Earlier in the week, we’d had a conveniently arranged tie in the East Riding cup QF against a team from Hull (well I assume they’re from Hull) – St Andrews. This was to help our (Officially) fixture congestion, (Unofficially) get our influential captain through his 1 match ban. It was a cold night, 84 die hard fans in the house, to see the lads get through 7-1. In fairness, Hoggy alone could have had 7 on his own. 5 different scores with Josh Greening AND Danny Brunton getting two each (Logan, Hogg and Hawkes complete the scorers). Semi’s next, before the showcase final at the KC in April / May.

The headlines for the papers this week are being made by Billy Logan, The masses will not have heard of this lad, but for now he is the bee’s knees.

To the game my trustee steed………

This isn’t meant to be scathing or critical, but we, by our own admission, struggled for periods today.

We did have some good chances in the first half, but were lucky not to be 2 or 3 down at the break. Their line up threw us, they were literally playing 5-3-2 with a sweeper, and at times we left large gaping holes down the right side – their goal came about from an attack down the right. The first 20 minutes had us all over the place – we do insist on playing a diamond shape midfield, which makes it hard to cover the wings against a counter attacking team like Boro.

I felt that several players had good first halves, Allanson before his injury, Robbie Hawkes, the two central defenders Palms and Aziz and Wilberforce. There were a few gasps when Ash had to go off and Danby came on, in fairness to the lad he’s not yet made his mark on the club, some felt thi substitution would let the floodgates open. It actually helped to galvanise the team.

Thankfully the half time chat and bollocking seemed to renew our appetite and we had a different mindset, and Boro just couldn’t cope with it. Billy’s 1st goal was a great shot, the keeper made a poor attempt to save it (I was stood right behind the goal in line with the shot) but I didn’t care. And i was really  pleased for the lad when he got his second, not just because he had a blinder but for the team, but they way they fought back hard into the game after the early setback.

Captain Tom had a brilliant second half, Billy Logan was nearly my MOM, but their were two candidates for me that demonstrated to some of their critics that they can play and play well (they have to be more consistent mind) and that was Joe Danby and Robbie Hawkes, with Robbie shaving my MOM. He kept fighting throughout and was involved a lot.

Special mention for Wilbur, that save at the end of the first half really kept us in  it.

Hoggy was taken out of the game, well marshalled by Kemp and others it has to be said, Greening was very ineffective – for the whole game. He knows where he has to be, knows how to score from 3 yards, but he isn’t tracking back effectively, he’s not holding the ball up or making effective challenges to win the ball when it does go forward. He either needs a confidence booster somehow or a kick up the arse. We cant afford to carry anyone during the run in. Nathan had a poor first half and couldnt get into the game much, but had a better second half – reminiscent of a performance a few weeks back.

With one or two additions we will do really well.

Great all round effort, well done lads.

Thats 3 in 3 against our nearest and extremely dearest – hahaha

Can we play you every week ?

An old quote from an anonymous Watford fan, “we might have got relegated this year, but at least we beat Luton home and away and that’s all that counts!!” That’s what derbies do to you!

For a start only 160 came to the game and there was no buzz about the place. Wayne Wallace has finished and will be moving back to Oz soon.

However, we had a blinder in the first half, we hit the bar 3 times, their keeper made some excellent saves and we scored 2 goals. One of which was a pearler from Nathan Cooke, who hit one from 30 yards that flew into the top right corner.

Second half, we were doing ok until Hoggy went off after about 10 minutes , by all accounts he’d not been feeling well for a day or two. Then it all went belly up, we lost all our shape, they bullied their way back into the game. Their equaliser was a another stunning effort from Nathan Cooke who headed in a cross.

We struggled for the last 1/3 rd of the game, and the tactics in that period were questionable. The refereeing in that period was woeful as well.

The bright points were Captain Tom Fleming and Billy Logan who had good games. Hoggy was as great as ever in his 55 minutes and seemed to be the difference when he was on.

Brighouse away on Tuesday and Hall Road away next Saturday. I probs wont be at either match, especially next Saturday as I’m taking the lad and his missus to see Liverpool v Stoke at Anfield – I hope Stoke putthe dampeners on his day )

Some rumours had surfaced mid week about us singing a new player from Pickering – Stuart Rice, he who played a blinder against us earlier in the year, here’s what i wrote at the time;

We were buoyed by the return of Wayne Wallace, who is starting his 5th or 6th spell with us, and new signing, defender Jamie Waltham. Watching the first half from the bench, they must have thought “what have we let ourselves in for by signing here?” as we were atrocious. Pickering went two up in the first 20 minutes, both goals by Rice, his second was an absolute stunning solo goal.

We also learnt on the rumour train, that Martin Thacker was to “take a break from playing football at this level” – which was later confirmed by Teach.

But the big rumour that stirred passions came from Boro, where it emerged Ryan Blott was about to serve a 112 day ban, starting Jan 1st. What could he have possibly done to achieve such a ban ? Spouted racist remarks to another player ? No (that only gets you an 8 match ban). Struck a referee or another official ? No.  He stole from his playing colleagues or something like that ? No. His crime, picking up 10 different suspensions in two years. Each one of these “crimes” would have been punished at the time, but the FA & the NCEL had adopted this rule at the start of the campaign and was designed to improve standards and respect towards  the officials. But 112 day ban? seriously ? This aint the Prem League or Serie A, its Step 5 Northern Counties East, players are paid “expenses” (except Scarborough’s expenses are a lot more expensive than anyone else’s allegedly – thats another topic entirely), they are semi-pro. In reality, Ryans season finishes after todays derby game with his home town club. I think that needs to be looked at again. The FA do make some very strange decisions.

Our squad was looking a bit threadbare as it is, we could have done with Thackers experience, especially when Wayne Wallace leaves us in Jan.

Christmas Day was great in our house, great prezzies, brilliant dinner and a superb bottle of Prosecco to wash it all down. No snow as it was too darn warm. But Christmas wasn’t going to be complete until we played Boro on Boxing Day.

A nice early kick off had to be delayed due to crowd congestion, whilst everyone queued up for the main turnstile, even though the side one was open.

Brid had one or two early chances, but the game sprang into life, as did the Boro crowd, when Ryan Blott hit the post. But for some reason, the Boro faithful, probably numbering 550 out of 802, were very quiet throughout – except the mindless few who were dishing out frequent abuse to their own players, which i’m sure helped our cause no end.

Hoggy scored a cracker of a goal on 25 from the edge of the box, to silence the away fans, and this was followed up with another scorcher from Ash Allanson on 40. We did have other chances in the half, but ballooned a couple over the bar. Second half, we had to endure an opening 10 minute spell of pressure from Boro, but caught them on the counter and a goal from Hoggy on his second attempt, after the keeper saved his first. We then held them at bay for a good twenty minutes before Boro made a couple of tactical changes – Dean Windass (yes he of Hull City and Bradford fame and famous for this)

had played 60-65 minutes, he still oozed some presence on the pitch, but didn’t make much of an impact in the game – perhaps it was too fast for him ? But I didn’t know what position he was playing, coz he was everywhere – I expected him to play up front.

They moved their best player of the game, Tony Hackworth, up front and started to make an impact. It didn’t help our cause, at around the 75 minute mark, we brought our new signing Stuart Rice on and within 90 seconds see him get red carded for a two footed lunge on one of their players – there’s a debut he won’t forget !!

Hackworth eventually scores in the 85th and the game finishes 3-1.

My MOM was Wayne Wallace who was the best player on the pitch today, closely followed by Craig Hogg, Craig Palmer and Wayne Aziz. Tom Fleming and Nathan Cooke had slow starts but had great second halves. Ash Allanson had a great game and scored a great goal. Wilbur was his usual great self, and pulled off a brilliant save in the second half, even though  the Boro dude was offside. Frank Belt had a good game and got loads of stick early doors from the Boro faithful. Billy Logan had a brilliant game at right back, and to bounce back like that after the Whitley Bay game hammering he took, showed tremendous character. Josh Greening had a reasonable game – this is not going to be a character assassination of the lad, because i am sure he is a top bloke, but  he  appears short of confidence, in the game today he made some good runs and some good challenges, but final passes or his hold up play were woeful. He struggles to win headers and apply himself against the more physical defenders – a little bit more aggression, assertiveness and positive thinking should help his game.

But as a team performance they were brilliant and fought for each other. Boro played like 11 individuals for most of the game. What did surprise me was the amount of long ball they played, yet were very successful when they kept it on the deck and passed it around.

Bragging rights maintained, aggregate score of 8-1 in the last 2 fixtures, and to quote Greg Wallace, IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT !!!!

Well it might have done for one fan of Brid, who promised to run onto the pitch at the end and kiss Joe Danby if he had scored the winning goal – bet Joe Danby’s relieved !!

UPDATE 03-01-12 – someone at the game videoed it, so below for you perusal is the Boxing Day extravaganza

2011 for Stoke has seen some impressive acheivements, FA Cup finalists for the first time, a long European run (to date P10 W7 D2 L1), and after a hiccup in the league, back up to 8th place after 16 games. Pulis now has a good squad where he can field 2 different teams if he wants to – as he did this week against Besiktas, which was a different team to that fielded in the league. And who could ever imagine we would be getting people like Johnathan Woodgate, Matthew Upson, Peter Crouch, Cameron Jerome, Kenwyne Jones to join lowly old Stoke. And for Tony Pulis, a man who gets on with the job, shyes away from the media and instills a work ethic in the players that is exceptional. If they have a bad game, he talks to them, work on it in training and sticks by them, he doesn’t air his dirty laundry in public. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, just ask James Beattie. But there is no denying, he has exceptional managerial qualities that no Stoke fan should ever ever forget.

Me and the boy went along to the Family Christmas night in the clubhouse last night, only to see the same old 30 or so faces. We had a win in the grand draw, a meal for 4 at the Greyhound one Sunday. Triffic. As a footnote to this, where was the chairman ? or even the  club secretary ? neither were there, so the next time they harp on about people not attending events at the clubhouse I may gently remind of their non attendance to the family Xmas party.

Today saw the reverse fixture of last week, I’d agreed to take the lad to the game as it wasn’t too far away. It was bloody freezing, as it has been all week, and necessitated several layers on every exposed part. We started with the same starting team as last week. Wintertons ground is a nice little community ground just north east of Scunthorpe. We did not start very well, in fact in the first 45 minutes we were atrocious, apart from Wayne Wallace, no one else was at the races. Winterton played like a team who wanted to get revenge for last weeks loss, everyone had a spring in their step. Their No8 was a threat all half, and set up their best play. They scored on 22, it wasnt until 35th minute before we had a reasonable chance, which came from Wallace, where he exchanged passes with one or two before firing a shot and hitting the post. They then scored 2 in a minute just before half time, the second of these i missed as i was updating te official twitter site of the other.

There were one or twoquizzical decisions from the ref, but in truth we only had ourselves to blame for the scoreline. They wanted it more than us.

The second half and we had made a change, Nathan Cooke came off for Billy Logan who promptly scored after 2 minutes. We made more of a fist of it, and had numerous chances which on another day may  have gone in. But in truth, the hosts had done more than enough to win.

There are a few players who today will need to reflect on their performances, which are not one offs, but a culmination of a few games where they have been ineffectual. There are guys on the sidelines, who when they come on, like today, actually make a difference to the dynamic of our team. The manager is paid to make the choices and tactics, but I wonder if his reading of the game is the same as those in the circle I stood with today – I dont think this is the case. Some serious decisions and words need to be made before the Boxing Day game with Scarborough.

If there is any Christmas cheer, it was on hearing Scarborough losing to Barton after having a 3-1 lead. lmao deluded tossers.

We played Barton for the fourth time this season in the Presidents Cup, losing 3-1, to a team mainly made up of ex-Brid and ex-Scarb players. Some of these lads are sound guys, and were a joy to watch when playing for us, hate to think they get highly excited when beating us !!! again !! We still have to play them away in the league – 25th Feb.

The place had been buzzing with the trip to Whitley Bay in the FA Vase. As one of my regular 6 readers, you will know, that I went and opened my great big mouth, when I said they were the team I didn’t want to get in the next round. A number of our fans went to the game, only to watch us get beat 5-1. By all accounts, one or two of our players struggled to get into the game, we didn’t take our chances, whilst they took theirs. Great experience though for a number of the squad, and I hear a few tinnies were sunk and a few songs sung on the way home (Dom didn’t rate the moozic choices on the coach coming home).

An old Brid lad returned to the club, Frank Belt, good to see him back in the fold, hopefully, one or two others may decide to join him back here. I hope so. We also re-signed another old favourite of mine, Martin Thacker. Thacks has been player manager at Hall Road, and has joined to replace a mid-fielder who is off to pastures new.

We have lost the services of James Bennett, who has signed for North Ferriby, to join Billy Heath’s improving outfit. Good luck to James, he’s been a great assett to us during his time with us – he is still signed for us on the NCEL forms, and I hope he comes back to us if things don’t work out, or he needs the odd game here and there.

Winterton had beaten Tadcaster in midweek to halt their progress, and were on a good run of 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat, and were sat nicely in the top half of the table. So they were gonna be no mugs. Scarborough were sitting top of the league, Taddy second and Retford, after our Vase game we had slipped to fourth but now were getting games in hand. Our Seadog “friends” were hopeful of them doing the double over us on consecutive weekends whilst they “thrashed” Barton – ha they lost to Barton 2-1 and are now strugglingfor a defense and a goalie for the return leg this Saturday !!

For our game, Winterton nearly scored twice in the opening minute, and ecellent saves from Wilbur kept them out. From that point we dominated the rest of the half – Hogg scored a lovely goal on 12. Palms got a great headed goal from a fee kick on the  left side on 28. We shuffled things round in the second half, and the visitors got one back but within minutes, Nathan Cooke scores a brilliant goal for him to settle the game.

We were without Bennett for reasons mentioned & Fleming for his earlier “mis-demeanors.” For me Wayne Wallace was my man of the match, he had a blinder. Hoggy was yet again tireless up front, I do think Josh needs to get into the games a bit more and support Hogg. That aside it was a great team performance, and will have to up the game a little bit more to overcome Winterton this Saturday in the return fixture.

Happy Birthday to Cyrill Skinner,who’se probably watched more games at Queensgate than nearly anyone else alive. Great guy – all the best.

We are currentlysecond in the table, but it is still close, you can barely lose a game before your competitors overtake you.

Staveley came to our place today, sitting in 5th position, but only 3 points behind us, having won 9 drawn 4 and lost 2 of their opening 15 fixtures. They are doing well, unexpectedly I suppose.

We had one person missing for this game, Ash Allanson who tweeked a hamstring last week, and was replaced for this game by the returning Frank Belt, who resigned for us this wek from Scarborough. He is the latest in a long line of players who have left Boro to play for other teams. There was a rumour that Tom Lee has re-signed, but because he couldn’t be guaranteed a first team place, so he has signed for Barton, which is  a real shame, he could have made a big impact to our squad.

Today turned out to be the Craig Hogg show, he scored 4 excellent goals, and made the other for Josh Greening. He ran tirelessly throughout the game (until he was subbed on the 70th minute). Frank Belt played relly well on his return, Benno, Fleming, Robbie and Wayne Aziz had really good games too, everyone else made some decet contribution as well.

However, we struggled alittle with shape when the subs came on, Fleming, Belt and Hoggy were replaced, and Staveley took advantage and scored their two goals.

For 70 mins we were excellent and played really well. We will have to show that form again next week if we are to progress into the next round of the cup. For me, this is the most important game of the season, and is far more important than the Boxing Day clash against our tenants.

Good luck guys.

The Thackley game was very similar to the Pickering game, poor first half (by all accounts worst than the Pickering one) 2 goals down, and we finish like the proverbial steam train to make it 2-2 – Hoggy getting them both. Hoggy had got lost in Leeds looking for the ground, and had to be rescued by the Chairman, he arrived late and therefore had to start on the bench. Thackley who were thumped by Boro 5-0 the week before, had virtually half a team back from injury the day we show up, but notwithstanding we have to sort our 1st halves out ASAP.
Selby, who are near the foot of the table, have been massively improving since we demolished them a couple of months back, have not had the rub of the green. They took the lead, and we came back to lead 2-1, until Selby hit a late equaliser.
Amazingly, although we haven’t played great, we are still top of the league. In all likelihood we won’t be there by the end of the day, as we have the Vase to contend with.

So, Round 2 of the FA Vase, there is lots of expectation amongst our more mature fans that we should do the business in this cup, given we appeared in 2 Vase cup finals in 1990 and 1993 (we won the 93 game). Although its round 2, only 64 teams are left, Round 1 had teams in similar divisions playing each other, Round 2 opened it to more regional pairings – we are drawn against a Northern Premier Division 1 team, Gillford Park from Carlisle. Here is a brief synopsis on them, taken from their website;

“The club has risen rapidly through the football ranks, since starting life in Northern Alliance division 2 in 2005. Formed by Mike Linden, Geoff Andrews & Stephen Skinner, the club finished 2nd in their inaugural season, and were promoted as champions of division 1 at the end of 2006/7.
The first season in the Northern Alliance premier division brought a creditable 3rd place position, and the 2008/9 season saw Gillford finish 2nd and clinch promotion to the Northern League, becoming the first Carlisle-based side to feature at this level. “

They appear to be doing well in their league this year, currently lying 5th in their league, after finishing 11th in their inaugral year.

Carlisle is a bloody long way from where we are, a good 4 hours in the car, nearer 5 on a coach – really exhausting, do that and then having to play a game against an established top side at step 5 is going to be difficult.

After 30 seconds they had a corner and a tremendous save from Wilbur kept them out. 20 seconds later and Ash had a header cleared off the line with the keeper beaten. Flipping ‘eck, it was going to be a pulsating game, however, our strength really started to show soon after, we had them on the rack for virtually the whole of the half, chance after chance. On 20 mins, Josh took down a great through ball about 45 yards out, drove into the box and hit a tremendous ball across the keeper and in off the far post. Their keeper, who seemed a top bloke, made some excellent saves in the first half, probably shading the MOM, though Ash Allanson, Hoggy, Josh, Captain Marvellous and Benno were all contenders – collectively they were excellent. However, their keeper was lucky to stay on the pitch after felling Hoggy who went clear through in the area, he got a yellow, probably because he was a smallest of fractions later than Hoggy. Hoggy took the pen, well, judge for yourself just how poor it was

HOGGY !!!!

2nd half started in similar style, but Gillford managed to wake up and make more of a contest of it. The tackles were getting nigglier and a couple of our lads were struggling to contain themsleves. The ref was letting people get away with quite a lot, but our Captain in the end had dug a big hole for himself and eventually got a second yellow for his efforts. He was playing yet another blinder, he went at around the 65-70 minute mark, it means that he will miss another game, we cant afford to keep losng him, he is so unreplaceable. The opposition sensed an opportunity at this point and pinned us back for about 15 mins, but our back line held on well. Palms and Aziz were immense, the full backs were great as well, (Billy Logan is getting better and better with every game).  Mitch did make a change bringing off Hoggy with 10 to go and bringing on Darren Clough, who 2 minutes later made a fantastic move near the half way line, and was held and assaulted by their defender, a melee ensued and the defender was rightly shown a red card, coz Cloughie was clearly clean through with no cover. The game fizzled out in the last few minutes, we fully deserved the win, however, a “new” team had played their part in a great cup tie. A lot of the players were exceptional today, Wilbur, Fleming, Ash, Benno, Josh, the boys at the back, but for me, my MOM was Hoggy, Hoggy was brilliant throughout today, well except for that penalty !! He chased every ball and every lost cause – good lad.

A couple of players were unavailable for the game against Chalk Farm, but it was still a very strong first team line out. In recent years, we had struggled to break Chalk Lane down until late in the game. Chalk Lane play in the Humber Premier league, which is a couple of steps down from us. However, one old Brid player was up front for them, Joe Lightowler.

It didn’t take long for us to grab the game by the scruff of the neck, where we held it for 45 minutes. The man of the half was there keeper, who, whilst letting in 5 (well not “letting in 5″ but you know what i mean), made at least 5 one-on-one saves and made some other good saves. Our front two were guilty of wasting some good chances – they didn’t need us telling them this, they knew it for themselves. Tom Fleming x2, Criag Hogg x2 and Danny Brunton were the scorers in the first half.

Second half, we brought on Darren Clough and Darren Rooks (seperately) to have the smallest front two i’ve ever seen. Cloughy scored an excellent hat trick and was a real handful for them, he is a great prospect and in a few years could play much higher. And Tom Fleming completed his hat trick  too.

A worry was Palmer tweaking something that took him off with a couple of minutes to go. Lightowler managed to benefit from us only having 10 on the field by scoring with the last kick if the game.

Hopefully there will be smiles all round, but you never know, someone will have the hump over something. Brid sports club in the next round – should be interesting !!

Thackley and Selby away on Saturday and Tuesday, Boora at Retford and home to Stavely and Taddy home to Brighouse on Saturday sees the top 6 playing each other in some shape or form – should sort the weak from the chaff….

Taddy were a “big” team, managed by one of our old managers, Paul Marshall. They had recently made the third qualifying round of the FA Cup, where they lost to two late goals at FC Halifax – 5  minutes from going through. They also have the not so enviable task of going to Whitley Bay in the Vase, where they will have to face the holders of the last 3 years. On the night, a combination of them playing really well, us not so well and a particularly shit ref and tossy linesman meant we were to lose. It took until the second half before we got going, we equalised in the 50th min, which seemed to give us a second wind – however, the ref gave the dubiest of penalties I think i had ever seen for them to score and wrap the game up. In fairness they did deserve it.

Our run of results has put us top of the  league, albeit on goal difference, from Retford, with Tadcaster, Scarborough, Staveley and Brighouse not far behind.

Our run of recent results can be summarised as thus :

Parkgate away won 3-1

Taddy home lost 2-1

Dinnington away in the Vase won 2-0

Long Eaton away won 3-1

Maltby Main home won 3-0

Pickering home won 3-2

So to todays game at home to Pickering. The day started with some mixed emotions, i’d recently received a letter from the bank telling me i was 9 pence over my limit, and that were going to charge me the handsome sum of £57.50 for the priviledge and it then transpires they had charged me a £145 earlier  for a similar mis-demeanor. I gave the bank a call and they re-imbursed all the charges that I had paid and stopped the payments due to come out. woohoo, but for goodness sake, £200+ charges for being 9p over. The wife and I took the dog for a walk alongside the Driffield canal, where we walked some 3.5-4 miles, the condiions were good, the company good and the walk was great too.

Got to the ground about half two, the boy was already in waiting for me, conditions seemed to worsten as the afternoon wore on – both on and off the pitch. We were buoyed by the return of Wayne Wallace, who is starting his 5th or 6th spell with us, and new signing, defender Jamie Waltham. Watching the first half from the bench, they must have thought “what have we let ourselves in for by signing here?” as we were atrocious. Pickering went two up in the first 20 minutes, both goals by Rice, his second was an absolute stunning solo goal. But we made it look good, we weren’t tackling, we were out of position and we were slow. They came with a purpose, i suppose given who Pickering’s manager (and players) were last year – no surprises really. We were lucky not to go in 4 or 5 down, thankfully Wilbur was on top form. It was the worst half  of football i’d seen from a Brid team in a very long time.

Second half they must have had a roasting, some of the players changed positionally, and tactics changed with some success. Bennett got a goal 10 minutes in, I missed it as I was admiring the new till in the teabar. Our second was a stunning own goal,  which came about after the goalie had held onto the ball in his own area for about 20 seconds (he had done this many times in the game) and the ref penalised him for that. The resulting free kick somehow fell to their number 5 who rifled the ball into the net – he (and the goalie) had been yellow carded for mouthing off to the ref.

We got the winner seconds from the end when Billy Logan headed in a well taken corner. We didnt deserve the win, but our tenacious approach and fitness shone through. We had during the second half, brought on Waltham, Wallace and Clough who made a difference and strengthened one or two key positions.

Fleming was excellent throughout, as was Wilbur, Benno was ok but I think everyone else needed the half time chat to remind them of their role in the game. They might not like that synopsis, but you have to judge the result of the chat by our  players performances in the second half.

One or two players got some stick from our own fans today, I do not subscribe to that and hope it stops immediately. The players can hear it, and obviously if they aint playing well, its not gonna do a lot for their confidence.

How have the first team been playing sinceI last wrote up the Thackley game:

Away to Pickering in the Presidents Cup won 3-2

Away to Nostell Miners in the league won 3-1

Away to Liversedge in the league won 4-2

We moved up to 4th in the league, which is getting very tight near the top. We haven’t lost in the league since the opening day and are racking up some pretty impressive scorelines. We do have a run of some tricky games coming up with Barton (h), Parkgate (a), Tadcaster (h) and Long Eaton (a) – and ibetween all that Dinnington away in the FA Vase. For most of these games, we will be without our inspirational captain, who was sent off in a local game he played in, during one of our weekends off – a 4 match ban for violent conduct. Damn, S#it, boll@x !! The ban starts against Parkgate.

We played Barton, our conquerers in the FA Cup, some of the regulars are out and the young ‘uns from the bench are in playing. Ged Dalton, Robbie Hawkes & Billy Logan all playing, average starting age must have been 21 or 22 or so, which is tremendous for the team, especially if they stay together.

We played really well in the first half, however, we did let ourselves down with our touch in the final third. Barton didn’t attack much, Wilber in goal had little to do. We scored a couple of cracking goals with Fleming and Bennett finishing off fine moves. In reality we should have been 5 or 6 up, but Bramley and Dexter were in fine form for them, Bramley pulling off a couple brilliant saves.

Second half started and then stopped, after an injury to ex-Town player James Tomlinson was injured in a freak accident after 48 seconds of the restart. It appears he broke his leg. The ambulance was called and looked after James on the pitch. The crowd and players showed their support with a standing ovation for the poor lad – hope he recovers soon. When I was at the Stoke Arsenal game and Aaron Ramsey suffered an horrific injury, the game went very flat after that, however, in fairness to both teams when the restart came (some 32 minutes after the injury) they carried on with great gusto, and if anything Barton were able to up their game for a while. Sadly two goals fromm Nathan Cooke (pen – deffo pen if any of you Barton players are reading this, even though I might have a biased view), and from Josh Greening.

The result was a fair one, though after the accident, it felt harsh on the Barton OB’s. My only criticism, and it shouldn’t be read as one, is that Mitch could have given young Darren Rookes a run out when the game was completely out of reach for Barton. He is the sort of young player, that with a few run outs at this level will contribute massively towards the squad, he has bags and bags of pace and can finish too.

Our next home game is on Tuesday 18th at home to Taddy and then the next one is Sat 5th November !! FFS come on fixture computer. Oh and the 2 local games against Scarborough are on Dec 26th and Jan 2nd !

Here is the table, which for now we sit on the top of