La Piola, Leopald Road-My review.

I've literally stumbled into some of my favourite restaurants by chance the first time I visited, and so it was with La Piola a few weeks back. I was wandering down to the AFC Wimbledon club shop at lunchtime with my wife, and was famished. Given it was the choice between the fish & chip shop which is very good but Sarah was never going to with for lunch, or a posh looking coffee shop that sells cakes (I would have literally eaten everything they had and still been hungry) we settled on the cute looking pizza place. 

To cut a long story long, it was utterly fabulous. We sat out in this lovely little garden bit out the back, the pizza was ace and the birds were tweeting really loud. That's not a euphemism either, they literally were.

Anyhow given the rugby boy was back from uni, we decided to revisit Tony & Bella last Sunday night. We had some calamari, a garlicky prawns thingie, some cheesy garlic bread, some bruschetta, you know the kind of thing. We had Milly as well as Charlie with us, so despite the generous portions there's never any danger of anything being left over. QUICK NOTE HERE- All the portions here are big, but they don't substitute size for quality, it is all really good.

To drink, Charlie started smashing back pints of Moretti (don't know where he gets it from), Milly had an Aperol Spritz for reasons best known to herself, Sarah was on the vino and I'm still on the alcohol free stuff for reasons best not talked about.

For mains, we all toyed with the idea of pasta (another table had pasta and it looked lovely) but we all had pizza. I repeated my order of a few weeks earlier and had "American hot". The pizzas are big, with fresh dough, and loads of toppings.

We got another round in and some desserts. Two had home made tiramasu which was massive and sensational, I had chocolate brownie with ice cream. We then wiled the night away working out how much money we'll have when both kids have been through university.

The bill came to £142, which is utterly sensational value for a really lovely meal. I've a hunch that one or two local people see this place as a kind of "takeaway pizza joint", and use the old deliveroo for an occasional nibble while watching Ozark. I'm here to tell you though, La Piola is MUCH better than that. The little garden out the back is lovely, the food is great along with the service, and it's eye wateringly good value. If you're thinking of going to Pizza Express anytime soon, seriously give yourself a slap and go here instead, it's ace.

Good local businesses need support, this one is no different. They also do breakfast which although I've never had I intend to, and for lunch one of their salads or starters would fill all but the greediest of buggers. For us, there's pizza or pasta.

Go to La Piola, you'll love it.

Wimbledon season recap 2021-22 part 2. The emergence of Jack Rudoni.

At the start of the season, all the AFC talk was about the new signings, I guess it always is with most clubs after the Summer. Luke McCormick came in and it was instantly obvious that he's a good player, ditto George Marsh. Henry Lawrence lit the place up for a month or two, Aaron Pressley showed fleeting glimpses of potential, while our own Ayoub Assal snarled his way to an England under 21 training session call up.

Back then, few would have noticed the awkward, leggy, flop haired teenager mooching around at left midfield. You'd certainly never have heard Jack Rudoni bellowing at his teammates, or rowing with the ref. He's always had that "such a nice lad" look about him, the kind of young bloke you'd be happy with if your daughter brought home from the school disco. Equally, he perenially has that not too sure about himself gait, like an apprentice who's been sent down the shop to get some stripey paint but kind of twigs it's a wind-up. 

As the season progressed though, young Jack grew both metaphorically and literally (if my eyes don't deceive me). He began to get more sure of himself as time went on, demanding the ball more. In his passing too he began to get more ambitious, he started to hold the ball a fraction of a second longer, to wait for the moment.

It was in his arrivals into the penalty area though that he really started to shine. The goals came at regular intervals, and equally encouragingly there were plenty of missed chances too. It showed Jack was learning, sussing out that moment to get there like a wardrobe falling down the stairs. Sure, inexperience led to snatched shots pulled wide or blazed over, but as the season progressed it was rare in a match for young Jack to not either have at least one chance to score or to set one up for someone else. And all the while the Duracell workrate continued, the tackling, along with the racking up of the stats.

Jack ended the season with 12 league goals, including no penalties or set pieces. He scores all types, shots off both sides, tap ins, arrivals. He's good in the air and scored a few in that way too. He finished up miles clear of all the under 21's in the league for goals scored, and not forgetting (though it pains me to say it) Wimbledon weren't the best team in the league. Five assists was right up there, along with seventy tackles won putting him third in the league. Paddy May at Fleetwood is a good player, but such was the rate Jack was improving at the end that his non inclusion in the League One young player of the year shortlist felt like a travesty of justice.

He'll will be off this Summer, he's not signing a new contract and it would be a crime for him to go down to league two. Whoever gets him is getting in my opinion by miles the best young first team player outside the Championship. He'll end up being a goal-scoring box to box central midfielder, all action, and he is already in my opinion AT LEAST good enough for the Championship.

Infact so much has he improved, even in the last three months, he could well play at the very top level before long. Buyers should form an orderly queue, for a player who won the Wimbledon young player of the year, the Wimbledon fans player of the year, and the Wimbledon player of the year.

Jack Rudoni, worth an absolute fortune before too long, and a small fortune now.

Wimbledon 2021/2022 season review, part 1.

The sun shone and the ground erupted, Dapo wheeled away as he completed a thrilling comeback against Bolton and all was good with the World. We'd already had a great awayday at Doncaster, and to now be involved in a ding-dong 3-3 with one of the big clubs of the league felt like our right of passage. In the immediate aftermath I stuck a few quid on a top six finish, and few who bounced up Gap Road after the match would have laughed at me either, despite what they say now.

So where did it all go wrong (George) from there? How on earth did we end up going 27 games without a win and being relegated with a bit to spare? How could we end up being quite such a disfunctional football team?

Well as you'd expect, with football being the most complicated of "simple" games there are many factors. Over the course of the blog, we'll try and touch on a few.

So firstly let's start with a positive. Every now and then a team, a coach or a player comes along and invents something completely new, a wholly alien concept to the game of association football. Klopp brought us "Gegenpressing", the Dutch brought us "total football", the Italians "Catanacio", while even the Wimbledon of old can claim to at the very least have had a hand in "route one" and "put it in the mixer".

Usually when teams are credited with a new invention, it's because it (whatever "it" is) brings success. I suppose though it fits in with the slightly contrary nature of AFC Wimbledon that we've managed to invent something which although so far has been completely devoid of any points whatsoever in it's favour, at least we can say without fear of equivocation that we were FIRST. We absolutely own this one. Indeed so "new" is it, so "out there" in it's conception, that there isn't even a name for it, in many parts of the football world they've never seen it before. I say "isn't" when really I should say "wasn't" because I've invented one now. So ladies and gentleman I give you, as our gift to the game of football, our invention this season. It is (drumroll please)....REVERSE time wasting.

Now time wasting is normally exceptionally annoying to the team that's behind. It's always been an accepted norm that if you're in front, you'll take ages over every throw in, corner, free kick and goal kick. Your players will go down injured, you'll happily keep pointless posession of the football in your own half, anything to drain the darned clock down, to keep the result exactly as it is.

Well this season, (with no lack of cunning in fairness), we've stood that whole concept completely on its head. How does that work? Well essentially once we get behind WE slow the game down, keep passing the ball around in our half without it having any discernable gain, Nik Tsanev takes ages over goal kicks (and in a recent development actually kicks them out for a throw in) etc. The game disappears like sand through a sieve, it's total genius. Our hapless opponents, expecting a late onslaught as we chase an equaliser/winner don't know what to do with themselves. They don't know whether to come into our half to try and get the ball off us, or just stand there and watch us pass it about pointlessly. 

It's a ploy which the term "lull them into a false sense of security" was absolutely made for. I'm making the assumption here that part two of the plan "then suddenly as they fall asleep watching us pass it around in our own half, we catch them unawares" is the part we haven't seen yet. We've perfected to a tee stage one now though, so watch this space.

Another completely new concept we've introduced this season (which I haven't got a name for yet) is the one where you get in a promising attacking position then reverse. This can be a throw in level with the opposition box, a good crossing opportunity, an attacking free kick even, but from there do we do the obvious? No siree, we don't (once again this is the clever bit). What we actually do is "precisely what the opposition is least expecting us to do" (Stephen Fry's General Melchitt would have a field day here). No we don't cross it, or shoot, or throw it into the box, we pass it backwards, then backwards again, then backwards again, then Nik Tsanev kicks it (usually out for a throw in). Teams usually get three points against us, but they rarely leave the pitch not scratching their heads, at least we can say that.

On the second "cunning plan", I hesitated to put it in as there is the danger I could be giving the game away. That said, the fella at Crewe obviously knew about it as he collected said back pass, went round Nik and sent us down, so the cat is probably out of the bag anyway.

It's been a funny old season though in a funny old game. Part two to follow at a later juncture.