Yemi's blog, pt whatever it is now...

Beat Exeter over two legs and Yemi Odubade will be playing at Wembley...a good angle for today's Yemi-blog entry...

Yemi's blog, pt 6

You get the idea by now...

Yemi's blog, pt 5

Another quick chat with Mr Odubade, this time to get his reaction to Luke Foster's injury, and the decision to show both legs of their play-off semi-final live on Sky.

Yemi's diary, part 4

Suppose I should be calling it "Yemi's blog" really. Anyhoo, spoke to the man himself this evening, this time about Oxford's last league game at York, hopes for the play-offs, and his old side Eastbourne Borough...

Eastbourne Borough 1, Braintree Town 2

I wasn't working at this one but just thought I'd wrap up the recent narrative of Borough's highs and lows over the past month or so. As I said in the post below, they needed to beat Braintree and hope either Bishop's Stortford or Newport County fail to win to book the play-off place that had seemed so unlikely after the defeats at Sutton and Newport a couple of weeks ago.

In the event, Borough ran out of steam, and players, at the end of an exhausting run of ten games in 25 days. They started the game without five first-choice players and lost a further three to injury during the game and another to a sending off after a dubious second yellow card. They had to bring on two of their under-18s as subs but by that time the cause was lost. Eastbourne fell behind to a first-half penalty and despite equalising before the break through Allan Tait (his 11th goal in 14 matches), Braintree dominated the second half and scored the winner on 61 minutes.

As a further kick in the teeth, Newport lost at home to Cambridge City, so a win for Borough would've given them a play-off place. The irony being that if they HAD made the play-offs, they'd have had hardly any fit players anyway!

Still, there's always next season...

Eastbourne Borough 2, Bognor Regis Town 0

(tonight; co-commentator on BBC Southern Counties Radio website)

Well, Eastbourne Borough not only won on Saturday, they then beat fellow play-off hopefuls Newport County on Tuesday (2-1) and tonight they also beat Bognor Regis Town (2-0) at Priory Lane to give themselves a tremendous chance to snatch a play-off place.

As it was a Sussex derby and an important game for Eastbourne (Bognor had nothing to play for but local pride), BBC Southern Counties Radio carried commentary on their website. Kevin Anderson, who reports on both Eastbourne Borough and Lewes for the station, was the senior commentator and asked me to be the summariser. It was the second time I'd done it, after the England v Scotland non-league international which was played at Priory Lane at the end of last season. Really enjoyed the experience so have come away happy.

Borough now need to beat Braintree Town in about 41 hours time and hope results go their way if they're to reach the play-offs. It's entirely possible now...

Thinking of England...

Yet more good news for Yemi. He's been named on the stand-by list for the England National Game squad that will play in the annual Four Nations Tournament in Scotland at the end of the month.

The squad, made up of the best English players outside of the Football League, includes two of Yemi's Oxford team-mates, goalkeeper Billy Turley and midfielder Andy Burgess, and Yemi will join them if one of the named strikers pulls out prior to the tournament.

With that in mind, I gave Yemi a call for his thoughts and added it to the blog.

Yemi's diary, pt 3

Another short interview with Yemi done this evening.