Colchester Culmination

Colchester United (A) - League 2 - 3rd May 2025

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We’ve come a long, long, way together

Through the hard times and the good

I have to celebrate you baby, I have to praise you like I should…

And that’s why I went Colchester. To box off the 24/25 season, to celebrate this fine club and all those who deserve a pat on the back – even in the deadest of rubbers for us.

A mere 5 hours on the road, skirting past Ipswich and I reached the delightfully quaint Stratford St Mary for some pre-match scran. The sun was beating down and I forced myself to have an ice cream. Not football weather, not football food but enjoyable nonetheless in the scenic Suffolk/Essex borderlands.

To Colchester then and my first visit to their ‘new’ ground. Parked up at the park n ride and walked over the A12 to the fanzone and the denouement of the Championship season on their massive screen. On the way I clocked the stickers adorning lamp posts etc – Sturm Graz and Canvey Island, mainly. Eclectic. The bars were queuing out of the doors and the chat was a mix of “Can we do it?” and “So which stand are we in?” such is the nature of crowd at this level when there’s something to play for on the final day. An injured Colchester player was available for photos, which was a nice touch although he seemed to struggle to manage his crutches and signing autographs.

Into the ground – eschewed a free programme and had an IPA whilst chatting to fellow Bluebirds as they entered in dribs and drabs. The general feeling seemed to be that we’ve ended the season well and we’ve got a chance of doing something next season. Looking at how L2 is shaping up it’s hard to see an immediately obvious dominant force but it’s early days yet.

First half and we handled Colchester with relative ease. Considering they needed to win to have any chance of the play offs they didn’t exactly come at us all guns blazing. The attacking threat seemed to be diagonals to JK Gordon who Sam Foley handled comfortably – and he avoided copping the kind of stray elbow that we know Gordon is capable of dishing out. In fact the only blot on Foley’s copybook was his booking for dissent. The impetuousness of youth.

Such was their lack of cutting edge the packed home stands were fairly silent, although the noise did kick in on 19 minutes when news of Salford’s struggles filtered through. All to play for then – but the home side failed to rise to the occasion. Speaking of which, the early set off combined with a few scoops seemed to be catching up with a few in the away end as they started to doze off. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t that bad!

I managed to flog the remaining copies of Beans by the time the players came back out of the second half and there seemed to have been a collective decision to make things a bit more interesting. Colchester stepped up their attacking game and the ref decided to freestyle the rules and just vibe it. They attacked with more intent – we were able to counter too although once again we lacked that killer instinct. The most important issue to be addressed in the summer. The ludicrous sending off of Cameron threatened to tip the balance in Colchester’s favour but we dipped into the pools of resilience that Whing’s managed to refill and held firm. Stanway with some good saves and them hitting the post kept our sheet clean. Macey denying Popov did the same for them.

And that was it. A draw to end the season and as the players gathered in front of us to take the applause from the appreciative travelling contingent it has the out of contract players – Farman and Gotts - who took most of the laurels along with the gaffer, the man who has put us back on course and put the steel back into us.

The journey home took a while to get going – the perils of an out of town stadium – as it took until well past 5.30 to get off the car park. The inconvenience of modernity. But once on the road it was the usual fayre of the Radio Cumbria post-match, including the confirmation of the widely rumoured departure of Farman so it was nice that we did get the chance to serenade him for that final time. A relatively smooth journey home, punctuated by a stop at Sandbach and a chat with a Swindon player who was off back to Ireland for the summer. Aaron Drinan, nice lad. Just gone 11pm, approximately 15 hours after setting out for the day and I was home. Season 24/25 done and dusted – a few ups, a few downs, and lots of drama and intrigue. The best soap opera around.

So, into the summer we go. Some will go, some will stay, others will arrive. World beating insight there, I know, but there’s no point getting too het up about it all.

Enjoy your summer – watch some cricket, get some sun and be ready to back the Bluebirds through 25/26.

See you there!

End of Season 24/25

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