Suffolk Punch - weekend matchgoing 13/14/15 Sept

[cantagalo]

Preston 2 Brentford 0

Lovely day out spoilt by the football. That Preston converted their only two shots on goal and still ran out worthy winners tells you all you need to know.

[Southport Zeb]

Everton Women 2-0 Bristol City Women

On this performance Everton look a much better side this season. It looked like Bristol were going to hold on till half time, but two goals from Chloe Kelly in the 44th and 45th minutes pretty much settled the game. The first goal was a decent effort, a shot from just outside the box pinging in off the post, but the second was even better, blasted in from around thirty metres. Maybe 300 in attendance; I presume that Everton will be hoping crowds increase when they move back to Liverpool in a couple of months.

[ingoldale]

Grange Albion 2-2 Trebanog AET Trebanog win 4-2 on penalties

Grange crash out of the FA Wales Trophy at their first hurdle in the second round. Disappointing but an entertaining game.

[Billy Casper]

Barnsley 0-2 Leeds

Leeds have better players than us and really moved the ball around well. We had a good go at them though, created some chances, and put them into bits of difficulty. Two nil flatters them but they perhaps deserved the win.

Ray might be interested to know that Toby Sibbick was voted Barnsley's man of the match for his performance. In central midfield.

[Bored Of Education]

Bath City 2 - 2 Eastbourne Borough

Bloody typical Bath City. We make hard work of converting our possession and better play in the first half into a 1-0 lead (by a deflection). We know that we are going to rue our lack of goals - we must be the most rueful team in football presently. Sure enough, Borough have got a rocket up the arse at half-time; come out all guns blazing; capitalise on two defensive errors and go 2-1 up. Indeed, before our goal went in, that we were going to get punished by a misplaced pass and so it was to be. We managed to draw level with a scrappy goal which took ages to find out who the scorer was and it felt like a point gained rather than the two points that it actually was. In front of 1400+ people as well.

[Merlin the happy pig]

FA Vase 2nd qualifying round. Handsworth 1-2 Glasshoughton Welfare. Bit of a surprise result given the away side are 2nd from bottom of the league below the home teams.

[jameswba]

Karvina 0 Bohemians 0

The most memorable moment of this game could have been very nasty. With around 20 minutes gone, the Bohemians 'keeper raced from his line to deal with an attempted through pass. He smashed the ball high into the stand ; it struck a lamp that that was hanging from the roof, dislodging it from its fitting and sending it crashing to earth. Luckily, it landed in the gangway between seating blocks rather than on anyone's head.

Other than that, almost nothing happened at all. Karvina did miss a chance right at the end, but were otherwise poor. Bohemians seemed to have no interest in trying to win. At least it was a nice, sunny day.

[RobW]

Dawn of a new era at Sincil Bank as Jamie McCombe takes charge against Bristol Rovers. Don't think i've ever seen us play the Gas at home. They haven't won away all season, and haven't scored away, so you know what's going to happen.

Needless to say it was an absolutely horrendous game, refereed by a complete and utter fuckwit (Carl Boyeson). A Rovers defender managed to dive and turn a shot away from goal with his arm, which was blatant to everyone but the ref, and then he gave an absolutely shocking penalty decision for the only goal of the game. The Rovers attacker clearly didn't fancy taking a shot at goal, despite being clear of our defence but preferred to take two steps to his right, make some contact with Eardley and fall over. Boyeson from 30 yards away pointed to the spot. The shithousery that followed from the visitors was magnificent and worth of the Cowleys themselves. This is the same ref that gave us a dreadfully soft pen against Grimsby at Blunder Park last season.

Aside from Boyeson, City were shite after the first 15 minutes or so. Clearly the players need two former PE teachers constantly shouting at them for 90 minutes to operate. The passing was awful, they were slow and think we had one shot on target all game. Jorge Grant was missing from the squad which is a worry, and Bostwick came off at HT with an injury. Rovers were dreadful to watch and if the Cowleys had still been in charge I think we would have wiped them floor with them tbh. Need to make an appointment before the next home game really, and try and dig out a result on Tuesday at Rochdale. The mood during and after the game was like the last 3 and a half years hadn't happened. All the optimism and success has been drained overnight and replaced by classic Lincoln griping.

[Bermuda Iron]

Dandy Town Hornets 7-0 PHC Zebras

This result, and scoreline, counts as something of a big shock. PHC have been pretty much all-conquering in recent years, along with Robin Hood, but the Hornets battered them yesterday.

[Bermuda Iron]

And it was refereed by a 'complete and utter fuckwit'...

[longeared]

Maltby Main 1-0 Goole

First visit of the season to Muglet Lane last night for a game which kicked off beneath an impressive sunset.



Maltby scored after ten minutes when Goole failed to clear a corner then spent some time trying and failing to add to it. Goole pushed Maltby deeper and gradually clawed their way back into the game, thanks in part to their impressive left back. They struggled to create chances though, the closest they came was a flying save from the keeper with a few minutes remaining.

[George C.]

Decent photo that.

[Capybara]

This is a bit late as I've been travelling and completely offline.

Saturday 14 September, 1.FC Heidenheim 1846 3 Holstein Kiel 0

A very pleasantly-situated ground up a hill from the town. Heideheim scored early on with a deflected shot and made it two before half-time. Kiel passed it around a bit but never looked close to creating a chance. A headed goal from a corner just after half-time settled it. The result cost the Kiel trainer his job. The 'buses after the game were a bit chaotic and I ended up in the wrong place, as far from the railway station as the ground was, so it was a rush to catch my train. A walk back down the hill would have been a better idea.

Programme was a widely-available newspaper, free of charge.

A quick hop to Augsburg and I was in the excellent brewery next to the railway station while the Augsburg v Frankfurt game was still going on. I was expecting the place to fill up once the match finished but only a few Frankfurt supporters turned up including one in full denim sporting a wonderful mullet.

Sunday 15 September, FC Ingolstadt 2 Hallescher FC 3

The stadium is a metal box on top of a very large piece of tarmac a long way out of town and I imagine it can be quite bleak if the weather isn't so good. But it was bright, hot and sunny and the 'buses to and from the ground were well-organised. It was also my 50^th German stadium. Halle had most of the game in the first half but couldn't get on the scoresheet and I was fearing a 0-0 final scoreline. However, Ingolstadt scored against the run of play in the 50^th minute. The home crowd were still celebrating when Halle went straight up the other end for the equaliser they deserved and then took the lead shortly after with a neat passing move. It looked all over when they scored a third and the crowd went very quiet. But Ingolstadt pulled one back after 70 minutes and pushed forward in search of an equaliser. The goalkeeper went forward in injury time but to no avail and there was almost a comedy moment when an Ingolstadt defender passed back to the 'keeper who wasn't there, but Hallescher were unable to take advantage and it ended 2-3, taking Hallescher to the top of the league. The home crowd was a bit on the hostile side, brilliantly wasting time by throwing beer glasses on to the pitch when they thought the visiting 'keeper was time-wasting near the end. One of the Ingolstadt substitutes was the wonderfully-named Caniggia Ginola Elva.

Programme was free, A6-sized booklet which is a format I quite like, but sadly it didn't include a list of the Hallescher squad.

Monday 16 September, SG Wattenscheid 1 Alemannia Aachen 2

My week away was intended to be more of a holiday with a couple of games thrown in, but I became aware of this Monday night game in the Regionalliga West between two former Bundesliga clubs, so decided to go along. The stadium is an old-style one with a running track and supposedly holds 16,000. There's a large-ish stand on one side where the away supporters go and a smaller one opposite with covered terracing in front where home fans congregate.

Aachen took the lead after four minutes and when they made it two after ten and Wattenscheid hadn't been out of their own half I thought it might be a rout. But Wattenscheid scored a beauty from outside the box after 38 minutes and it became more of a contest. Unfortunately, the second half petered out somewhat and it ended 1-2.

No programme available which was a bit of a disappointment.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I’m late to the party, too, having decided on a whim to take the engineering-works-affected, very roundabout route to see all-conquering (ha...) Dundee Utd at Ayr.

All my connections were on time in quite an enjoyable journey where I met a ‘just passing’ fellow Arab in Carlisle and got a good glimpse of Ayrshire ex-coalfield culture as hordes of glammed up grannies got on with their free passes for a day oot in Glesgae. And forced me to drink their cans of pink gin...

Somerset Park is a lovely old ground and there was a great atmosphere with a big Arab away support

Ian McCall knows how to organise a team so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that they took the initiative and had Shankland very carefully marked. More surprising is that it took our boss til well after halftime to change it...far too late.

Our other ex-Ayr player Liam Smith had a mare at right back so their fans were in justified ecstasies when he stuck a leg out for the softest of penalty kicks to finish us off.

On the train back had a good chat with our new signing Troy Brown (Brentford etc), who thought he was poor but he actually won most of his challenges just clearly hadn’t trained enough with the team to distribute effectively.

Also met the Hull 1690 Loyal on that train (not the worst of their ilk I’ve had the misfortune to travel with) and was easily able to decline their offer of accompanying them for 3 shots in 10 mins on our stopover in Carlisle. They then climbed back aboard c lutching the same pink gin cans the Ayrshire grannies were plying me with late morning...

[Southport Zeb]

Three matches in and around Liverpool this midweek:

Tuesday - City of Liverpool 0-1 Mossley
This was the home sides debut in the NPL's cup competition and it was a scrappy affair with both sides pretty much cancelling each other out. Mossley got the only goal of the evening towards the end. Only 186 in attendance, which must be one of the lowest the home side has attracted since their formation - presumably Liverpool playing at the same time didn't help.

Wednesday - Litherland REMYCA 1-7 Ashton Athletic
As one sided as the score suggests. Ashton had two hat trick scorers, with one of them adding a fourth in stoppage time to decide who took the matchball home. The Litherland Stadium was as unappealing a venue as usual, although for once there wasn't a gale blowing across it.

Thursday - Lower Breck 4-3 Ashton Town
Meeting of the top two in Division One North of the North West Counties and it didn't disappoint. Ashton were two goals up after half an hour, the second coming after a horrendous mixup between the home keeper and one of his defenders - both of them just stood and looked at each other as an Ashton forward walked between them. However Lower Breck pulled one back within a minute and were ahead by half time. They added a fourth just after the break, and held on for the win despite the visitors getting a third with a few minutes left. Anfield Sports Centre isn't the best of grounds but there's a friendly welcome.

[cantagalo]

Two new grounds in two days.

On Wednesday it was Heanor Town 4 Kimberley MW 1. Another nice-looking, tree-lined ground.

Tonight I went to Ingles 1 Loughborough University 2 (aet) in an FA Vase Replay. Ingles play at Shepshed Dynamo's ground which I was delighted to learn is located on Butthole Lane.