CatkinCUFC

Colchester United fan here, was having a mooch because I was interested in this signing (congrats on sunday by the way!). Iwelumo is my favourite ever colchester player. In the season we got promoted to the championship, and our first season there, 'big chris' was an absolutely titanic figure. Big, strong, surprisingly fast and skillful. There is a reason jamie cureton was top scorer in the championship one season, then flopped the next, and that was because only one season did he have iwelumo smashing people out of the way and putting it on a plate for him. He took our penalties (in a unique way!) So he isn't just a useless hack. He also is, above all, a character, and by all accounts an all round good egg - I can well believe his enthusiasm, he obviously loves being a footballer and even posted a couple of times on our message board. I guess there is always a chance he is old and :censored: now, but I thought I would share my thoughts on a hero of mine!

Colchester fan here. It's a combination of things, the first two seasons at the new ground were pretty disastrous, we did well league placing wise under boothroyd but that doesn't tell the whole story, the football was rank and lots of people drifted away. An awful lot of mistakes were made when we moved, as Oldham fans will know well, our stewards were absolute nazis (i got thrown out for asking to leave a game!) and we made the mistake of going hell for leather for the corporate fans while treating the core support like criminals. The prices were also originally set at minimum 26 quid an adult ticket which barely helped to ingratiate people to the club. The ground isn't really isolated but it just feels so in the middle of nowhere, when the ground was planned it was intended to be part of a new town development with a new road into the town centre, pubs, schools, shops and houses. The recession killed that and the ground which was supposed to be part of the community ended up being situated in a wasteland (although this will eventually be resolved) There is also an extent to which we are returning to our natural level of support, we attracted extra fans during our promotion/championship seasons but these have gradually faded away and it's back to the core 3k we always had. We have always lived in Ipswich's shadow, just it is more noticeable now as our fans rattle around in a relatively big new stadium rather than the tiny layer road. As for yesterday, your team didn't look like they ever felt the could win it. Clarke in particular has the turning circle of an oil tanker. To be honest though, I went through your squad and it's is clear Dickov has a comparatively tiny budget to work with. Experience and proven quality costs money and it clearly isn't available. Your squad reminds me of a northern version of Yeovil, lots of waifs and strays, so imo it will be a real achievement if Dickov can steer you to mid table. We used to have a similar look pre wealthy chairman and our goal was always 52 points. I wouldn't be too disappointed, consistency costs money.

Trust me, move to a boring new stadium like ours where the stewards spent the first two seasons throwing out anyone who moved and even somewhere like Boundary Park (lets face it, the stadium itself is shocking!) with nice pubs, cheap booze, friendly stewards and fans (at least the stewards have been friendly in the away end) and Manchester down the road for a night out is something to enjoy.

Nah, we aren't. Two of our three midfielders are under 5 ft 6! I wouldn't compare a Boothroyd side with our team now, especially as he took Clive Platt off our hands (thank god). Ill admit we still have a centre half who is built like a brick :censored: house, but any self respecting league one team should have one of those. We have been playing 4-3-3, with 2 snappy midfielders nipping at peoples ankles in midfield, one midfielder pushing forward (but he is combative as well), two attacking forwards/wingers and Dave Mooney as a lone striker, who plays as a footballing target man. Our real problem is we really play without a striker like Spain in the world cup, just a lot worse! At its best the formation looks wonderful, but win the battle against our midfield 3 (only Huddersfield have done that) and Dave Mooney looks isolated as the two wingers drop back to help, if they get on top though we can overwhelm teams. We tend to do better away as well. Theres an interesting article about our new formation below. http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/08/09/thr...ree-man-attack/ I know it sounds stupid, but Ill predict either a 2-0 victory or 2-0 defeat - depends how our squad respond to our thrashing against Huddersfield last week. Disappointed I can't come tomorrow, one of my favourite away games in recent years (no really!).

Oldhams slightly smaller than Colchester I believe? Ill admit we have had a weaker history but the potential is definately there, the borough and surrounding towns have a population of 180 odd thousand, there is quite a lot of money in north essex, and we have a young chairman worth over 100 million. I like to think in time we could become as big as Ipswich in time, a solid championship side with occassional forays up into the premier league and down into league one (and believe me, Im no optimist!). Your right in a way though, the big problem for us is our history of being "S**T." When I was growing up Colchester were a skint, unglamourous side and it will take a long time to shake that image off in the minds of the townsfolk.

I wouldnt bother, we live in Reading And yeah, I suppose thats something that comes from working in London. Trust me, start working in central London and you will develop a manic desire to live as close to a station as possible. And Lookers Carl, I suppose people probably did say we lacked ambition but I think its rubbish to be honest. We always averaged 3,000 ish till the last few seasons at layer road, there was no need to build a bigger stadium, it would just be a white elephant. We can expand up to 20,000+ if need be (which it never will be IMO) so the possibility is there. Id say that you just have to make sure you can expand a stadium, rather than going for big new one you wont fill. At the end of the day the council built our new stadium anyway so its not like we really had a say in how big it was. And Id just say seriously guys, be careful what you wish for with a new stadium. Before you know it you will be at some corporate wankfest of a stadium, sat down and looking around wondering how the hell you ended up paying 20 quid for zero atmosphere except for some tit in an eagle costume.

Whose going to buy the land off you though, in this climate? I know our council STILL havent sold layer road, in fact they cant even manage to give it away! Its not as if Boundary Park is exactly in a desirable location (by that I mean near a station). Im not even convinced by the fact that clubs actually make loads of money off these facilities, im yet to see any concrete evidence that they even make a profit (lets face it, most clubs lose money even after they move to a new ground.) If these corporate facilities are going to be be profitable anyway, they wouldnt need to sell the flats in order to finance them, banks would be queueing up to finance them and then cream off the profits when they were finished. I know im only a visiting supporter and all, but it just strikes me as being an utterly :censored: idea. I dont think it will suddenly make you profitable, and I want to go watch colchester play oldham athletic, not some team from a manc suburb. And yeah, had a wicked weekend thanks. Despite it being, ahem, not the poshest part of the world, Oldham fans are unfailing a good bunch. Went to Chinatown in the end, got utterly trashed, and ended up singing with a group of rugby league refs! I do love having a girlfriend who thinks that a romantic way to spend your third anniversary is getting pissed in oldham/manchester and going to the football....(no, seriously!)

Sorry, I mean I wasnt going to wade through 8 pages of thread to find out if that had been answered - it just occurred to me yesterday you have excess capacity and a spare side of the ground that you could easily do a luton with and turn into corporate facilities rather than move to manchester. I mean, Im not local but surely there isnt a huge requirement for corporate facilities in failsworth anyway!?

Can someone explain to me why moving ground is going to help? You have a wacking great hole on the side of the ground, surely you could just built these semi mythical "corporate facilities which provide a year round income stream" that all teams bang on about on the empty side, its not as if you really need the extra seats.....

Thanks for the ideas guys - the point about manchester is by the time we have a few post match drinks it will be seven ish at the earliest and it might just be too late to trek all the way into town! Are those two pubs the best to go in pre/post match? Last year we went in the brewers fayre thing next to the premier inn behind the chaddy road end (?)

Talking of the game this saturday, we are staying up in the area saturday night. Is anyone able to recommend a decent ish chinese restaurant in Oldham/Rochdale (staying roughly in between the two)? And which is better for nightlife (not clubs, just where is the best place to go that will carry the least risk of a kicking and finding a few decent/bearable clubs and bars)? Cant be bothered to trek into manchester, too much hassle really and we have been out there loads anyway. I just hope we play as well as we did at your place last season! Thanks for any info!

Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to you to express my displeasure at the standard of the stewarding experienced by away fans at the WHCS on Saturday. I completely understand that you are bound by the model regulations produced by the Premier and Football leagues. It is undoubtedly an offence to stand whilst in the stadium, and those entering the ground accept that they can be ejected if they persistently stand. It is not the rules themselves that I have a problem with, but the manner in which they are enforced. I was unfortunate enough to witness the events that occurred in the second half in which a young Oldham fan was ejected for standing. As he was being removed his club scored, so understandably he celebrated the goal. I fail to see why this action justified him being dragged from the ground, after being pinned against a railing. It seems that Colchester United have failed entirely to heed the lessons that have been learnt in policing and stewarding techniques since Euro 2000, as summed up by research or Dr Clifford Stott of Liverpool University. To sum up, he argues that crowd mentality is easily influenced, and normally peaceful people can be easily angered and provoked to act in an unnatural way. Emotions are contagious, and a perceived sense of injustice can spread rapidly. The Portuguese and German police and stewards took crowd mentality into account when managing the 2004 European Championships and the 2006 World Cup, and began to take a number of steps to counter this. Essentially, they determined that, while a police presence should be maintained in order to allow a rapid reaction to serious problems, stewarding and policing should on the whole be low-key, allowing fans to self-police themselves. In pinning a single, 17 year old man against a railing and forcefully dragging him out of the ground, the stewards provoked a contagious sense of injustice amongst the Oldham fans. No-one at the ground yesterday could have failed to see the widespread anger that was caused amongst the away fans. I understand that teething problems will occur with the stewarding at the WHCS, but surely the club needs the review the instructions given to stewards. Gradually coaxing someone who had travelled 400 miles to Colchester out of the ground would have seen little or no disorder – however the heavy handed techniques used turned a peaceful situation into one with the potential for violence. I hope you can see the irony in the fact that ejecting one fan for standing led to some 100 fans standing at the back of the South Stand hurling abuse at the stewards. The whole point of stewarding is to nip trouble in the bud and contain it, not cause the trouble in the first place! This leads me onto the second problem caused by manner in which away fans are treated. At the end of the day, the club and its staff represent our town. As I was told on a course recently, one person who has had a bad experience will in turn tell an average of seven people how bad the service they received was. This means that the 400 odd Oldham fans will tell just under 3000 people how disappointing their experience was at the WHCS and in Colchester in general. This information will not just be passed on to Oldham fans, many of whom will now not visit next year, but will also be passed on to fans of other teams, through mediums such as internet forums and word of mouth. It would not take long for the reputation of the WHCS as a bad place to visit to spread. A fall of even 1000 away fans (approx 40 per game) spread over a season would represent nearly £20,000 in lost income, a not insignificant amount (Not including the loss in sales of sundries such as food, drink, programmes and car parking). I would like to think that the club does not want to commit commercial suicide by driving away customers with a poor quality of customer service (yes, football fans do represent customers, even away fans!). Comments such as the following sum up the reputation, of OUR club at the moment – taken from the official Oldham fans message board. • ‘So basically you turned fans with an average of 40 who just wanted to enjoy the game into a group of pumped up angry men who wanted to attack the stewards. At the end of the game all stewards didnt say a word and got a hell of a lot of abuse of me and most other fans leaving the stand. Well done Colchester on your plastic ground,ticket problems and shockingly poor stewards - Last time I'll be going there!’ • ‘As we left our section at the end, we made it perfectly clear what we thought of the stewarding and the way in which it had tarnished the image of Colchester United. We also said that we would be taking the matter further.’ • ‘The removal of fans for standing up was just shocking.... from as soon as I got into the ground the number of stewards was way over the top, everywhere you looked they were there just watching.’ • ‘The stewards asked fans to sit down a few minutes into the game and we all did. Nobody was stood up again for any significate period of time..... I added that I did understand that they are all still being trained (don't think he liked that) but they better learn how to control themselves because if they acted like that against Millwall they'd have a riot on your hands. There was zero chance of any trouble from Latics fans today, yet they still managed to find some.’ • ‘They will rarely have a better behaved away crowd all season, but they somehow managed to create an inflammatory situation. If he was thrown out for persistant standing, the end result of the stewards' actions was that many Latics fans stood for the remainder of the game, with similar numbers then standing in the Colchester end.’ • ‘crap stadium crap fans crap stewards crap run club.’ • ‘To the stewards, well done on turning a fun, mild mannered, banterous atmosphere into a stand off. It's interesting that you picked on a lad who seemed to be 17 / 18 and none of the bigger guys who had been standing as much if not more (though never persistent and on the back rows!!). I wonder why that was? You certainly are going to have fun when Leeds / Millwall are in town. Good luck’’ Many Thanks for taking the time for listening to what is intended to be purely constructive criticism, nothing more. Yours Sincerely Edward Aitken I intend to send this letter to the club, i assume its ok for me to use the quotes from people on here?

As a Colchester fan I have to say that I am ashamed by the piss poor management of what should have been, lets be honest, a low profile game between two teams which to my knowledge have had no major disagreements in the past. The day had the potential to be enjoyable, with some light-hearted banter between two sets of fans. Yesterday sums up to me the madness that now surrounds the policing of professional football in this country. Both during and after the game me and my mates managed to drink in the Norfolk pub and met a number of Oldham fans, enjoyed friendly conversation and managing to avoid not getting into a fight (note sarcasm.) I believe I actually met one of the group of people who put up that lad in their hotel room last night. I hope someone makes a serious complaint to our club, I know that I will be writing a letter complaining about the treatment meted out to away fans. I noted yesterday that the spineless bastards didnt try and throw you out for standing once they had angered enough people to even up the odds. At the end of the day the stewards represent both our town and the club, what sort of impression have they made. Pissed off.

In fact, here they are again: For those travelling by train: It is really really easy now, get off at Colchester North Station (the main one) and if you go under the railway line towards the town centre you will see a pub called the Norfolk about a two min walk away the other side of a large roundabout – I believe this pub is allowing away fans in. If you walk the other way at the large roundabout immediately outside the station entrance take the road sign posted bures/west bergholt (its called bergholt road) and about 10 metres down this road is a pub called the bricklayers. At the moment the Bricklayers is for home fans only but im sure away fans without colours would be accepted. It sure is convenient for the bus! You can also drink at the ground as well now, both before and after the game on the concourses. When you need to get to the ground, you need to look for the big yellow self storage warehouse (its really, really unmissable, right next to the station). The main entrance to this warehouse is on a really small road called Bruff Close, which is directly opposite the beer garden for the Bricklayers pub. From this road there are free buses to the stadium that will run until around 1430 i think. For those driving: Just a few suggestions for how to get to the ground, so feel free not to follow the advice. If you come off at Junction 26 of the A12 (the first one signposted for colchester), take the signpost for Colchester, the Zoo and Stanway (3rd exit). At the next small junction go straight on, then at a big roundabout turn right (third exit). At the next roundabout turn right (2nd exit) into the Tollgate retail park. In the middle of this retail park is a bus stop (in between boots and sainsburys) Park for free at the retail park and then get the number 65 bus towards Highwoods and the Town Centre. A day pass for the bus is only £1 if you present your match ticket to the driver. Car parking here is pretty much unlimited – obviously you are not strictly allowed to park here for free all day but it is miles from the stadium and I would consider it highly unlikely to be a problem. If you get off this bus at Colchester North Station (after approx 15-30 mins dependent on traffic) you can then follow the directions given above for pubs and the bus to the stadium. Another place to try is at the very bottom of Mile End Road, right near north station, but parking here is very limited, and may be difficult to find if you arrive late. The Half Butt pub in Great Horkesley has also been suggested as a possible away fans pub, on the corner of Keelers Way and Nayland Road (see multimap). There is parking both in the pub car park and in the surrounding small housing estate. Away fans are welcome in the pub (they were at the last home game, anyway). To get from the pub to the ground there is a wet route and a dry route. If it is wet, turn right out of the pub and then follow the main road under the A12 towards Colchester. At the first small roundabout, take the sharp left on to Boxted Road and follow this road until you see the stadium on your right. If it is dry, then again you turn right towards Colchester. Just before you go under the A12, then on the opposite side of Nayland Road to the pub you will see a footpath signposted heading off to the left. This footpath leads you to Boxted Road. At this road turn right and again you will see the stadium from this road (Basically, follow the “crowds.” A quick look at an ordnance survey map is a good idea before doing this route! DO NOT try and park right near the ground, it is a STUPID idea, you will get clamped or given a ticket and it is really not worth it.

As in the advice i put in a thread i started on Wednesday, last week the Bricklayers was home fans only, so choosing there to congregate for a prematch pint may not be the wisest idea. As i put as well, there are a few ways that the journey can be made fairly easy - in fact the ground is probably more convenient than Layer road was!