Bridlington Town 1 Liversedge 0

At last, a few weeks off and footy was back on the non-league agenda. Only 6 points were separating the top 6, so todays game was going to be very important to our title aspirations.

The weather was cold, but we had a wonderful setting sun and almost daylight for the whole game.

The match was a difficult one, Liversedge were playing well, we had some changes to the team to include new signings like Chris Jenkinson. Our dynamic had changed with Palms filling in in midfield to replace Ash who was still out injured.

Hoggy and Greening struggled up front, Hoggy just couldn’t get into it, and Greening missed a few chances – the lad must be having a major crisis of confidence.

Our stand in keeper, Ben Escritt (sp?), made some excellent saves to keep them out, especially in the first half.

Second half and we change things around, Benno, Hoggy and Greening were replaced with Danby, Rice and Suddaby coming on. Palmer and Logan went up front and had a more direct approach, and some shots from outside the box.

Palms had a goal disallowed for a push, which only the officials could see – they made it up i think lol

We scored from a Danby corner that looped up and came goalbound thanks to the wind, and Billy Logan was on hand to nod it in on 85 mins – thank god.

To make the smiles bigger, news was coming in that Retford were losing at Brighouse and Scarborough were losing at Winterton. Other results seemed to go our way which meant we were now top of the table, but there is only 10 points separating the top 9, though we have played the fewest games, we will however have to play 14 games in the next 8/9weeks – not including the 2 cup games we will play !! Lets hope we can keep it up throughout.

NCEL Prem		P	Pts	+/-
1	Bridlington	25	56	37
2	Retford	27	56	24
3	Staveley MW	26	53	19
4	Winterton	29	53	17
5	Scarborough	27	49	31
6	Tadcaster	26	49	17
7	Parkgate	25	48	22
8	Brighouse	26	48	22
9	Thackley	28	46	8

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 ….