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.

Brid 1 Smith & Nephew 2 (a)

Jesus Mary and Joseph it was raining again. The game was taking place at some smart all weather pitch at Hull Universities facilities. We were putting out a reasonably strong side in our last friendly before the league opener at Hall Road Rangers on Saturday. But with 6 or 7 subs to cater for, it was going to be a difficult night accommodating everyone.

The game was played in poor conditions, but the Brid lads continued in their style of playing the ball on the deck and working for each other. The opposition were up for the game and were certainly no mugs – they were very big and powerful winning most of the highballs. Their goalie was in truly sensational form tonight, winning every high ball into the box and making some excellent saves – he certainly impressed squad member Warren Spear !

We took the lead on the half hour with a well worked goal down the right, made by Alex Rhodes and well finished by the returning James McGarry, probably no more than we deserved at that point. Second half beckoned and we made wholesale changes for it, and as the half progressed we made further changes – we had a good 7 or 8 attacking players on at that point when the opponents scored two cracking goals within 10 minutes of each other. It was hard to come back from that with a few minutes to go.

Games seen : 7

Goals seen : 13 home 16 away 1 other

Out of /10 : 7, the weather was crap, the game was good for a run out come training session, the opposition gave a good account of themselves, and the officials were pretty good tonight – my glasses must have been misted up throughout, and the facilities are something Brid would be proud of.

Annoyingly, well sort of, I drove past Queensgate to see mass numbers spilling out of the place and the floodlights beaming out brightly in the misty night sky – Scarborough were at “home” – I might have kept dry and had a beer and seen Boro beat Brodsworth 2-0 – one of the goals can be seen here —>

and the other one here ……

lol there were more fans at SMith & Nephew than at Queensgate tonight by the looks of it !!