The Machine Will Inevitably Crush Your Wembley Dream - Matchgoing 17-23rd March

[Jobi1]

York City 2 Dorking Wanderers 1
National League (att: 4,409, inc. 153 away)

The husband came with me for this one, his first City game for well over a year (he's been enjoying far too much entertaining football at Hull recently and I thought he needed a reality check), and in an amusing cliche that didn't go unremarked upon we were greeted by a faint rainbow emerging from behind the North Stand goal (see below).

City started well, or rather they started energetically and it became very quickly apparent that Dorking were really not very good. 'Count' Duku soon bundled in the opening goal, before missing an almost as easy one-on-one. Not much more than quarter of an hour in, the Dorking manager/owner/whatever he is (perhaps lucky not to get a mention in the ongoing hated clubs thread?) was shown a red card, presumably for something said to the lino or 4th official, and off he trudged in his ludicrous, oversized (and age-inappropriate) cap.

After the thrill of finding more than one choice of Brew York can in the West Stand snack bar at half time, we settled back in to see how City could conjure up further ways to squander easy chances – another unchallenged run in from halfway ending in a shot clipped yards wide of goal and a volley from dead centre on the 6-yard line somehow dragged wide as well. Ryan Fallowfield finally volleyed in a second goal, but it all still felt quite nervous. Dorking then actually came into it more in the last 15 minutes, and local lad Ryan Whitley between the posts pulled out one unbelievable save to tip a fierce close-range shot onto the bar. Dorking then did scramble one in from a corner in the 86th, but City held on. The third peep of the final whistle had barely sounded when a tractor zoomed onto the pitch between the players, hastening to turn the pitch around for today's rugby fixture, adding a suitably odd and faintly comic end to proceedings.

I'll leave the last word to the husband, who summed the game up perfectly: 'I can't remember ever seeing a team seeming to dominate a match so much while somehow not actually dominating it.'

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Carlisle 0-0 Stevenage

Highly anticipated 3rd v 2nd clash, and a crowd of just over 8,000 gathered for a feast of promotion chasing football. Unfortunately instead they were served a feast of absolute shite. Stevenage were at it from the start, the ref never had control of the game and while it's easy to say they reduced Carlisle to their level, we seemed more than happy to join in, and it's hard to complain when we start Joe Garner and encourage his own shit house behaviour. There were several altercations which could easily have produced red cards, and the day was summed up when Garner and one of their defenders abandoned their respective roles in a Carlisle break and just had a wrestling match in the centre circle instead.

Stevenage were happier with the point but it wasn't a terrible outcome for us either, down to 4th but with a game in hand.

I got caught in the rain coming out of the ground and went to join mates on an evening out, much of which unfortunately was spent in a Greene King pub.

[seand]

Drogheda 0-1 Dundalk, att: a sold out 2,200.
A game best described as "very derby", played at 100 mph with precious few moments of quality. If Drogheda played a bit more ball they'd be a decent side and would have won here, but frantic 1980s football was the order of the day. One lovely goal and a last minute penalty save won it for Dundalk. Raucous atmosphere, awful match, a great night out ends with the home fans skulking away to a rousing chorus of Forever, forever, forever in our shadow!

Peamount v Ballyoulster u15
I'm currently at Peamount waiting for the boy's u15 game. Peamount are best known for their women's teams, but they have very strong boys teams now up to u18. The country's premier women's club have a nice setup, but like Doncaster Belles they're about to be steamrolled by the professional clubs setting up women's teams. Shamrock Rovers signed a dozen top players from Peamount and other well established clubs ahead of their debut season.

[Patrick Thistle]

Kevin S

Were you in this bit?

[Uros Predic]

Llanfairfechan Town 2-1 Prestatyn Sports

I figured the weather was looking bright enough for the 10 mile walk over the northernmost part of the Carneddau to Llanfairfechan, and the weather was bright, about 200 metres below me. As such I missed the first five minutes at Y Rec as I was changing out of sodden trousers in a public toilet on the seafront. Never let anyone tell you the North Wales coast isn't glamorous.

Post-Covid Prestatyn Sports have been consistently one of the stronger teams in this division and winning their games in hand would put them a comfortable second behind runaway leaders St Asaph, so this was something of a shock win for the home side. The bobbly pitch was (ironically) a leveller, but Town (red and black stripes) were deserving of their lead on the back of their first half performance which saw them go in 2-1 up.

Sports came out strong in the second half, but their chances of a fightback were cut when they went down to 10 men on the hour; their centre half getting a yellow for a terrible challenge, and then getting a second one immediately after, presumably for something he said. Sports almost equalised in spectacular style when one of their subs thundered a 35-yard dipping volley at goal, but the tiny Town keeper somehow flung himself backwards and upwards to get enough of a hand to turn it off the post and behind. Town had chances to put it beyond doubt too, but they sliced them various degrees of high and wide; thankfully they didn't ultimately matter.

Couple of extra notes; the photo below is taken from the adjacent Llanfairfechan railway station, where were it not for a couple of trees, the footbridge of which would offer a perfect view of the whole field. Llanfairfechan get huge bonus points for not only serving tea and coffee in an actual mug, but in a club mug to boot. Oh and I also heard one of my favourite bits of on-pitch football coaching in a while, when a bad pass was followed by the Town keeper shouting to the bench "Jay, encourage him to be better... because that's shit".

[Snake Plissken]

Manchester City 6 Burnley 0

Vincent Kompany continues to be able to do things that never happened to Burnley under Sean Dyche. Unfortunately for him, that included conceding six goals in a match.

Clarets gave a good account of themselves in the first half, and in my biased opinion were the more likely team, right up until the point at which Haaland finished off a Foden pass for the opner. Three minutes later he is sprung clear and instead of doing the thing 99% of players would do, which is try to control and take the ball around the goalie, he just first time prods it past Peacock-Farrell, who is embarking on the journey towards conceding 11 goals in the last two games at this venue.

After half time it's a case of City cranking into gear and scoring more. When in the mood, they are unstoppable. A crushing, soulless, corporate machine designed to suck all joy out of football. It's not personal, it's just business. Haaland is the perfect embodiment of the Terminator.

[Furtho]

Ampthill Town 0-4 Rugby Borough Spartan South Midlands League Division 1

After a very enjoyable morning spent church crawling in Northants, my mate and I zipped back down the M1 to catch this one - which we thought was going to be a cracker, or at least competitive, what with it being 4th v 2nd. Instead Ampthill were dreadful, conceding in the first minute and never looking at the races, either organisationally or in terms of commitment. Conversation with a regular nearby suggested that 4th in the table was a miraculous overachievement and that the manager, who is 25, "doesn't know what he's doing and has lost the dressing room".

Afterwards our favourite Ampthill pub, The Albion, was rammed, so we instead made our way back to Leighton Buzzard and The Black Lion. Bloke there in passing said to me, "Oh, really nice boots, mate," before wandering off to the bar. All very pleasant (and my boots are indeed really nice). When bloke was out of earshot, my mate said, "I've talked to him before in here. He made racist jokes and kept hitting his dog."

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[Ray de Galles]

Were you wearing jackboots?

[Furtho]

They're actually unapologetically red.

[Capybara]

SV Elversburg 1-1 Hallescher FC
3. Liga

Elversberg is little more than a village on the fringes of Neunkirchen in Saarland. It doesn’t have a railway station and the only way I could find of getting there was by train to nearby Friedrichsthal and then walking a couple of miles or by catching an hourly ‘bus from St Ingbert railway station. I chose the latter and met a fellow Boro supporter there and joined a selection of locals, Halle supporters and three other English blokes including one Oxford United supporter on the 15-minute journey to Elversberg. The club was promoted to the third division last year and looks like going straight through to 2. Bundesliga, having led for most of the season. However, going into today’s game they hadn’t won for four games but, with their closest title challengers Freiburg II ineligible for promotion, they are still well ahead of the clubs who can be promoted.

There are, realistically, six clubs fighting to avoid the four relegation spots and Hallescher ended the day best-placed of those although it is very tight at the bottom. They matched Elversberg well in the first half, creating a couple of opportunities from the right, but it was the home side who took the lead three minutes from half-time when a long ball into the box was beautifully controlled by Luca Schnellbacher and fired past the Halle ‘keeper. Into the second half and Halle scored a deserved equaliser after 51 minutes when Dominik Steczyk was left unmarked to place the ball in the net. Elversberg then raised their game and created chance after chance without finding a winning goal, including three in the last few minutes including one that hit the bar (from the number 30, below). Some of these seemed easier to score from than miss. With ten games remaining Elversberg are still twelve points clear of what would be a playoff place so look reasonably good bets for promotion but it was very much two points lost today Att: 5278

[Artificial Hipster]

Burnley Belvedere 4-0 Whitworth Valley
Lancashire Amateur League Premier Division

No soulless corporate machine to suck the joy out of my afternoon though the weather did it's best to put a dampener on it. Having realised that next Saturday's window is even smaller than yesterday's I decided to put my visit to Baguley back a week and have yet another crack at watching a game in Whitworth. The club had tweeted in the morning that the match was on so I travelled in equal parts hope and expectation, albeit with a plan B safely tucked into my pocket just in case.

An empty car park is never a good sign. I found a number for the club secretary and was told that the match had been switched to Burnley because of a waterlogged pitch. It was 30 minutes to kick off and according to Google Maps I could get there in 35. What the heck. I arrived just after 2 with the teams ready for kick off but confusion hanging in the air as to whether the game would definitely go ahead or not. No one seemed to have much of a clue what was going on in the mind of the officials. There was a small puddle in one goal mouth (which made a forlorn attempt to prevent the opener creeping in as per the photo below) besides which the pitch was impeccable but it still took a further 10 minutes of heated discussion before the green light was finally given for the green shirts of Belvedere to leave their visitors wishing they'd opted for an afternoon in the pub instead.

Without the heroics of their goalkeeper this would have been double figures. The win puts Belvedere level on points with leaders Old Blackburnians with Whitworth edging closer to the relegation zone but there was no reason to have expected the gap in quality to be so great. Whitworth hit the post at 3-0 but I don't think Belvedere's keeper even got his shirt wet.

Belvedere's Holden Road ground is a little gem. There's a handsome stone pile - now a hotel - behind one goal and a raised grass bank behind the other offering fine views over a bus shelter stand (you can just about make out the words Widow Hill Road Fast on it) and an adjacent cricket field towards distant hills. It's an old ground, though not quite as old as the club itseld who are Burnley's seniors by a year and who once played at Turf Moor for a while themselves. I'd be curious to know what sort of a crowd they pulled in the early 1900's. There were 6 of us in attendance yesterday.

[Greenlander]

Plymouth Argyle 2-0 Forest Green Rovers
Division Three
Att: 16,307 (269 away)

I've already mentioned it on the dedicated third division thread but, my god, Forest Green were awful. No scratch that, they were beyond awful. Alright I get it, they're pretty much down but they ain't there yet so you think they'd show slightly more adventure. But they've got that terrible habit that afflicts many a doomed team of taking and early lead yet throwing it away late. So yeah, put everyone behind the ball and let us make all the running and even once we'd gone one up with a header from a corner there was no change to this plan. And it worked, we had all the ball but could do nothing with it. More and more frustrating it got. 'How shit much you be it's only one nil' sang the away fans. Meanwhile as we passed it back and around again instead of a cross into the box where four green shirts lurked I turned to my phone 'UEFA coaching badges have a lot to answer for' I texted my mates. I got a question mark back from Ian, 'we can't find a way through them and when we do get into promising areas we just turn around and pass it some more, sometimes a good old fashioned cross into the box would be nice'.

Two minutes I got my wish, James Wilson's cross header back across the keeper by Bali Mumba and you just knew the victory was secure. We controlled the play, no doubt thinking about Tuesday and Wembley to come. Forest Green had a soft shot 'we've had a shot, how shit must you be we've had a shot' they sang.

And that was it, 'Functional' was my one word report to my mates that couldn't be there. 'Can we play you every week' sang the away fans, good god no, who would want to watch that dirge week in week out. They're going down without a fight, for us it's all about the three points.

You know what the most interesting thing was? The way their number three, Dom Bernard, wore his shorts for the entire match. Short shorts are back lads, coming to a ground near you soon.

[Via Newbury Park]

Dagenham & Redbridge 1-1 Oldham Athletic
National League
Att: 1659 (212 away)

Usually there's little I enjoy more than planning a route through some sort of transport disruption and the moment of smug satisfaction I get as I near my destination. This time, avoiding routes that were on strike or closed for engineering, I left the train nearly two hours after leaving home with a bus still to catch and found myself wondering what the hell I was doing for a mid-table nothing fixture, only notable for being Ben Strevens’ first game in charge.

Recent D&R team selections have been reminiscent of playing Football Manager and spending the first few matches trying to work out which positions best fit the players with a confusing run of letters by their name (D DM AM LRC?) and selecting players who have hardly played because there doesn't appear to be anyone else to choose. (I should note that the last version of the game I played was FM 2012 on the iPad, so this analogy may be rather outdated.) Here, Mo Sagaf played on the left of midfield having been at right back the other week while Jay Bird, two starts since signing in November, started up front. It worked as well, the two linking nicely and Bird pirouetting then passing the ball into the corner to put the Daggers in front. Bird came in during an injury crisis, scored on his first appearance and was then ignored while the previous manager persevered with players who were out of form or knackered, so it was good to see him taking his chance.

Oldham have surged up the table in recent weeks but didn't really show a lot until Mike Fondop came off the bench; he headed in a corner for the equaliser, allowing the people who mainly turn up to scream at the Dagenham players that they’re all useless cunts the chance to pipe up after 80 minutes or so of having to keep their mouths shut. Thereafter the main interest was whether Oldham’s Joe Nuttall would get himself sent off; he was booked for dissent, left his boot waving around in a challenge shortly afterwards and kept up a near constant dialogue, with the referee and the crowd, for the remaining ten minutes. He probably should have gone but we were grateful for the entertainment.

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[Furtho]

You know what the most interesting thing was? The way their number three, Dom Bernard, wore his shorts for the entire match. Short shorts are back lads, coming to a ground near you soon.

The Plymouth player certainly looks appreciative.

[Patrick Thistle]

.

You know what the most interesting thing was? The way their number three, Dom Bernard, wore his shorts for the entire match. Short shorts are back lads, coming to a ground near you soon.

He was doing this when I saw Shrewsbury beat them back in October.

[Capybara]

Burnley Belvedere 4-0 Whitworth Valley
Lancashire Amateur League Premier Division

Can I 'like' this post again, please?

[Simon G]

Ambassador Evesham Football League U12 Pool C
Meon Vale 0-10 Tewkesbury Town Pumas

And so we finish our league season with a bit of a farce. On the morning of the game (half hour before I left my house) I received a text from the Meon Vale coach telling me that she only had 7 players and could we work something out. I had 13 players, but none of my team would want to play for them, so it was agreed we would play 7 a side instead. I then substituted all 6 outfield players halfway through each half.

After 15 mins we were 1-0 up and it should have been many more except our top scorer was too busy trying to set up the one lad who had never scored for us. By half-time it was 6-0, including a goal direct from a corner. At half-time we put our keeper up front for a laugh, and even he got on the scoresheet. Towards the end of the game, Meon Vale's frustrations spilled over and one of their lads full on kicked our right-winger in the knee. Had he done it to one of our other players it would probably have been justified (a couple were quite lairy, despite us telling them to be respectful - they are 11/12 years old after all), but Isaac is the nicest boy on our team and certainly didn't deserve it. Either way, we scored a couple more to see the game out and I reminded them how far they've come this year, from winning 4 league games last season to only losing 4 this season.

On Saturday, we make the step up to 11 a side for the first time. We're playing a team from the division above us, so it certainly won't be anything like this game.

Division 3
Cheltenham Town 3-1 Exeter City

For the first time this season I've witnessed Cheltenham score 3 in a League game. Exeter came out of the traps well and on 10 mins or so were awarded a penalty for a Jackson trip on their best player, Demetri Mitchell. Sam Nombe went low to Luke Southwood's right though, and Southwood guessed correctly to save it. 5 mins later Cheltenham were 1 up when a trip by Aimson let Alfie May in, he won a battle with Grounds and laid it off to Aidan Keena to get his first goal in a Cheltenham shirt at last. Keena has been brilliant since signing in January, but just needed that goal. Exeter seemed shocked and we got to half-time deservedly 1 up.

As expected, Exeter came out all guns blazing for the second half, and Cheltenham tried to shithouse their way to a 1-0 win. Exeter were too good though and that man Mitchell got down the left wing and put in a sumptuous cross for Josh Key to head forcefully past Southwood. It was at that moment the game changed. Some Exeter idiot threw a smoke-bomb on the pitch and the 5 min delay seemed to kill all of Exeter's momentum and allowed us to regroup. A minute or so later, Caleb Taylor rose highest from a Will Ferry corner and we were 2-1 up. 5 mins later, Elliott Bonds played Alfie through, clearly beating the offside trap, and he slotted past Jamal Blackman in the Exeter goal to wrap up a convincing victory and pretty much confirm safety in the 3rd tier.

[Kevin S]

Kevin S

Were you in this bit?

The upper tier of that bit. Apols I didn't come and find you - was with family, and mobile data around Portman Road is always awful on a matchday. Hope you had a decent day of it - there wasn't much for the visitors to cheer in that one, with the best chance coming early on up our end, which Walton tipped over. Loved the comedy routine with your guy taking the corner, walking over as slowly as he could and then placing the ball miles outside the quadrant while looking at the crowd. Less keen on all the grabs and pulls - I wouldn't call Shrews an S-house team but they certainly took advantage of a referee who wasn't penalising them for trying to restrain their opponents (a couple of times this was actually on Walton too). I can certainly see how you're comfortably in the top half - better organised, very effective from wide areas, and physically imposing. Kind of feel like the blueprint of what you expect a League One team to be, but honed, Pulis-style, to a high degree.

[Patrick Thistle]

Tbh "physically imposing" isn't a phrase I associate with Shrewsbury so that's an interesting pov.

[Kevin S]

I think we're probably a relatively small team in stature these days!

[Patrick Thistle]

It didn't really feel like Shrewsbury got near Ipswich much. Which didn't help the Ipswich lad who tried to win a penalty despite a yard of space between him and the defender.

Seriously though, it was proper chasing shadows stuff.

[The Mighty Trin]

Farsley Celtic 3 Darlington 1
National League North
Att: 700 est.

Another Tuesday off work and I lept out of bed full of vim and vigour to feed the cat and do the ironing before tootling to King's Cross with a jaunty spring in my step and a copy of Steven Runciman's A History of The Crusades under my arm. Not even two hours on a Grand Central train could dim my cheery mood.

Regular correspondents will of course know that Farsley Celtic were founded in 1908 as Farsley, added the 'Celtic' epithet some unspecified time later, went bust in 2010, were refounded as Farsley and then added 'Celtic' again in 2015. In 2019 the new Chairman changed club colours from blue to green, created a new and frankly dreadful badge and changed the name of the ground from the already superbly named Throstle Nest to The Citadel. I've sadly witnessed this sort of nonsense far too many times in rugby league and I do not care for it one bit. In fact I hate it. I fucking hate it.

Farsley is a village 6 miles west of Leeds and 4 miles east of Bradford. Given the presumanly Irish connections to the foundation of the club, it's ironic that Farsley's most notable person is the Reverend Samuel Marsden, who, when a magistrate in Australia, became known as 'the Flogging Parson' due to his perceived harsh sentences and dislike for both Roman Catholics and the Irish (although it appears that this was a myth that his political enemies encouraged). Either way, you would not have wanted him over for dinner.

The club record attendance is actually 11,000 for a cup tie v Tranmere which was switched to Elland Road. Throstle Nest consists of a small and basic cantilevered main stand with wooden seats, a covered stand/ seated terrace behind one goal and open standing behind the other two. There is also a metal mesh caged players' entrance, which pointlessly obscures a view of a corner of the pitch from the main stand. We got there just as the Darlington team bus was bravely struggling to reverse into the car park.

It was 21st v 5th and, with the home team occupying the last relegation spot, they urgently needed 3 points. The first half was all Farsley, and they took the lead after 11 minutes when the Quakers lazily gave the ball away playing it out from the keeper. Criminal play well punished. 'Beat by a village. You're getting beat by a village' sang the home fans. There then followed a prolonged period of low quality hoofball until Farsley got a second on 44 minutes.

The second half was all Darlington, but it rook a further 25 minutes until they could finally force the ball in from a corner. To my great surprise Farsley then snatched a third as a Quaker defender failed to understand how offside works. Despite further huffing and puffing it finished 3-1 to the home team. Tremendous for the neutral and vital for Farsley, but Darlo really were absolute cack.

[The Mighty Trin]

[Billy Casper]

Barnsley 4-2 Sheffield Wednesday

The Owls open topped bus victory tour arrived at Oakwell tonight.
Wednesday are really good team. They move the ball around well, find their passes, work hard and looked dangerous all night. Barry Bannon got a fair amount of abuse from the home fans, but in truth, I wish he played for us. They deserved at least a draw and I wouldn't have had any complaints if they'd beaten us.

But football isn't all about fairness, expected goals or possession statistics. Sometimes it's about emotion. When we scored our clinching fourth goal with virtually the last kick of the match I found myself hugging my fifteen year old as we jumped up and down together. That's when football is working its best magic.

(When we got home he informed me that my breath had stunk of garlic all night - but you can't have everything.)

[Patrick Thistle]

Goytre United 1-2 Barry Town United
Cymru South

A proper leveller quagmire pitch and intermittent downpours worked in favour of the home side as they came back into the game after trailing 2-0 at half time. Barry's players tired while trying to play in the swamp and gamely held on for another 3 points. If results go their way they could win the league on Saturday.