Yep, I remember that game, one of my few at Withdean...also remember going down there for a match about 15 years ago, still rates as the friendliest place I have been to watch the Albion play, top day out...seem to recollect that we had Paul Dickov playing his first game for us and Kurt Nogan scored!
Fair play to Exeter, despite me tipping them to bottle it in the play-offs, the league are gaining a really excellent football club.
I went along to the game today with a load of mates who are cambridge fans. Very disappointed with the result and the Exeter fans; did not get behind their team and were silent as anything expect when it was apparent that they were going up. In the aftermath they were incredibly gloating and offensive in victory (or at least the ones we encountered were).
The Cambridge fans were magnificent. I went to the Globe pub by Baker Street station and there must have been 500 of them there by 12. Singing, dancing on tables and having a properly good time. It is such a shame that the team couldn't win it for those fans.
As for the game, it was scrappy at best. Both sides tried to play decent passing football but it didn't really work out that way. The goal was a from a corner and to be honest wasn't pretty on the eye. The game opened up a bit in the second half as Cambridge tried to get a goal back.
Overall a good day out. Cracking stadium and a great attendence. Ulitmately the wrong club won. Cambridge are and will always be a bigger club than Exeter.
Good news for me, proper league footie just up the road again, it is true that the Blue Square is hard to get out of and the top third is very competitive, but some of the teams in the bottom half are very amateur at best.
That is a fair summary of the BSP, there are some very well run teams in the top half, many have set ups that would put some League clubs to shame. There are also some pretty good footballers there too, some who would not look out of place a couple of divisions above but for one reason or another find themselves playing at non-league level.
It is usually apparent early on in the season which teams will struggle, there has been criticism of the clubs joining from the Northern division, they were certainly the ones that struggled last season whereas those from the south (Histon and Salisbury) did relatively well. I haven't a clue why this may be, perhaps it is harder to work your way up the pyramid in the South or teams have greater resources at their disposal and thus make a greater impact. I would expect Eastbourne and Lewes to do reasonably well next season in the BSP, if the latter can resolve its current issues, probably finishing above the new teams from the North.
Ironically, Altrincham may be reprieved from relegation by the sad demise of Halifax Town, even though they wanted to drop two divisions to the Northern Premier...perhaps further indication that things ain't good oop norf.