TTFN: The Moors Cup adventure is over - they bow out with their heads held high !

Saturday the 5^th November 2016

FA Cup Round One

Milton Keynes Dons 3 Spennymoor Town 2

So the ‘Road to Wembley from Scotland’ arrived at a posh ground where the number of spectators is measured in thousands rather than hundreds. It is likely, dependent on the draw for round 2 tomorrow, that I have seen my last non-league team on this journey. If that is to be the case then Spennymoor Town are a great last non-league club to have been associated with and they have provided me with some great memories and demonstrated the vibrancy of the non-league scene in England. It is sad to say goodbye to the Moors as I have become a Moors fan. I have enjoyed some fine passing football and some great banter with their fans and officials. I offer special thanks to the following people who I have been in regular dialogue via twitter over the last 7 weeks: Spenny Fan Chris the Moors video cameraman (@SpennyFanChris), David Leitch the club secretary (leitchy1969), Jamie McChandler the Moors midfield general (@jamie_chandler4), Krision of The Moors Tavern (@DJKrisopolis), Jason Ainsley the team manager and gaffer extraordinaire (@jayainsley7), Liam Curry Moors Fan (@Curry_LG) and David Nelson Club photographer (@DJNelsonPhotos). I have almost certainly missed out others so apologies to them - the whole Spennymoor experience has been great.

Five goals and some raucous encouragement from the away fans. This is how the day panned out.

Pre Match Communications: One thing I quickly learned when trying to contact MK Dons in advance of this tie is that I am now dealing with a big club. Their main facebook page has over 3500 members and they also have ‘MK Dons Worldwide’ and ‘MK Dons Scottish Supporters Club’ with lots of members. All three fb platforms were responsive and with the help of a whole load of Dons facebookers I was able to explore the links between their club and Scotland. As for both of the previous rounds Spennymoor were very keen to promote their club through this blog. 8/10

Pre Match Pint: I was informed that the nearest pub to Stadium MK is about a mile and a half from the ground. That was not very convenient. However there is a massive retail park on the same campus as the stadium and the park features a variety of eateries. Hence me and my travelling companion Satch headed in to a Franky and Bennys and ordered a couple of starters so that we could down a couple of pints. No hand pulled beers available but the Samual Adams Boston Lager was clear and bright and tasted pretty good.

Calimari: Six squid for a snack so you can order beer!

After entering the ground at 2.00 pm we headed for the bar and found that it was serving the usual overpriced canned and bottled beers so typical of the bigger stadia.

Packed: Spenny fans lubricating their vocal chords

 The atmosphere in the bar was great and The Moors fans were oiling their vocal chords ready for a right good sing-song during the match. A few numbers from their repertoire were tested out in the bar. 6/10

Programme: The match day magazine was priced at £2.00 and was good value. The 32 page glossy publication has interesting articles by the Caretaker Manager, an Executive Director and a columnist for a local newspaper describing the magic of the FA Cup. The coverage of the visiting Spennymoor team is particularly impressive. The Moors squad are described in detail and some great pics of the players. Indeed the quality of the photography throughout the magazine is outstanding. A good effort 8/10

Ground: It is really difficult, and perhaps churlish, to be critical of a magnificent, modern, state of the art 30000 capacity football stadium … but something did not feel quite right.

The impressive Stadium MK pictured from the Retail Park opposite

Maybe it was just this fixture but the ratio of crowd : capacity gave a sense that this ground was not fit for purpose. The attendance was just over 4000 and with about 800 Moors fans hemmed in to one corner the other 3200 fans rattled around like peas in a pod. It was possible to imagine that if the tie was played in a 10000 capacity ground then the place would have been rocking. Having said all that the ground is very impressive and there is 50% chance that I will be back there in round 2 and if there are (say) 15000 in the ground then I may feel completely different about the stadium. If the Dons ever reach the Premier League then Stadium MK will be fit for purpose and the place will be rocking.

One pleasantly quirky feature of attending this ground was the warmness of the welcome to the Stadium from the match day stewards

Step this way sir and enjoy the game! Great customer service

In the pic above this young lady gave us a theatrical and impressive welcome to the ground. We got chatting with another steward who told us at length how things were going in the search for a new manager and a third steward offered to take our photo for the blog 7/10

Atmosphere: The atmosphere in the away end was excellent. It is estimated that 800 Moors fans were in attendance. As the population of Spennymoor is less than 20,000 this suggests that a significant percentage of the town made the 430 mile round trip to see their favourites in Cup action. The Moors fans sang more or less continuously throughout the game offering their side generous encouragement.

Great supporters: 800 Spenny fans made the long journey

Maybe it was the effects of the time spent in the club bar before match but the Moors Massive seemed to get a little confused in the second half. A chorus of ‘I wanna go I wanna go home, Milton Keynes is a shithouse, I wanna go home’ was followed immediately by ‘Don’t take me home, please don’t take me home, I don’t wanna go to work. I wanna stay here drinking all your beer, please don’t try and take me home’. Make your mind up lads! 7/10

Scottishness: The main Scottish connection for this match was the MK Dons young Scots centre back Jack Hendry. The 21 year old Glaswegian signed for Wigan in 2015 having established a good reputation in his time in the Partick Thistle first team. He is currently on loan at Stadium MK from The Lattics. Young Jack is a bit of a John Stones lookalike and had a fine game. He is 6 foot 4 and has two good feet and looks pretty handy in the air too. He strolled through the match in the manner of another former Partick Thistle centre back Alan Hansen. His distribution was good all afternoon if a little safe as he looked for the easy short pass rather than the defence-splitter. Only in the last 5 minutes did he look at all perturbed by the marauding Moors front men.

Scot Jack Hendry: Looks like John Stones - plays like Alan Hansen

Spennymoor Town have a rich Scots heritage but none of their current team are Jocks. However, their midfield buzz-bomb Jamie McChandler has strong Scottish connections as he is a frequent visitor to Dunbar in East Lothian. Yesterday ‘Jamie Mac’ was in great form. He covered every blade of grass and tackled like a whirling dervish. In fact two crisp packets blew across the pitch in the second half and he tackled them too. He also used the ball well and in the 48^th minute flashed a shot just wide – a moment that could potentially have changed the game. 6/10

Entertainment:

This was a good match played out by two sporting sides both looking to pass the ball on a very good playing surface. Spennymoor Town were competing in the FA Cup first round for the first time since the re-incarnation of the old Spennymoor United as Spennymoor Town in 2005. They are a club on the up and up and I am sure they are saying TTFN and au revoir to the FA Cup competition proper rather than goodbye. Yesterday however, in the first 15 minutes, they froze on the big occasion and after a quarter of an hour found themselves 3-0 down against a rampant MK Dons side. With The Moors suffering stage fright The Dons took full control. After 8 minutes, man of the match, Ben Reeves scored with a low shot from the edge of the area. Two minutes later a catalogue of defensive errors by the away side presented the alert Brandon Thomas-Asante with a tap in. After only thirteen minutes the Dons scored again when Kieran Agard scored with a shot from the right that deceived everyone. After a horror story beginning the ‘frozen’ Moors began to thaw out and initially got a foothold in the match by passing the ball around and getting some quality possession. They underscored their improvement when Captain Courageous Joe Tait scored with a towering header at back post in the 29th minute. Half Time: Dons 3 Moors 1

First half action: Moors on the defensive

Early in the second half honorary Scotsman Jamie McChandler went close with a shot from about 12 yards. After surviving this scare the Dons perked up and played some good passing football with great movement off the ball. They were seeking to take the sting out these pesky Moors mosquitoes. Just as the game seemed to petering out towards a relatively comfortable win for the Dons, Spennymoor scored in the 84^th minute – and what a goal it was. Substitute Andrew Johnson cut in from the left and took on a couple of Dons defenders before coolly slotting the ball into the corner of the onion bag with his right foot. Cue pandemonium in the away end of the ground. The heroic men from County Durham were not quite able to find an equaliser despite putting the Dons defence under further pressure. Full time Dons 3 Moors 2

Second half action: Dons on the defensive

A memorable cup run had come to an end, but what an adventure. The people of Spennymoor will be talking about their day out in Milton Keynes in The Moors Tavern for many years to come.  8/10

Match Day Catering: The pies on offer in Stadium MK were gourmet pies. My Chicken, Gammon and Leek pie was ok but the outer pastry was a bit drier than it should have been. The cost of this ‘culinary delight’ was £3.60. I am pretty sure that I have never before paid this amount for a pie. Even in this brave new world of padded seats in an all seater stadia to charge this much for the traditional football snack is out of touch with the fan base for the beautiful game. The football fan does not want gourmet food at the match, he/she wants a good old fashioned meat pie. The price was 3 times the price of the Dunston UTS pie and the quality was far inferior. 4/10

Value for Money: The admission price of £10 was very reasonable for an important FA Cup tie in fairly luxurious surroundings. 8/10

The je ne sais quoi factor: Two things were special about this match. Sharing the experience with Ian Satchwell and Peter Tissington was a hoot and a first visit to ‘Franchise Football’ was fascinating.

In the 1990s I was the ‘manager’ (ha!) of the Boston College Sunday team. In the previous round at Lincoln United many of my players from that team turned up and joined me for the match. The right back from that team, Ian ‘Satch’ Satchwell, was on holiday at the time and messaged me to say he was ‘gutted’ he couldn’t make it but would be at the next game. I thought ‘yeah right’! Yesterday, after planning our journey on a drunken night in Boston on Friday, he joined me at the match in Milton Keynes and it was great to see the old boy again. My abiding memory of Satch is when he returned to the team after an ankle break he told the dressing room: “Whatever you do don’t break your ankle or you will be lying in hospital and the Old Donkster will appear to visit you with a copy of 4-4-2 and some fruit – and nobody wants that!”

Satch and his old 'gaffer': Re-united at Stadium MK

Rumour has it that if The Dons are drawn at home Satch will be at Stadium MK in round two also. Peter Tissington is also on The Road to Wembley and our routes collided in County Durham in early October. I now see this Sheffield United season ticket holder at every match.

Fellow Roadie Peter Tissington and Ian Satchwell

Much has been written about Milton Keynes ‘acquiring’ Wimbledon FC and moving them to Milton Keynes back in 2003. A year later the name was changed to MK Dons and many football fans were uncomfortable with this development as it smacked of a town buying a franchise. It is at odds with the traditions of the game where a new team only gets access to the higher leagues by winning successive promotions. Certainly the fans of Wimbledon did not approve of this move and have formed their own club (Wimbledon AFC) who have now moved through the leagues and compete in the same division as The Dons. I am a traditionalist. I love the Saturday 3.00 kick off, I love a pie at the match and I love the FA Cup. However, if you happen to live in a town with 225,000 people and the town, because of the traditions of the game, does not have a league team then what do you do? I can understand why Milton Keynes residents are MK Dons fans. The way this all happened is not something that they, the citizens of MK, engineered. The MK Dons fans I have had dialogue with on facebook are fairly typical football fans – discussing the vacant managerial position and proudly supplying me with details of Scotsmen who have played for their club. I note that the Spennymoor Town twitter feed thanks MK Dons and their fans for the warm welcome and hospitality. I still don’t know what to make of it all but I have warmed to MK Dons as a club and I look forward to seeing them again in round 2 and also finding out a bit more about the club. 8/10

Overall Road to Wembley from Scotland Rating 70/100

At this point I have to say goodbye to friends who I have met from the vanquished team. My stay with Spennymoor has been a blast. I wish them every success in their Evostik League campaign and if they get a fourth promotion in five seasons then I will be at The Brewery Field next season for their league match against Boston United.

It's all over! Glory in defeat. The Moors players salute their travelling fans

So, the MK Dons are now my team. Who will they be paired with when the draw is made on BBC2 tomorrow evening? Where will I be heading next on The Road to Wembley from Scotland. Visit this blog on Tuesday to find out.

Miles on the clock for this match 740 (inc overnight stay in Boston, Lincs)

Total Miles on the Road to Wembley from Scotland so far 3220