The View from the Bar 7th October 2017

Art’noon all. Didn’t make it to Alresford last week but I have to say how impressive our performance was against Blackfield a week and a half back – if we could perform like that every week we’d be a top-six side in no time (although we might need to start scoring a few goals for that to become a reality). Still, it was a brilliant – and thoroughly enjoyable – performance, despite the 0-1 defeat. Good work boys!

Today we welcome Shaftesbury to Westwood for only the second time ever, and since I’m sure they get fed up of people banging on about hills and Hovis adverts when being welcomed to grounds, how’s about something different instead and a few funky facts from the season-by-season statistics that Pete Jeffery and Glynn Skinner have been painstakingly compiling over recent months (and that now go all the way back to 1912)? Good, right then, try these out for size:

• Cowes’ largest win in the past century was a 21-0 victory over HMS Manatee in the I.W. War League in 1943-44. Our heaviest defeat came during 1913-14 when we were beaten 0-11 at Portsmouth Reserves in the Hants League South.

• Three times Cowes have gone a whole season whilst managing to score in every single game – 1928-29, 1930-31 and 1946-47. In the last of these any watching neutrals definitely got their money’s worth, as we also managed to keep only three clean sheets all campaign.

• During the 1929-30 season Percy Cherrett scored an incredible 62 goals (including seven in one fixture vs Poole Reserves). The following season he netted a further fifty, including a run of scoring in no less than fourteen consecutive matches.

• Twice in the last century Cowes have shared a dozen goals with the opposition, drawing 6-6 at Gosport in 1957-58 and again at Christchurch in 2004-05.

• Possibly my favourite fact ever this one – in the 2011-12 season we were 2-0 up at half-time at Stockbridge but the result ended up being 0-0, after a floodlight failure led to the game being abandoned and the Wessex League, in their fair-minded wisdom – decided to award both sides a point from a nominal 0-0 draw rather than replay the game.

Quiz time in the clubhouse tonight (8pm start), but to get you in the mood, here’s a teaser for you. In the last 24 years we’ve had cup matches go to penalties on twelve occasions – winning six and losing six, although being victorious only once in the last five instances. How many of them can you remember? (Answers at the bottom of the page).

Enjoy the game.

Toby.

 

 

 

 

93-4 v Bass (HLCSF) won, 97-8 v Chard (FAV) won, 99-00 v Lymington (WLCF) won, 01-02 v Gosport (HSC) lost, 05-06 v Brading (WLC) won, 10-11 v Horndean (HSC) lost, 11-12 v East Cowes (IWSCF) won, 11-12 v Bemerton (WLC) lost, 15-16 v Newport (IWSCF lost), 15-16 v Cove (HSC) lost, 15-16 US Portsmouth (HSC) won, 16-17 Newport (IWSCF) lost.