Congratulations lads

To the lads who won 5-1 tonight to make the final of the East Riding Cup Final, which will be at the KC in a few weeks time.

Lets hope you cap the season off in style. Well Done.

Brid 3 Pickering 2 (a)

I couldn’t think of anything funny, other than West Bromwich Brazil are a great team.

Quick recap of the footballing week, we go to Eccleshill and win 2-0 in conditions similar to Maltby Main. Eccleshill are not having a good time of it, they lost again at home, 6-0, to Lincoln Moorlands Railway anoraks on Saturday, 20th beating 19th to leapfrog 19th into 19th place, thus relegating 19th to 20th place – Lincoln improving their goal difference to minus 52 and Eccleshill’s to minus 89, i feel for them coz they have similar stats to ours last season.

I’d managed to talk Mrs and daughter to come to Pickering with me and the lad, not to cheer the boys on, but to go shopping, oh well, some company for the trip.

After some lunch in town, me and the lad made our way to the gound, contending with the wind and the drizzle and meeting one or two Brid-ites on the way. £5 for me and the lad went free, and as we entered Pickerings tidy little ground, I was surprised to see so much red and white. And on entering the bar, there was aload more – brilliant !!

Early doors we stand in the main stand behind the goal by the club house, but just as we get settled, the teams decide to change ends, so loads of us mozey on down to the other end. A quick reccy and I think we have around 30 in the stand at the far end, another 15-20 around the dug outs, this doesn’t include peeps int he main stand and those at the far end. A good 80 – thats nearly as good as a mid week home game in the freezing cold of winter.

The ground is tidy, the pitch is awful, more undulations than Pamela Andersons chest, this caught out Frank Belt early on, as he suffered from a bad hamstring injury when pot-holing on said undulation.

10 minutes in they score

11 minutes in so does Chib

43 minutes their keeper up ends Chib outside the box gets  a red card and we miss the free kick

55 they score again – but how ? they’re down to 10 and against the wind

77 Chib gets another

88 The moment that stays with everyone for a very long time. The goal that cuts the tension, whereby you know you should have won by a huge margin and kicked them into touch ages ago, but the response from the players and fans was such a joy. As i’d written on the forum, Phillo’s corner just sailed over, got caught in the wind, misses everyone and hits the far post and then goes in. There is a moment of stunned silence as everyone thinks “Shit, it’s in…..YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS” a big bundle on the pitch eunsues, with 2 Brid fans jumping in too. It was such a spine tingling feeling.

If we had done that at home, the feeling wouldn’t have been the same, I suppose when you are away, you have a tendency to stick together, especially when you are on someone else’s manor, so you share all those tense moments, those fingernail biting moments, the highs and lows. Whereas at home, you congregate in your own little cliques.

Thankfully a warm car await us in the car park, a short drive to Ayton to the Dennison Arms for a welcoming dinner.

Brid 4 Parkgate 0 (h)

With the sweet smell of spring in the air, the warmth of the old sun bursting through, footy on the box, newly installed footy table in the club-house, cold beer on tap, live footy at 3, Gail’s chilli and chips – Omens were really good.

0-0 at half time, bloody freezing, we’re playing ok, so were they, no luck in the raffle, indegestion. Omens looking crap.

We score 4 unanswered goals in the second half, Stoke beat boro, Man Utd lose, still cold but bloody satisfying.

Forum topic of conversation afterwards – who farted in the bus shelter today !

Brid 3 Shirebrook 0 (h)

We had taken a massive following to the Maltby Main game last Saturday, by all accounts we had around 40 or so out of the official attendance of 80. The pitch was dire, the slope was great for sledging but crap for football and the weather conditions were less than inspiring.  We’d played well but only won it 1-0 – but at this stage of the season, a wins a win (can’t win 4/5/6-0 every game). I didn’t attend as I decided to stay in and watch Everton v Stoke live and exclusive on AbuDhabi-does-football.com, after half an hour of that, the wind, slope and 150 mile round trip seemed the better option.

Shirebrook were the visitors for this one. Like Brodsworth a few games back, i’d no idea who they were or where they from, and like Brodsworth, they are languishing near the bottom of the table with a virtually similar shit set of stats. We put out a very strong team with nearly the whole first choice team on display – Tom Nicholson being the only major casualty, so that some whipper-snapper could get some experience. He didn’t have very much to do all night, as Shirebrook rarely troubled him or his goal.

We eventually broke the deadlock on 40 minutes, or they did for us, with a lucky own goal – I can’t say anymore than that as i was yapping at the time and didn’t see it. Though up until this point, we had played some good football, without our normal cutting edge which we had come to expect of late. On 43 minutes Chib then auditions for the next series of Strictly Come Dancing, with some neat footwork, a shimmy and a shake, a foxtrot and a tango and then BANG – he smacks into the far post from the 6 yard line that no one is ever going to stop.

Half time comes, no, nothing in the raffle and its getting cold, a quick trip indoors to hear the crooner crooning (the club had hired a St Patricks day band, not the ceilidh type beeejaysus) and he was bloody loud – god i must be getting old.

Second half seemed to take forever, we played well, but, well nothing much happened really. Ash Allanson scored a goal, and that really was it. The End.

Solid performances all round with a nice result to boot. And it was really bloody cold by the end.

Saturday sees another game at home v’s Luke Smiths Parkgate, it will be nice to see our old captain and left back, back at the club. Lets hope he has a good game and gets the welcome he deserves, and then we thrash them !!

Brid 6 Arnold Town 0 (h)

Been another full on week or two at work, having worked at opposite ends of the country. We played the runaway league leaders away last week and lost 4-1, however, their gracious fans commented on how good they thought our team were and were one of thee best they’ve seen grace their turf this season, quite a compliment when you’ve been thumped.

On Thursday of this week, I was at a customers in Falkirk and finished fairly late in the afternoon, I was advised that a drive back to my hotel on the other side of Glasgow would be a waste of two to three hours, so I drove a couple of miles to the oddly named town of Stenhousemuir. Famous for… well having an odd name and a football team in the fourth tier of Scottish Football, which was the reason i’d called really. I’d followed the results of the team all my life, because of their peculiar name. Earlier in the week Stenny had beaten the league leaders Cowdenbeath to stay in second place (they lost 4-1 at home yesterday – Saturday to the team in third place, East Stirling). I drive into the car park to see all the lights on in the ground, I then ask the car park steward if there’s a game on, “who are you?” he asks, I explain that i’m just a sad English footballing couch potatoe who was in the area and wanted to visit the ground, “ah no problem, park over there and i’ll take you in, the first team and others are training” so he took me in ! It was interesting, tidy little ground, which hosts an average attendance of 474. The whole place was buzzing, a group of about 20/30 teenagers practising moves in the goal at the away end, young kids training in the middle of the pitch, the reserves (or similar) training at the other end of the pitch, and what appeared to be the first team training on a five-a-side pitch behind this goal area. The tea bar was open and plenty watching. It just seemed “very together”, a club using its position to include and support all ages of the community at its facility.

Saturday brings a whole host of different excitement at Chez Bridlington. We entertain Arnold Town who are from the Nottingham area,and they bring a few fans with them. They are 1 place above us in the league, though looking at the score-line today you wouldn’t have thought so. Attendance 168.

Things do not start well, the visitors have the ball in the net after a minute or so, hearts sink, but as quickly as we moan, the good old lino has his flag up for offside – phew close one. The half really is dominated by us, we had so many chances to score, Chib having a few efforts and Palms with two belters that he untypically skied from a few feet – it appeared to be one of those days.

0-0 at half time.

Someone must have slipped something into the tea at half time, because we were awesome in the second half. Arnold couldn’t touch us, well only when their number two clipped (Palms?) who was clean through on goal and brought him down for a pen and a red card. In fairness and I know I keep harping on about it, the 6-0 scoreline was not a true reflection of the game – 11 or 12 – 0 would have been more appropriate after our performance today. We had virtually our full first team playing today, which is the first time in a long time we could say that. It was nice to see Tom Fleming back today.

All in all, one of the best displays for a long, long time – and we’ve had some excellent displays this year.

However, the day ended on a bit of a downer. Our managers, Tim & Gary had handed their resignations to the chairman today with effect from the end of the season, these apparently, were rejected.  I’ll plagerise the statement sent out by Teach and hope some common ground can be sought to keep these guys with us;

Tim and Gary are 100% behind Brid Town and have shown full committment to the club and have managed the side in a totally professional manner with skill, enthusiasm, knowledge, ability and flair.

However, the decision was brought about due to various uncertanties and a lack of off field structure within the club which would it is felt aid further progression for the club.

It is hoped that further meetings and other possible avenues can be explored to bring about a satisfactory conclusion to the matter.

And on that bombshell, i’m going, but before i do, 2 funny clips to cheer you up

1. The moral is don’t do a good deed, the ref won’t like you for it.

2. Whats got him going?  some sex? some pussy?