Colchester memories
Decent place to start this:
http://footygrounds.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/colchester-united-layer-road.html
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Decent place to start this:
http://footygrounds.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/colchester-united-layer-road.html
Comments
As someone who started supporting in 2001, my memories of Col U are a load of absolute dross.
David Titterton
Red (short sleeve) shirts in the FA Cup, they scored during a pitch invasion, we won 2-1. That was my second ever away game.
Genuinely unpleasant atmosphere at that game - seem to remember the local army dog handlers being called in to keep Colchester's finest at bay.
@MindlessDrugHoover Aye, we sat in the Wycombe seats along the side so had a birdseye view of the whole thing. Layer Road was a great ground tho.
That was when John Gregory was manager, a game if i remember correctly John Williams scored a dubious winner..and it was a very hostile atmosphere...Also the 5-2 loss Cousins sent off.
This was a classic:
http://www.chairboys.co.uk/onthenet/reserves/colchester-reserves-23april2003.htm
Who the hell are Wycombe Wanderers Reserves?
My 1st Wycombe game was col Utd at loakes park in the fa cup won 2-0 followed by loads of trouble in the town centre after the game
Hand of Gaz
The 2-2 at Layer Road on a Tuesday night back in 2001 was one of the more entertaining clashes I've personally attended. We won the corresponding game 1-0 in the season after (Brownie with a pen?) but the game itself was forgettable. I wonder how many WWFC fans are properly 'tuned' into the Wycombe-Col U rivalry. Must admit, I first went to a game in 2000 so I probably only caught the dying embers myself.
That game we were 2-1 up, with a corner, about 23mins into injury time, and they raced down our end and got the latest penalty ever seen, to equalise 2-2.
That was poor.
@peterparrotface I went to that game. The only time I've ever heard the opposition booed (albeit half-heartedly) at a reserves match. Bell was outstanding that day and it was a shame it never worked out for him at Wycombe.
Two WWISC coach related memories:
1) A Col U fan, red in the face and apparently beside himself with rage, who attempted to get on the coach outside Layer Road after most of us had boarded and wanted to take everyone on single-handed (but was actually removed without incident).
2) A very cold journey back to High Wycombe, with the wind blowing in on a freezing night, after a driver managed to spin and flip his car on the A12 and smash through the coach window, before spinning several yards further on down the road and coming to rest.
@Uncle_T , wow on number 2! Smashed through the coach window when you were moving at speed? Or stationary?
Front window/back window, or the window next to some poor sod? Was it driveable in that condition, or a case of we either wait here all night, or we try and get home?!
I was on a supporters coach for another club once where some sort of bird smashed into the upper tier front window, causing a huge smash, but it cave the window in, so we carried on!
Last time I went there it was called off as we were parking. Midweek game of some sort.
@arnos_grove ice and fog, back in the Firkin by half eight
@Malone The side window about half-way back: it was one of those coaches with a toilet half-way along and my mate and I were in the row behind the steps down to the toilet. My mate was sat next to the window that got smashed and I was in the aisle seat next to him.
It was freezing driving all the way back round the M25 with no window and the air rushing in. I had taken a newspaper (broadsheet; they were bigger in those days) to read on the trip and I remember my mate and I sharing pages of the paper to hold over ourselves like blankets.
One of the 'quieter' meetings with Essex's finest.
Anyone remember the vital info? Anyone recognise any of the players?
That's Andy Kerr and McDonough challenging for the ball in the first one isn't it?
Bottom one: (right to left)
Gary Smith?
Simon Hutchinson
Simon Stapleton
Glyn Creaser
Andy Kerr
Martin Blackler
Steve Walford?
Goodness knows......Gavin Covington?
Other than those already mentioned, Westie's in the top one, and Guppy. And Nuttell up front with Westie?
@eric_plant Reckon you're nearly right. I think the last three are Mark West, Steve Walford, Martin Blackler. Blackler by a process of elimination with the team line-up to hand. I'd have struggled to spot him otherwise - doesn't look much like him.
Red Card Roy probably would have been sent off these days for yet another early bath with that kung-fu kick on Andy Kerr in the top picture!
Blackler is definitely 3rd from the left in the bottom pic
Who is the left back with the black cycling shorts on though?
Ah no you're right. That's Mark West isn't it?
Which means Blackler's the one with the cycling shorts on. You're right, doesn't look like him. His hair seems too light. And you can't see his ponytail
I started attending regularly in 98/99, so I don't have any experience of the rivalry when it was in its heyday. My first memories of it is was of us coming back from 1-0 down to go 2-1 up when a certain F. Stretton (Nottingham) must have put the game down as a draw on his Pools coupon, otherwise he would never have found 6 minutes (if I remember correctly) of injury time when 4 had been signalled before he gave the Essex apes a penalty. Since then I haven't been to a game where it was particularly fierce, though the 3-0 win capped off by my personal favourite WWFC goal, Brownie's 30 yard howitzer at the end, was one of my best memories as a Wanderers supporter.
For better or worse, there's no real rivalry these days - the needle and even Layer Road has gone, it's not the same.
The goal off Guppy's Arsenal was a good memory.
Will always be Clu for me, even after PNL last season. We8clu
@NewburyWanderer @eric_plant I reckon those photos are from the 2-2 draw in November 1990. Up front that day was Keith Ryan who scored both goals; I think the first was an overhead kick. I can also remember having all sorts thrown at us behind the goal.
A few hazy memories of the 2-0 win at Layer Road (I think I was 8 years old at the time). Both goals came in front of the packed away end - the newspaper report says there were 1500 away fans, God knows how we all squeezed in to that chicken coop:
Stapleton's 'beckoning' celebration to the terrace after scoring - the crowd duly obliged and seemed to surge to the front of the terrace
Col U fans invading the pitch sometime afterwards - my older brother pushed me down below the advertising hoarding right at the front as their blokes were determined to get through the line of stewards to get to us
My dad, brother and I having to run back to the car after the match - you could tell who the other Wycombe fans were as no-one was hanging around!