Ground: Highbury Stadium (capacity 5,327)
Location: Fleetwood, England
Ticket price: £24 - can be purchased online prior to the day
Time to tick another off the list, and this is one I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I do like my seaside towns…
Fleetwood Town were founded in 1908, simply as ‘Fleetwood’. After a few further name changes, they settled on their current name, Fleetwood Town, in 1997. The Fisherman have had a reel-y meteoric rise since the turn of the century and have certainly made quite the splash on English football. In the 2004/05 season, the Cods had just won the North West Counties Football League First Division, a division which is known as “Step 4” in the English pyramid. Just 7 years later, they won the Conference League (now known as the National League) as winners, earning them the chance to compete against the likes of Plymouth Argyle and Rotherham United. Fleetwood gained promotion in the 2013/14 season to League One and have not looked back since, finishing in the playoff spots twice with steady mid-table finishes in their other seasons. Owned by Steve Curwood, who has been Fleetwood Town’s CEO since 2008, the club are managed by former Hoops midfielder Scott Brown, whose prior experience in coaching was as an assistant manager at Aberdeen.
The town of Fleetwood sits on the western Lancashire coast, just a couple of miles away from Blackpool. Fleetwood is the birthplace of Fisherman’s Friend, a sweet which everyone beside me seems to find revolting and One Way System, one of the few punk bands brick-and-mortared into the elusive Oi! Genre (they do a good cover of Cum On Feel The Noize). For those curious, Fleetwood Mac are actually not from Fleetwood but are instead named after Mick Fleetwood, the band’s drummer. He was born in Cornwall.
Fleetwood finished the season in midtable and made some decent signings in the off-season, with experienced midfielder Danny Mayor and Ryan Broom, who made 40 appearances for Cheltenham, joining their ranks. Outgoings include Alex Cairns, who I watched at Salford last season, make Manchester his home and Danny Andrew, who will be donning the yellow jersey worn by today’s opposition. Brown also used his Celtic links to bring in Ryan Montgomery on loan, a player who has featured 10 times for the Bhoys and featured regularly for St. Johnstone last season. Could be a good signing that for the Cod Army. Their first game of the season was a 1-1 draw away to Carlisle, so they’ll be looking to impress their home fans against a Cambridge side that greatly impressed me last week against Oxford United. I’m expecting a fiery clash here.
Fleetwood has no rail station so the best way to get to Highbury is to get the train to Blackpool North and take the tram or bus into Fleetwood. Thankfully, I managed to get a lift into Fleetwood. It was a nice 20 or so minute walk through Lord Street, then turn left past the large memorial park.
The game’s start was a rather conservative affair. Fleetwood, playing 3 at the back, looked to use their left and right centre backs, Earl and Nsiala, to spray balls from deep to the wingers. Cambridge on the other hand looked to sit compact, pack their midfield and hit Fleetwood on the break.
Fleetwood, with all their might, were trying to break down Cambridge, but were having fruitless luck in their endeavours. Ryan Graydon held onto the ball for too long, with Janneh picking up the loose ball. He found Lankester, who played the return pass to his Gambian teammate. Just like against Oxford, he fizzed in a low cross, which was met by a strong palm from Lynch. Just like against Oxford, the ball found its way to a yellow jersey, this time Paul Digby, who fired the ball emphatically into the empty net. Just like against Oxford, the U’s opened the scoring and in my eyes, had been the better team in the opening proceedings.
I felt Mark Bonner had got his tactics spot on that half. He let Fleetwood have the bulk of possession, but the Cods were not doing anything with the ball. Fleetwood spent too long on the ball, taking too many touches, with very little movement from their forward players to drag Cambridge out of position. Fleetwood were trying, and I was impressed with the passing range on display by their right centre back Josh Earl, but you can’t have the bulk of your creativity coming from your defence. It was no surprise to see Scott Brown hook two of his players off at half time. They needed to change something.
There was a second goal and it fell to the awa side, with Ahadme making it 2! It was 2 in 2 for the striker and it’s no wonder that so many U’s fans predicted him to be their top scorer this season. Watching the Moroccan these last two games, he does seem to have that predatory instinct that good strikers have to have. I will definitely be watching more U’s games and he’s a player I will certainly be keeping an eye on.
In response to this, Scott Brown brought on Promise Omochere and Cian Hayes to try and get back into the game. However, despite the former's best efforts, they could not break down an impregnable Cambridge City defence and the game ended 2-0.
Cambridge sort of reverted back into their shell after the second goal, similar to what they did against Oxford. Again, I’m a bit concerned about this as it lead to Fleetwood gaining belief and momentum and unlike the first half, they were applying pressure with the ball. Promise Omochere really made a difference when he came on I felt, he seemed like a real team player. I remember one occasion where he chested the ball to his teammate, who lashed the ball wide of Stevens’ goal. He was a handful and the U’s were struggling to contain him. Thankfully for Cambridge fans though, Michael Morrison and Ryan Bennett were as imperious as ever and even the threat of Omochere did little to deter their efforts of preserving the clean sheet.
On the way back, I made a pit stop at The Eating Plaice, a multi-award winning fish and chip shop in the heart of Fleetwood’s town centre. First of all, the fish in Fleetwood must be massive because there’s no way that’s a ‘medium’ fish. Second of all, the price of a medium fish and chips came to around £8, which in these trying times isn’t too bad I suppose given it’s a seaside town. They cooked the cod to order too which I liked.
The meal itself I give a solid 6/10 to. Bit too greasy for my liking, but if you took the thick batter off of the fish, the cod was delicate and flaky. The chips were nice too.
Fleetwood United 0-2 Cambridge United 12/08/23
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