we were in attack mode when the ref stopped play?
"Why would I leave to join a League Two club? We're going there anyway!" - Marc White
Because that is the rule apparently @Dorking Eagle.
No idea where ball came from but I assume from away fans as the Sidwell free kick was still in Westcott
What a game and result. It is looking good now, if it wasn't for the horrendous (once again) injury situation.
Like others, I'd like to see Knight and Vincent start (they may have to) - and a midfield of Knight, Moore and McManus could do a job, although still severely lacking in creativity. Vincent and Dennon on the wings, so maybe the best bet will be to get it out wide asap...
One other observation, throught the Bank was at it's loudest yesterday - and I think this was partly down to the £5 U18 tickets. I think we should look at extending that, or even making it a permanent thing...
Anyone know what we are doing to these loan strikers?
PMac signed on January 9th and out for season on February 14th, but not entirely surprising given his recent injury record.
Jose Marquez (19) signed on October 30th and officially leaves on December 18, crocked.
Patrick Casey (20) signed on December 10th and crocked on February 10th.
We are getting through one every 6-8 weeks at this rate.
As you said McCallum has struggled with injuries recently and I think Marquez had an injury prior to joining, hence why he didn’t last long. Casey just unlucky.
Just pray Alfie can avoid any more issues this season otherwise the goals will dry up.
Because that is the rule apparently @Dorking Eagle.
No idea where ball came from but I assume from away fans as the Sidwell free kick was still in Westcott
Yes the second ball came from the Farnborough fans. The ball went into the away crowd from a passage of play. It took a while to come back, so we used one of the spare balls to take a thrown in. I saw a couple of fans thinking of giving the ball back, but kept hold of it. I thought they were going to take it home for a souvenir, but they obviously had a different idea.
Don't even know where to start with that one. A real bittersweet game; a great comeback and the first time we've won from 2 goals down since, ironically, Farnborough away last season. Also, the first time we've won 5 games in a row (all comps exc. friendlies) since 1st Feb 2022!
However, those injuries are an absolute killer and I fear will be the difference in promotion this season unfortunately. Marc has an update today but from what I hear, the worry is that McShane has done his knee again which would be absolutely devastating for him. Casey being out for the season is an absurdly bad piece of luck if accurate and the Muitt and McCallum injuries are absolutely brutal as well. Hopefully the last two aren't as bad as first feared but both were in a lot of pain when leaving the pitch so it doesn't look good.
It is an absolute must now that we sign at least one winger and fortunately the signing Marc mentioned in the post-match is one of them. We could probably do with a short term striker loan and I think re-calling Jake Lawrence (who scored again at the weekend for Bognor) needs to happen as well. Also, where is Josh Hebert? Hasn't featured in the last 3 matchday squads and we are in desperate need of wingers at the moment.
The one saving grace is that it sounds like Carter and Pybus should be back this weekend for Maidstone which is a big bonus. Hopefully the Francomb injury isn't too bad either.
On the game itself, the Dennon situation is a tough one. On one hand, it is obviously ridiculous that players have to deal with all sorts of insults being thrown at them all game but on the other hand, it surely is something they are used to and learn to ignore. No player should ever be putting hands on a fan in the crowd and if the FA decide to have a look at that then he could be in big trouble. Will be interesting to see what comes out of the BoA footage of the whole incident but let's hope that was the end of it.
All 3 goals conceded were really poor. As Marc said, we had no control in midfield and then couldn't clear our lines for both the first two goals. Also, Foulkes is now up to 14 goals conceded from the edge or outside the box this season which is something like 35% of the goals he has conceded. That being said, he made an unbelievable 1-on-1 save in the second half to keep it at 3-3.
On the plus side, Brennan scored for a 3rd game in a row as is now up to 7 goals and 7 assists in all comps which is ridiculous for his position. Alfie has hit double digits for goals this season and Dennon has double digits in assists. Jordan Norville-Williams picked up his first assist of the season (if you count that as Louie's goal...) which means McManus, Craig and Sidwell are now the only 3 senior players in the squad to not have a goal contribution this season!
Hornchurch is going to be really tough as they have quietly hit some good form again. I would bite your hand off for a point tomorrow night considering the injuy situation.
Stats from the game:
Possession: Dorking 60% - 40% Farnborough
Shots (OT): Dorking 17 (8) - 10 (5) Farnborough
xG: Dorking 1.59 - 1.15 Farnborough
Top Performer: Brennan Camp [8.2]
I really hope we get Casey back but if I was Charlton I would be very hesitant to return him IF he recoved before the end of the season just due to the shocking injury record our pitch seems to play a part in
Jimmy's sister said on facebook that the hospital said it's not fractured but having seen the picture of the swelling it looks awful and I suspect when that has gone down a bit if they look again they might find some serious damage regardless. Apparently he is in a lot of pain 🙁
McShane very likely the ACL again
The winger we have signed is positive especially as Marc laid it on again in this morning's update about we cannot simply keep getting more and more players in (we still have to pay the injured ones)
The return of Carter in particular cannot come soon enough, if only he could wear steel toe capped boots lol
Word on the street is that Hebert has gone (?)
I wouldn't imagine BoA will feature any coverage of the Dennon incident, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to allow that. And the main halfwayline camera won't have anything because it happened behind a dense pitchside crowd with a glazed screen end and floodlight pylon in between the camera and the incident too.
Huge 3 points at stake tomorrow - maybe not a '6 pointer' but certainly a 5 pointer.
"Why would I leave to join a League Two club? We're going there anyway!" - Marc White
I’ve seen some Farnborough fans tagging Rich and BOA about showing the footage but I really hope they don’t. Can’t be having Dennon getting retrospective action from the FA.
Can't have been nice for BoA to have had a camera operator (filming in the opposite direction) right in front of that baying mob during the game.
Rich's loyalties will obviously lay with DWFC not some pack of feral morons.
No footage will exist. as clearly it's a football docu-series, they film the game and aren't there to film the crowd.
"Why would I leave to join a League Two club? We're going there anyway!" - Marc White
Injury curse is insane, as others have said.
Feel particularly bad for Jimmy, who made a brilliant interception in front of us, 100% commitment with game won, and was in immense pain straight away. Let’s up there is no fracture and will be a quicker recovery than feared. He is going to be hard to replace.
But yes, time to recall Lawrence and find Hebert if there is no one coming through the door tomorrow.
