What's it like to see a crowd? Weekend Matchgoing

[jameswba]

Zilina 1 Trnava 1

Both goals were scored by players from Argentina. Trnava signed striker David Depetris from Huracan over the winter. It's his third spell in Slovak football after four years with Trencin (2008-2012), during which he was the league's top goalscorer and took Slovak citizenship in order to play for the national team. Following a spell in Turkey, he also played the 2015-2016 season for Trnava.

His goal yesterday was a clinical finish from the one clear sight of goal he had inside the Zilina area, but he also forced the 'keeper into three saves from long-range efforts, one of them a brilliant chip from a yard inside the attacking half. His all-round play was good too ; overall, it was as fine a display of centre-forward play as this league can offer.

Zilina rescued a point thanks to an 86th strike from Ivan Santiago Diaz, a defensive midfielder who's averaged a goal a season over his three years here. It was as good a finish as Depetris'.

Lovely spring-like day, big crowd by Slovak standards, two evenly-matched sides. It's good to have competitive football back.

[Merlin the happy pig]

I watched that on telly. Connahs Quay play the long throw, pack the box with tall players, hoof it upfield game every week.

Something to look forward to next Saturday then.

[ingoldale]

I went to Grange Albion 2-1 (Unknown) in the South Wales Alliance League Cup

It was eventful. Both teams hit the woodwork before going 0-1 and then 1-1 after 35 mins. There was a huge skerfuffle following a terrible challenge by a visiting team player. The ref lost it big time from this point. Grange scored a last minute winner which was to the disgust of the visitors player-manager who called the ref the c-word and got his marching orders (not without protest).

I have just found out this game was 3-4 AET. The goal I thought was the winner was an equaliser. Major miscount.

[imp]

Eintracht 1 Mönchengladbach 1

Fifth draw on the trot for Eintracht - similar form to Lincoln right now. I feel like I should be grateful that neither side has lost yet this year (bar Lincoln's FA Cup loss at Everton), and Eintracht's opponents have been top drawer - Dortmund, Bremen, Leipzig, Donetsk and Mönchengladbach. But fucking hell, could they not have hung on here? They played terrible first half, and went in 1-0 up after scoring in the 46th. minute. Then dominated the second half, squandered chances to put the game away, then fell asleep with eight minutes to go and stood back watching Borussia equalise, on a shot you'd normally expect Kevin Trapp to stop.

I've seen this game now four times in the past five season. 0-0, 1-5 and 0-0, and now this (I missed the 2-1 win last season). Yet it was in fact a completely fair result, on a beautiful afternoon, and going to the game with Jenny-come-latelies frau imp and the youngest impette is always entertaining.

[Artificial Hipster]

Bolton 0 Norwich 4

If the defeat of Ipswich last week flattered Norwich somewhat then this was much more a mark of their promotion credentials and of the relegation credentials of their opponents. Only a string a fine saves from the Bolton keeper and Norwich's inability to score from penalties kept the score semi-respectable. 4 very good goals they were too, Pukki is clearly a natural goal scorer and the Argentine, Buendia stood out in a team full of attacking ideas. Bolton offered absolutely nothing.

[Uros Predic]

Lewisham Borough 1-3 Welling Town

First wander down to watch the Borough this year, up against the SCEFL Division One leaders, Welling Town. The visitors were clearly the better side, and went two goals up inside 20 minutes, which they celebrated incredibly loudly given A. they were playing a side comfortably mid-table and B. there was a crowd of barely 30 present. Borough won and missed a penalty midway through the half, but scored from the resulting corner to threaten to make it interesting, only for Welling to go straight down the other end and make it 3-1. A red card for a Borough player (two soft yellows) killed it as a contest before the break. Credit to Lewisham though they did well to dig in second half and maintain the score - last season they'd have collapsed horribly.

Doncaster Rovers 0-2 Crystal Palace

As a mark of local excitement for this tie, there was a point 20 minutes before kick-off when home fans were loudly applauding a big flag for being both big, and a flag. Palace's opener 8 minutes in sadly took the wind out of the tie, and though Rovers passed and moved the ball well throughout they never once threatened Hennessey's goal, despite winning a dozen corners. The second goal on the stroke of half-time killed us off - had we kept it at 1-0 at the break I think we might've at least forced extra-time. Oh and bloody hell, Premier League teams know how to eat up a clock when they're in front. Feel like I spent more time watching Hennessey set himself for goal-kicks on Sunday than I have in a cumulative decade of watching him for Wales.

[JVL]

Ottawa 67s 6 - 3 Kitchener Rangers (I know that the visiting team is listed first over here, but I just can't get my head around that level of wrongness)

A very entertaining afternoon at TD Place - we only just made it in time for the start of the match, the traffic heading down to the stadium was absolutely terrible and I was glad to have overheard some people on the bus deciding to get off and walk as they thought that'd be quicker - and they were right. We walked the last half a mile or so down there and passed five or six buses stuck in the jam, and a lot of people who had presumably been stuck out there too arrived midway through the first period. Anyway, we had great seats down by one of the corners, close enough for VL jnr. to be impressed by the noise as players got slammed into the plexiglass a few feet away from him. The free hotdog and 7-Up helped as well, of course, but there was plenty of action: 67s finished the first period 3-1 up, Kitchener pulled it back to 3-3 in the second and then Ottawa pulled away again in the final period. Kitchener took off their goalie for the final few minutes after going 5-3 down and Ottawa scored an empty-net goal that got everyone on their feet to wrap up a fast-flowing match played at a pretty decent level. That was their 44th win of the season and they are well ahead in the overall standings across all the OHL divisions.

[The Inner Light]

In a remarkable improvement in marketing competence Carlisle launched a campaign a few weeks ago to get an 8,000 crowd for tomorrow's game, imaginatively tagged #8kforMK. The key is that they've cut prices to £10 (£2 kids), again an improvement on their usual opaque 'offers. Backed up by an impressive social media / poster campaign it looks like they might actually pull this off (sales stood at 7000 yesterday lunchtime).

However, we never win in front of a big crowd, and the bars will be chaotic.

[The Inner Light]

First time home for a while. Went down. Great atmosphere. We played well in the first half. Tired a bit. But enjoyed it

[Paul S]

Sounds like there's been a cracking game at Rochdale tonight. Wimbledon 4-3 winners with a penalty in the last minute of extra time.

[Ray de Galles]

Maccabi London Lions 2 Broxbourne Borough 2

Spartan South Midlands League Division One

I hadn't seen a random game in a while so trekked out to the edge of the Barnet area last night to see this tenth tier clash. Peculiarly one of only two other games in London last night was less than a mile away as Hadley met Wembley in an SSML Premier game, you think they might try and avoid clashing.

The Lions are, as far as I can ascertain, the highest-placed all-Jewish club/team in London if not all of England. I don't think Wingate & Finchley of the Isthmian Premier really qualify as such. They have a really nice tidy, modern ground and clubhouse alongside what seems a huge set of training pitches for what seems to be an extensive youth operation they run. The GB football team for the Maccabi Games appear to use it as a base too.

It was an incredibly open game with Broxbourne scoring after around three minutes through what was probably their best passing move of the whole game, for the rest of the night they mainly hit ti long for an incredibly pacy but profligate forward to chase. The hosts played a more varied game and deservedly equalised with a cross/shot from almost the touchline looping over the Borough keeper a little before half time.

I'd sat in the tidy little stand at the start of both halves but the dozen or so away supporters were so obnoxious to the home team and officials that I moved to behind the goals both times, the trigger the second time being their discussion of what they think should happen to Shamima Begum.

Maccabi played all the football in the second half after switching from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2 and really should have had more to show for it than a second goal from an excellent sweeping passing move around the hour mark. Their number 9 was at least the equal of Broxbourne's striker in his incompetence and didn't even have the speed to compensate being more of a beanpole in effective target man.

As it was Borough were still in the game in the 93rd minute when their keeper made an excellent save from a one-on-one with the Lions 9, dealt with the resulting corner, pumped the ball long where the home defence conceded a corner of their own and then went forward to do this :

https://twitter.com/LiamNugentt/status/1098362891969925121

Only the second time I've ever been at a match where a keeper has scored, as far as I can recall. There was still time for the home centre forward to waste another golden chance before the final whistle and Broxbourne stole a point.