Matchday Memories: On This Day 2010 – Aidy’s Men Kick Off Pre Season With Austrian Win!
Aidy Boothroyd- Sky Blue ‘gaffer’
New Sky Blue manager Aidy Boothroyd kicked off the club’s 2010-11 Championship preparations with the first of a number of pre-season warm up games.
This was the only one abroad as Aidy took a party of seasoned professionals, new signings and younger squad members to training camp in Austria.
David Bell in the Sky Blue
The Sky Blues’ opponent on this morning a dozen years ago was local side VF Gaflenz who they met at the grounds of Oberstraun BCF. Aidy drew on nineteen players from the squad with almost all of the substitutes getting a full second half 45 minutes.
Encouragingly the visitors came away with a 2-0 win, both Sky Blues goals coming in the first half, scored by fairly recent CCFPA recruit David Bell (after 28 minutes) and, five minutes before the break, another (longer term) CCFPA member Richard Wood.
The Sky Blues fielded the following team using nineteen players in total (substitutes at 45 mins unless indicated in brackets and CCFPA members underlined):-
Richard Wood in the Sky Blue
Keiren Westwood (Lawrence Thomas), Jermaine Grandison (Sammy Clingan-66), Michael McIndoe (Stephen O’Halloran), Richard Wood (Ben Turner), Richard Keogh (Sean Jeffers -64), Aron Gunnarsson (Michael Doyle), Sammy Clingan (Roy O’Donovan), David Bell (Martin Cranie), Carl Baker, Gary McSheffrey (David Bell -68), Sean Jeffers (Freddie Eastwood) and Donovan Smeekes
Unused subs. Andy O’Boyle, D.Hart and Michael Quirke (gk)
Donovan (a Dutchman) and young Australian goalie Lawrence (as well as D.Hart) were evidently trialists who clearly did not sufficiently impress to be offered terms. Andy was the club’s fitness coach at the time.
Krzysztof Kalinski‘s VF Gaflenz side turned out as follows:-
David Affengruber, Gerald Hochbichler, Alexander Bauer, Stefan Nestl, Martin Stutz, Alexander Hochbichler, Neven Spiranac, Marco Stadler, Daniel Pantelic, Niklaus Schonnehut and Hannes Stangl. Substitutes: Matthias Schauppenlehner, Matthias Schopf, Michael Schutz and Harold Hirtenlehner (gk)
CCFC 2010-11
CCFC gaffer- Andy Thorn,
CCFPA Associate Member Kev Monk’s report on the game from CovSupport News Service can be found by clicking here.
In fact the Sky Blues remained unbeaten in their seven pre-season games (winning four) and conceded only one goal in their last game, a 1-1 draw with West Bromwich Albion at the Ricoh at the end of July. Goals were at a premium however with only six pre-season and 54 in the main Championship season.
The season itself was uninspiring and, in March 2011, Ken Dulieu took over from Ray Ranson as Chairman and Chief Scout Andy Thorn (now a CCFPA member) took over from Aidy as ‘gaffer’ (in a caretaker capacity). City finished only in eighteenth place, albeit a full thirteen points above the relegation zone.
Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images.
