Football Season Review

Colchester Utd had looked fairly promising for the first half of the season but they fizzled out, with the U’s finishing 10th and a full nine points off the top six. John Ward’s first full campaign in charge started with lowered expectations after the playing budget was frozen, but the U’s started strongly and were in-and-around the top six for most of the first half of the campaign. Ward likes his sides to play passing football, which is in direct contrast to the physical long-ball tactics of his predecessor Aidy Boothroyd. However, his team was perhaps lacking enough quality to trouble the top sides and a mid-table finish cannot be considered too much of a failure, especially when you look at some of the sides that finished below them. Ward will be looking to strengthen his team in the summer, but the club just doesn’t have the funds to meet its fans’ expectations, and they will probably be getting used to the idea of spending a long time in League 1, which is quite possibly the club’s correct ‘level’. Chairman Robbie Cowling has been bankrolling the club for several seasons to the tune of around £1.4 million each year, but he is scaling down his financial contribution season by season, with a view to the club being self-sufficient by 2016. That means Ward will have a playing budget of £300,000 less for the 2011/12 campaign, although Cowling has revealed plans to invest heavily in the club’s youth system. Ward did make some good signings in the summer, with Andy Bond and Brian Wilson in particular both impressing, while Ward has managed to get the best out of David Perkins, who was unwanted by Boothroyd but won the club’s player of the year award this term. The U’s dip in form pretty much coincided with a bad ankle injury to man-mountain central defender Magnus Okounghae, and he has become one of the key figures at the club since his move from Dagenham the previous summer. Without him the U’s look short on quality at centre-back, with Pat Baldwin also plagued by injury, so that will surely be Ward’s main priority in the close-season. Several players are likely to be let go over the summer, with Morten Knudsen, Simon Hackney and Mendy Elito all out the door before the season had even finished. One player who will be staying is Steven Gillespie, and the striker showed glimpses of what made him the club’s record signing back in 2008, although he has continued to be prone to injury.

Player of the Season: David Perkins