Maltby Main 3 Brid Town 2

The start of the footballing journeys, seem to get earlier and earlier every season. It’s the 6th of August, it seems like 5 minutes since we finished the end of last season (but in truth, it’s been 3 months). No footballing extravaganza’s this summer, that’ll be next year, where hopefully we will show the Brazilians how it should be done on their home turf, you know hooliganism, drinking till you cant walk anymore, puking and being shameful on the streets of Rio, flashin the tattoos, shaggin the local women, (they call it carnival time over there), and the odd game of football thrown in for good measure.

First game in the league sees us against Maltby (which is a town near Rotherham), where we have done ok over the last couple of seasons, but today we had a tough run out. I am going to be really lazy and display the kind of lazy journalism that adorned recent Sunday tabloids (who no longer exist)…. a good footballing lad who goes to Brid, does get to the majority of away games and gave this synopsis on the forum – This is copyright of “Manincrowd”

It was a hard game to sum up today. I think just about everybody played well at some time during the game but unfortunately not everyone played well at the same time. I think we will need a couple more games for all the lads to gel together but then I think we will really get going.

Ash took his goal well with a great finish and Josh got off the mark finishing well after what looked like a goal keeping fumble.

At times we looked exposed at the back as was demonstrated with their second goal where their lad was left with too much room directly in front of goal. Their first was from a penalty which I didn’t see as I was at the other end but to be fair we didn’t protest too much.

I hate to mention the officials as it always looks like sour grapes but I believe we were robbed of a point at least by some terrible decisions. In one protracted debacle, Nathan was upended just outside the box which the ref didn’t give, the ball was retrieved a little later and a shot was driven at goal which brought about a fantastic save as the ball was pushed away from goal…unfortunately it was by a defender and not their keeper!!! No penalty given even though everybody saw it except the ref who then to rub salt into the wound, gave a free kick to Maltby from what looked a great tackle on the edge of the box. It was 2-2 at this time and if the pen was given could have changed things as their defender would have had to have walked too. Not saying we would have scored the pen but we would have been in the driving seat if they had gone down to 10 men.

They got the winner in injury time after a scramble where Danny Brunton as well as the ball was bundled into the net following another dubious free kick.

My man of the match was Nathan Cook who worked tirelessly during the game. I’m sure we will improve when everybody is firing on all cylinders.

Mainincrowd and his buddies are some of the few guys i really chat to at Brid games, their passion and enthusiasm for the footballing aspect of the club is truly inspiring.  They attend most games where possible and give honest 2 sided views on the games – as most of us can be so one sided when watching a game.

So it would seem our hoodoo of shit refs continues, i know they are only human, but why is it always us that suffers ?

Talking of suffering, I had to take my lad to cricket, only for it to be called off just before lunch – so i could have gone – bah.

Home to Hall Road in a M Mouse cup on Tuesday, they are a resurgent team following Billy Heaths appointment as manager, and one or two new recruits are old Brid players – Neil “Tick” Towler for one. It will be a difficult game.

Wednesday sees us with another home game, this time a re-arranged pre-season friendly against a Hull XI – hopefully it will give us an opportunity to play a few of the U19 prospects and those who didn’t get a big run out in either of the openers.

Team was

Wilberforce, Aziz, Lee, Eeles, Patterson, Allanson, Bennett, N.Cook, Palmer, Hogg, Greening, Subs -Wright, Dalton, Owen, Brunton, Fraser,

Scorers were Allanson, Greening.

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 ….