Last Floodlight-Free Football (this year) - Weekend matchgoing

[The Mighty Trin]

That's a great shirt. My South African ex used to buy her Dad a polo shirt of the home team for Premier League games and a home pin badge for lower league teams. If you ever see a retired gentleman walking around Somerset West wearing a West Brom polo shirt stop him and say hello.

I only buy a programme, but I was on the verge of starting a collection of those gnomes that many teams sell nowadays. It's not like me to turn down the opportunity to collect shite...

[The Mighty Trin]

I hate three-sided grounds.

[Gangster Octopus]

You bloody sellouts watching football above Step 7.

Cheeky! Cricklewood are Step 7...

[Furtho]

Good man, GO.

[Crystal Staples]

A rare appearance on the terraces for Mrs CS, for the fixture I looked out for first on fixture day, Dover Athletic v Stockport County. Expecting a defeat followed by several weeks avoiding my Dovorian father in law, who doesn’t actually support them, but has been finding it hilarious that County have been below them for a few years. Spose it is.

[Glass Half Empty]

All time English away win record is under threat here Port Vale 0 TMB 10

[Bored Of Education]

That junior Oxford shirt in full

[RobW]

I'm off for my first real taste of Liverpool, and definite first experience of Birkenhead on Saturday for a War of the Rovers; Tranmere vs Doncaster.

Booked on a daft early train initially with the plan of a day on the ale, but others I was planning to meet have pulled out so it'll be a much more cultural day. Particularly looking forward to seeing the Keith Haring exhibition at the Tate.

More time at the Tate. Match postponed due to waterlogged pitch.

[RobW]

Quite a few matches off by sound of it. Lincoln v Bolton off now too.

[jameswba]

Spartak Trnava vs Zilina tomorrow

There was a double-page spread in one paper yesterday about how both these sides have tried playing with three centre-backs this season, and what the tactical possibilities are for tomorrow's game. Sadly, it's unlikely that more than around 4,000 will be fascinated enough by such questions to turn out and watch. The weather is still lovely though, so I'm looking forward to the trip.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Serbia should be competitive.

Or perhaps not. Scotland four tries and 20-0 up after ten minutes and Serbia haven't touched the ball except for kick offs.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

44-0 now, and Serbia have one in the bin for a high shot. Suspect discipline is going downhill from here.

[Patrick Thistle]

Barry Town 2 v 0 Airbus UK Broughton

A hard fought win courtesy of a penalty and a 92nd minute tap in. George Ratcliffe pulled off a reaction save at 0-0 that is probably the reason Barry won this. He is an excellent keeper. Evan Press, picked up from the Newport County academy when he was released, is maturing into a hell of a centre back and I think he's still growing. He seems about an inch taller than when I saw him play a few weeks ago.

The ref was Cheryl Foster. Didn't make a single bad decision all game. Probably the most competent ref in the Welsh system at the moment.

And I bought a home shirt today as well.

[Southport Zeb]

Watched two matches in the Liverpool Premier League today, both on 3G. First up was a Division One game at Tiber Street in Toxteth. This is on the site of an old school and is opposite the geographically confused Manchester Superstore. Hosts The Empress and visitors BRNESC Reserves both entered this game unbeaten, although the hosts had drawn three of four. Much of the first half was even before two goals just before half time gave The Empress a 3-1 lead at the break. The Empress extended their lead in the second half, scoring twice from free kicks and once from the penalty spot, before BRNESC got a late consolation.

There was just enough time to walk round the edge of Sefton Park to the complex at Jericho Lane. This is one of a number of hubs opened in the last year or so across Liverpool and has three artificial pitches as well as a gym and cafe. South Liverpool's reserves were playing on the main pitch but I watched the game furthest from the changing rooms. This was a George Mahon Cup tie between Premier Division Alumni and First Division Roby Marshalls. Despite the divisional difference it was Marshalls that ran away with the first half, scoring seven without reply. This was helped in part by Alumni having their keeper sin binned after vigorously disputing whether the second goal had crossed the line.

I thought the Alumni manager may have been the world's most optimistic/ delusional person as he said to his players at the interval "if they scored seven in the first half, there's no reason you can't get eight in the second". After Alumni scored their fifth with fifteen minutes left to play, I was beginning to think he might be on to something, but sadly the only remaining goal was an eighth for Marshalls with the last kick of the game.

[cantagalo]

Crawley Town 0 Swindon Town 4

My first visit to Crawley and they were comprehensively dismantled by an impressive Swindon side. I'm not sure how they have managed to get Eoin Doyle on loan from Bradford but he scored a hat-trick and by the end Swindon were toying with their opposition and a 30+ pass move led to their fourth goal.

A pleasant enough day out but my impression was that Crawley is not exactly a footballing hotbed. The crowd around me accepted their defeat with good grace and barely a shrug of the shoulders (not that that is necessarily a bad thing).

[andrew7610]

I’m sorry to have to report that the Oxford youth’s away shirt still has the rear sponsor ‘Polythene UK’, but it has now been added to junior’s collection anyway.

The attendance at the Kassam was announced as a pleasing 6,666

[Jobi1]

Chester 0 York 1. Huge result for us in front of a great following from York despite the weather issues.

Bit of a chaotic day though – first of all, what should have been the final train I was on got cancelled at Warrington as weather-related issues set in on the rails. I held my nerve and stuck around and a service did eventually push on through to Chester, getting me there about an hour and 15 after I should have arrived. Then after a few pints with friends in the centre, we went for a taxi, with what we thought was an adequate amount of time before the game, only to run into traffic the likes of which the cabbie said he couldn't ever remember seeing on a Saturday afternoon when the races weren't on. Arrived at the ground to find the away end gates closed as the stand was apparently full, and were directed round to where they'd given York half of the smaller side stand too, but with only one turnstile open there was a long queue. Finally made it in about 3.20, only to see a whole empty (for segregation purposes) block in the end that was supposed to be full (along with what seemed to be quite a few spare seats along the rest of the stand), and nothing except crisps and chocolate left in the refreshments bar. There looked to be sizeable queues for the home stands too – can't remember the last time I saw so many people still outside well after kick-off. God bless non-league organisation.

[Bored Of Education]

Bath City 1 - Dorking Wanderers 0

There are many events that you can't explain to non-football supporters - a hard-fought 0-0 away draw; travelling to a foreign away match when your team lost 7-1 the last time you travelled and Vinnie Jones was the captain; going to Mansfield - but, perhaps, the hardest is that absolute joy of getting a spawny three points won by a sole goal completely against the run of play helped by the horrible conditions and against a much better team. If it hadn't been at home, Saturday's game would have been the epitome of a smash and grab victory.

Due to injuries and the ins and outs of loan players, the handshakes before kick off at our games are as much to introduce our own players to each other as any sportsmanship being exhibited. It didn't help us supporters in that, as well as the new players on show, there was no teamsheet for us to check and, also, we seem to have brought in a policy that our new loan players are the doubles of existing players. I, at one point, was concerned that our normally brilliant right-back was playing our of position and at centre back when, in fact, he was playing at left back and a doppleganger was in the middle. More confusingly, we had a short ginger central midfielder in place of our regular short ginger midfielder who was playing up front. I can only assume that an equal level of confusion reigned amongst the players even if they hadn't been to the pub for an hour beforehand and turned up ten minutes after kick-off.

Dorking had a "blue and green should never be seen" away kit, the most garish pink goalie's kit I have seenand an odd-looking manager (and, I found out afterwards, owner) who we guessed was either an off-duty stand-up comedian, an evictee from Big Brother or a "manage a team for a day" competition winner. As it happens, the latter was closer to the truth but we shouldn't have taken the piss as Dorking are the most impressive team I have seen at Twerton Park this season. They had lots of pace up front and, even in the appalling conditions on Saturday, controlled the game and passed the ball well. That our keeper was the Man Of The Match in a game we won is indicative of the range of really good saves that he made, not least the numerous one-on-ones he had to win. To be fair, their keeper had to make a good save in the first half as well and we had some reasonable attacks which didn't really come to anything. However, they were, by far, the most dominant team. I was wishing for us to get to half-time to sort it out but realised that we didn't really have the players to even if we got there. To be honest, we were also lucky to be at full strength after one of our players appeared to go into another sliding and studs up which ended up with both of them injured and I thought, at least, a yellow card. Fortunately, the useless ref bafflingly gave us the free kick.

The second half started off in pretty much the same style as the first and I was decrying how under the cosh we were to all around and, as predicted, the half-time interval hadn't seemed to make any difference. However, as I was saying this, we broke away and our misplaced pass was then turned into a great assist and a well-taken goal and, amazingly, we were 1-0. We then took more control of the game but still looked like we would be lucky to hold on for a draw. As it was, Dorking didn't threaten a huge amount and we ended up with a joyfully jammy three points. Indeed, Dorking had scored one more, we would have ended up with a spawny draw.

[Ray de Galles]

Frimley Green 5 Redhill 1

Cherry Red Records Combined Counties Premier League

A match that was eventually a walkover but almost completely down to some pretty incompetent officiating in the final third of the match and my first experience of sin bins in football, which were appallingly handled.

The weather was atrocious with lashing rain that got everywhere thanks to high swirling winds exacerbated by the fact that Frimley's ground was the classic "fenced off section of a public park" with very little cover. One "stand" was just a corrugated roof on scaffolding with nothing on the sides and paving stones stacked up to, I think, act as seats.

The first half was a decent one, especially considering the conditions, with three well-worked goals giving the home team a 2-1 lead. There had been loads of niggle and backchat, both between the teams and to the officials, but it had been refereed pretty well at that point.

The problem came with about an hour in when a Redhill player was, it later transpired, sin-binned for dissent. However the ref didn't seem to signal it clearly to the bench or linesman and he left the pitch as a substitution was about to be made anyway so somehow the visitors carried on with eleven men.

After a few minutes the mistake was realised and a player was taken off, however the ref seemed to decide to start the ten minutes sin-binning then but didn't explain that to the Redhill bench. The linesman took the blame for the mistake to a lot of harrumphing and clearly got the hump about it and as a consequence seemed to start a running argument with the entire visiting defence for the rest of the game.

A little later, with the Redhill bench going mad that their sin-binned player had been off the pitch for about quarter of an hour, their left back was poleaxed by a flying challenge with a Frimley player body-checking him. He was down needing treatment and when he got up was amazed, as was I, to see the decision go against him based on the linesman's say-so. He gave an understandable "What the fuck?" towards the linesman which resulted in a yellow card, which would have been his second until it was pointed out it was another sin-binning - though given we were past the eighty minute mark anyway it was as good as a red card in the short term.

Down to 9 men now, Redhill conceded two late goals before the originally sin-binned player was allowed back on. At which point Frimley were awarded a penalty which was initially saved before being the keeper was adjudged to have fouled the taker when he followed up, with another penalty awarded and a second yellow card issued as the keeper had been booked for a hefty challenge on a home forward in the first half.

By this stage everything had got so farcical I'd actually gone back to my car to watch the final few minutes of injury time through the fence in the dry so I can't tell if the second penalty was justified but, to this neutral, it seemed as if the ref and one linesman had completely taken against Redhill and made their decisions accordingly.

[Stobart]

Brondby 5 Randers 2. Randers scored with their first two attacks, the second being direct from an in-swinging corner. Kamil Wilczek pulled one back then on the half-hour came the turning point. The Randers goalie came rushing out to the edge of his box to try and punch the ball away, but succeeded only in flattening a Brondby player. Penalty and red card.

Wilczek scored the penalty, then just before half-time Kaiser scored with a flying header from a fired-in cross to make it 3-2 Brondby.

The second half was more subdued. As Randers' 10 men tired Mukhtar made it 4-2 and a strange own goal from Pessinger rubbed salt in. With the ref about to blow for full-time Wilczek reacted to a tackle from behind by getting up and headbutting his opponent (more of an aggressive head push). Straight red.

So an enjoyable, eventful game. The highlight for me though was the ultras behind the goal chanting and the young children in the family section behind the other goal returning the same chant in high-pitched voices. This went on for 5 minutes and the ultras applauded them at the end. I'm sure the kids loved being a part of it.

[jameswba]

Trnava 0 Zilina 1

Bizarre goings on in the week leading up to this game. The Trnava ultras apparently organised a raid on their Zilina counterparts, breaking into their lock-up and nicking their banners and other paraphernalia. The banners were then hung up upside-down in the home end before kick-off, a spectacle which didn't go down terribly well with the visiting following.

The only goal was a wonderful long-range strike from Zilina left-back Besir Demiri. Is there a more satisfying type of goal than a 30-yard shot from which the ball is still rising as it hits the net?

Goalkeeper Dominik Holec had a curious game, having almost nothing at all to do for the first 60 minutes, then being called on to make about three games worth of spectacular saves in the last 30 as Trnava started to show some urgency.

If the Trnava ground had been built in England, its capacity would be 27,000 rather than 18,000. The leg-room is fantastic. The 4,471 who turned up for this contest could really stretch out and relax. Well, other than the banner-less away fans who were hard at work trying to break down the perimeter fences.

[willie1foot]

44-0 now, and Serbia have one in the bin for a high shot. Suspect discipline is going downhill from here.

Christ, Serbia must be shite if Scotland are flogging them at Rugby League...

[cantagalo]

QPR 1 Brentford 3

Nine points and nine goals in a week as Brentford finally climb into the top half of the table. QPR will argue that a very soft penalty turned the game but I think Brentford were the better team apart from a dodgy 15 minute spell at the start of the second half.

QPR are a significantly better team under Warburton but Brentford will be delighted that the new signings (only 2 of last night's team started the corresponding fixture last year) are starting to click. The exposure of Benrahma, Watkins and Mbuemo on Sky will start the transfer rumours for January but if we're near a play-off place by then, I don't think they'll be sold this time.