Brid Town 4 Hall Road Rangers 0

Since we drubbed Selby 2 weeks ago, we have embarked, sailed and sunk in this years FA Cup. We played Barton Old Boys, who have ex Brid Town defender Ash Dexter amongst their ranks (there may be more ex Town players but as I wasn’t there, I wasn’t interested.) The first game was away, we fell behind, lead 2-1 with goals from Ash Allanson and a pen from Craig Hogg – they equalised just after and it remained 2-2. Replay took place on Tuesday night at our place, winners to play Scarborough in the next round. We make a dreadful start, Ash Dexter forgetting his roots and opened the scoring for the visitors. Wayne Aziz, one of the bosses newcomers equalises. We go behind again after the break, but Ash Allanson equalises with a belter of a goal. Rob Northern raps the game up for them with a last minute penalty. 149 in for this.

The witchhunt against the manager is now in full flow. There is a faction amongst our 140 or so fans who want the new manager out. Some say it is too early to judge, some just feel he has to go. I wrote a piece up on the forum about people not liking change (which we are naturally going through) especially when you’ve experienced glory and you find yourself struggling under a new regime. As a small step 5 club, we will forever be “changing” be it players, fans, owners etc etc its just a fact of life.

You know bank holiday is upon us (and the end of summer) because it pissed it down for most of the game today. We made a couple of changes to Tuesdays team and were welcoming Hall Road who recently dumped us out of the league cup. From the start we looked more solid, better defending, and very competitive all over the park. Hall Road had several ex Town players amongst ther numbers, Thacker, Bramley, Suddaby and Chippendale, and struggled all game to deal with our play.

Moment of the season so far came in the first half when we were pressing and the ball came out of the box and Nathan Cooke smashed it home from around 35 yards, always rising straight into the top corner giving their keeper no chance. Well worth the entrance money to any game.

Josh Greening adds a second early into the second half followed by a sublime side foot effort from Ash Allanson from the edge of the box – from we me and the lad were it looked like he missed as we saw the ball hit the boards behind the goal, but the ball had “slipped through the net.” We finished the game late on when our sub Logan cooly slotted the ball home following good work down the left.

We did look good today, but there is still room for improvement. We could easily have beaten them by 8 or 9 but kept giving the ball away in advanced positions. On the whole though everyone bar Billy Heath would have enjoyed that today. Billy got a lot of unfair stick from the bus shelter, I think we forget what a great job he did for us in the past.

Away at Arnold on Monday – won’t be seeing me there i’m afraid. Keep it up fella’s.

Bridlington Town 4 Hall Road Rangers 1

Another away game, and again against our old adverseries. I love the ground, the club house the atmosphere especially when 100+ of the 147 are Brid fans. How do they know there were 147 in the ground ? When the guy on the turnstile didnt dish out any entrance tickets and didn’t or couldn’t distinguish between the number of oldies, kids and Brid faithful coming in.

Some of our old players are still there, though no Jamie Barmwell, but they had James McGarry within their ranks. It wasn’t cold cold, but chilly enough. And the atmosphere got even icier when McGarry bundles a ball home on 5 mimutes, this after we missed a couple of decent early chances. The game gets a little scrappy after this, but we dominate posession, but the pitch doesn’t help matters. We restore parity on 15 minutes when an unlikely hero smacks the ball into the roof of the net when the ball pings around the penalty area, at first I thought it was Frank that had blasted it, but it turned out to be Carl “Gibbo” “Fleshman” Giblin. And i am pleased for Carl, because he has been such a great player for Town and nobody deserves a goal more than him.

Mssrs Thacker and Palmer receive a very warm welcome from some of the away fans, in fairness to Martin, he takes some of it with a pinch of salt and a smile. The half finishes 1-1, in reality, we should have been 3 or 4-1 up.

The second half starts well and its not long before Danny Buttle is brought into the mix and nearly caps his start with a cross come shot come “oooh just inches wide” effort. Moments later he crosses in and Alex Rhodes looks “oh so surprised” when his effort actually goes in.

Somewhere around the second half, and Ash Allanson is fouled in the box by James McGarry and another defender and we gets another penalty. Frank steps up and belts it one, over the bar !! Flip he missed one. I think the pitch played a part, as I saw the ball bobble just as Frank was about to take the kick.

11 minutes later, I think it is Wayne Wallace that drives a ball at goal from outside the box and he hits it straight at Craig Burdicks face, Craig contorts his body, and probably his face too, to steer the ball into the goal.

Moments of the game left, Wallace hits another shot from outside the box and this time Tom Fleming steers the ball into the goal. We thoroughly deserved the win, we were by far and away the best team, and Tom Fleming was by far and away my Man of the Match, though special mention to Ash Allanson who had a good game and all the other lads, we also had the best fans, the best songs, the smartest fan (Jordan), the best put downs, the best goals blah blah blah. Stoke didn’t lose either.

A quick funny from Sundays FA Cup 3rd round draw, you know, thee most important draw of the year. I was painting my little ‘uns room when the draw was being made,3rd or 4th tie and Stoke come out as the home team (Number 36 – Stoke City). I’m shouting “Number 61….Number 61″ the lads going who’s that then….(Number 61) yeeeessss I scream, “its York City”  (YORK CITY) says the man on the telly, well Jim Rosenthal does. My lads going, “how the hell did you know it was 61 ? and how the hell did you know it was York City ? Is this recorded ?” ha, I was quite pleased with myself for that shout, which was probably a 57-1 chance or so, if only i’d had a fiver on it.

Bridlington Town 0 Whitby Town 1 (FA cup)

Forgive me father for I have sinned, it is 6 days since my last confession because I have been very busy and very lame in fulfilling my blogging responsibilities.

Where do i start ? Ok there were two games before the Whitby one that I’ve not recorded – both away, Arnold Town where we won 7 (seven)-0 and against Liversedge, where we won  5-1, this after being 1 down after 25 seconds. Several of the guys got on the scoresheet, Craig Palmer getting back to back hat tricks. The lads were absolutely awesome by all accounts, but then we know that already !!

The Whitby game.

The build up to the game was quite entertaining, the week leading up to it, someone had posted on our forum about one of our number who, not so long ago, left the club and to start following Whitby (after a brief foray of watching Frickley). This person had made one or two comments which had riled our guys, couple that with one or two Whitby comments about how easy it will be, beating us, made the tie that little bit more appealing.

Weather was red hot – typical summers day. The lads were warming up, a little spring in their step, I had a good chat with Teach and Gary, and a couple of the lads – they were all in fine fettle. I know Gary knows exactly what he is doing with the team, but such a workout in that heat must have been hugely exhausting.

370 pack into Queensgate (probabl our third highest attendance of the season 2  x Scarborough being the most – and hopefully a dream run in the vase will help us surpass this mark). Whitby probably having somewhere in the region of 100 there, and they made some noise early doors. However, this was short lived as they started to realise our lads weren’t here to make the numbers up, and that the lower league home team weren’t actually that bad.

First half and the majority of play is in the Whitby half, how Brid don’t score, I don’t know. The Whitby keeper is the coolest player in their team and does command his area well. Before you know it, half time comes and Whitby actually look a different team in the second half – must have had one helluva bollocking. They don’t penetrate too much and on 73 one of their subs breaks through and scores a smart goal in the far corner. 310 heads drop in disbelief, recognising that Whitby have scored with probably their second shot of the game, we can’t do much in the last 15 and lose by the only goal.

A great report from an independent fan can be found here —-> kirky’s report

Some pictures of the game are here ——-> pictures

And a number of the Whitby fans were quite complimentary of our team and fans.

Since then, we had a trip to Maltby Main on Wednesda night, where normal service was resumed, we won 5-1. However, it appears to have been a bit of a dirty game with a fairly incompetent official in charge. By the end they were down to 8 players, we were down to 10 (Craig Burdick getting a red for something or other), plenty of yellows and a massive melee after some poor tackling. The famous groundhopper has put a report up on his website, which can be found here —->  Groundhopper

A free weekend – probably to do some jobs or shopping no doubt ….

Brid 3 Guisborough 2 (h)

Today was the start of our FA Cup campaign, but it was also the start of Stoke’s foray into the Premiership. I’d managed to find a live stream for the Stoke game and thought i’d watch a piece of history in the making. It turned into a first half nightmare. So I thought i’d nip over to Queensgate in the second half to see how the lads were doing.

With half hour to go we were 2-1 up, and within two minutes of arriving, Craig Palmer gets his hat trick with a smartly taken goal. 5 minutes later and the visitors pull a goal back with a goal, a bit of a soft one, but well taken none the less.

What was interesting from the half hour or so that I saw, was their number 8. He epitomized that kind of player who’s aggressive attitude borders on thuggery. It looked like his job was to stop our midfielder play maker Ash Allanson – no matter what. He was over the top with his tackles, plenty of verbals and hand gestures – and he was what, 4 foot 6 !. No doubt he had some talent but skill wins through most of the time, like it did today.

It would be interesting to know who was the last Brid player who scored back to back hat tricks in competitive games, and if only he’d put away one of those other chances at Hall Road, he’d have 3 back to back hat tricks.