Coming up...

"Eli-Eli-Eli-O"

Saturday 17th March
CML North Division
Thorne Colliery 0 Easington United 2

It never fails to irritate me how people in this country jump on the “Oirish” bandwagon for St Patrick’s Day.  Especially, when until very recent times, our own Patron Saint’s Day was largely ignored.

However, on walking through the doors of the Moorends Hotel this particular 17th March, even I got caught up in the spirit of those wearing daft oversize leprechaun hats and stupid bits of clover, all suitably adorned by the logo of that brewer of the black stuff.  It’s amazing what a win can do.

The week leading up to Paddy’s Day had also seen me enter my 47th year on God’s earth.  It was an occasion marked in suitably understated fashion with tea at The White Horse.  Good old fashioned pub grub is what Deb and Annie, new hosts at The ‘Oss, have on offer and on this evidence very good it is too.  Pity they haven’t got any cask ale back on yet though…

The main stand at Moorends never fails to impress me

A trip to Moorends would provide Mack & Nicho with their last chance to assess players before the upcoming cup quarter final against Dronfield.  Therefore the late cry-off of young Sam, half an hour before the 11.30am departure time, was the last thing required.

Once again, blue skies greeted the horn-tonking arrival of The Pistol up Hull Road.  This week we had the pleasure of an overdue return to the front seat for Shotgun Burt and, as could be predicted, we hadn’t reached our first pick-up at Patrington before sex – in thought not deed - had become the overriding topic of conversation.  Talk about “humpy old men”.

A largely uneventful trip down the M18 saw us arrive at Moorends a good hour and a half before kick-off.  Just as Nicho likes it.

Sam’s absence meant Eli retained a place alongside The Skip at the heart of our recently porous defence, while Killer and Tom were given the wide berths (one of which came at the expense of Frosty who perhaps paid the price for a couple of recent heavy Friday nights!).

Charlie struggling to overcome the trauma of his last visit

Meanwhile, an evening gig for Patty in Hull, which prevented him from travelling, prompted a return to the First Team for one Charles “Nzogbia” Holden. 

Keen to get off to a good start, Charlie was certainly quieter than on his last trip to this ground – that day his facial expression had gone from one of delight to that of absolute horror when realising that the only thing keeping Mozzer’s privates from being on parade during a pre-match jig was one of Charlie’s goalkeeping gloves!  

Our last visit to Thorne Colliery had come in the wake of their winning the Doncaster FA Cup.  They’d carried their feel-good factor into the weekend, tonking us 6-2.

As we arrived at the ground not quite a year on, our hosts were still in the same competition.  According to their manager they were awaiting the results of a County FA enquiry into their tie at Hemsworth Town, which had been abandoned.

“Why was that?” I asked.

“Cos all they wanted to do was ‘feet’ us”, came the South Yorkshireman’s reply.

“Feet” for fight is just the latest amusing example of the differing local dialects you come across in this league.  Our recent visit to Ollerton had provided a couple more – “orse” is your arse, while “arse” is your house.  Apparently.  I love regional accents, me.

Like a passing-out parade

The old grandstand at Moorends Welfare Ground is my favourite in the CML.  Sadly, the very vocal “Colliery Boys” who’d helped create such a memorable atmosphere on our first visit, no longer appear to come to games.

Instead there was a small gathering of locals towards the top end of the stand, with our own travelling band of half-a-dozen congregating behind the away dugout.

For much of the first 45 minutes, my main entertainment was provided by contents of the wonderful little hip flask given to me as a birthday pressie by the lovely Mrs Slush and engraved with three of the finest sporting logos in the world – the badges of Easington United, Hull City and Hull Kingston Rovers (if I was being pernickety I’d have also had the Yorkshire Rose thereon but never mind).

It was an opening half typical of that between two sides low on confidence and, dare I say, quality?  Thorne came closes when Scott Rhodes slid in to hit the post from Darren Fell’s cross.

Still, goalless at the break – we’d take that given that at the same stage last season we’d been four down!

Eli 'Threepenny-bit Head'

The half-time burger tasted even nicer for the fact The Pistol had bought it.  Things got even better fifteen minutes in when Robbie’s free-kick found its way to Gav and although the keeper did really well to beat away his shot, Eli was on hand to slot home Killer’s return.  One nil.  Get in!

The hosts should have been level within a minute as we switched off at a free-kick.  Bad miss that.  And we punished it when The Skip’s ball over the top put Rob in wrong-side of his marker and a cool finish ensured the points were coming back on the bus.

And not a “feet” in “seet”, excellent.

Two Zip

The full official match report can be found here, along with several more shots of the day, courtesy of Shotgun Burt. 

Coming up...

Thumped

Saturday 10th March

CML North Division

Easington United 1 Thoresby Colliery Welfare 5

Coming into this game, I was thinking what better pick-me-up for me and my sore knadgers than a Saturday that would see us beat the in-form team in the CML North, City breeze past Ipswich to reignite their play-off challenge and Rovers complete a second successive home win in Super League.

Suffice to say, the old plums didn't feel any better afterwards.
  

We’re currently going through what could possibly be termed a “consultation period” in the club at the moment.  This concerns the topic of where the club sees itself in 2012/13. 

More specifically, the question is over whether the First Team should continue to play in the Central Midlands League next season or do we as a club confirm our provisional resignation from the competition which was delivered in December? 

Anybody seeing our whipping by in-form Thoresby would no doubt believe the sooner we get back to the Humber Premier League the better.  You won’t be surprised to learn I don’t subscribe to this view.

"Oi! Get off the bloody pitch!"

True, Saturday’s reverse was chastening but despite the margin of defeat, I actually enjoyed the game in a perverse sort of way.  This was mainly due to the quality of some of Thoresby’s football, which again illustrated all that is good about the standing of the CML since regional reorganisation.

I know the formation of North and South divisions has had its critics but speaking from what I’ve seen, every club that accompanied us from the Premier has upped its game; and I include Welbeck in this.

Unfortunately, for us to be able to compete in this company we require a fully fit squad with every member approaching the game in the right manner.  Sadly, it would appear from the various social networking sites – not to mention the eyes on some of those involved at kick-off time – that currently we have players for whom Friday night is more important than Saturday afternoon.

Thoresby's suspect defence concedes its 10th league goal of the season!

This proved doubly frustrating against opponents who prior to the trip had lost just once in the league and conceded only 9 goals in 19 games. Indeed, when AG headed home his second goal in as many matches – to briefly raise hopes of a fightback at 1-3 – it was the first goal Thoresby had shipped in almost 600 minutes of league football. 

Given we conceded two sloppy goals first half, another poor one straight after the interval and two late on when we were chasing matters, it leads me to believe that with a fully ‘fit and proper’ squad we could have secured a better outcome.  We’ll never know now.

Cometh the hour...

There were moments to cheer me and the other members of the Farm Faithful "crammed" into the North West Ryvita Stand (helping take the total gross weight to a new match day record of 201 stone!).  News of a long-overdue first win in eight for the Stiffs probably being the most valuable.
However, the day's highlight would almost certainly have to be the sight of vice chairman Mickey Bo' manfully stepping into the breach following the eleventh hour withdrawal of a referee's assistant.  "Who's the lino in the pink?" no less! 
Of course at the lower level of football in this country, referees and their assistants still wear black and white.  It's classy.  Like the lovely Tracy Tracy.  God, this blog's links are seamless...

Firing Blanks

Tuesday 6^th March

Football League Championship

Hull City 0 Leeds United 0

I underwent "minor surgery" two days after this game, the details of which are alluded to in the title of the post, and which put many of my recreational pursuits (such as blogging) on temporary hold.  
Still, it was somewhat considerate of these two Yorkshire “rivals” to serve up a similar no-score affair to mark my snip. 

But is the effect of this result set to be as terminal to the Tigers’ play-off aspirations as that of the surgeon’s scalpel is for my prospects of ever siring anymore Slushettes?   

Perhaps not.  Since this intro was first typed, City have bounced back from a similarly frustrating draw at home to Ipswich (in which they surrendered a two-goal lead) to win 3-0 at play-off rivals Cardiff, courtesy of what Graham Clutton described in the Daily Telegraph as a “sublime” performance.

As for this game, it reminded me in so many ways of the previous season’s Leeds fixture at the KC.  Unfortunately, this time round we never got the two-goal lead held back then.  But we should have had.  Indeed, new Leeds boss ‘Colin’ couldn’t have complained had his side been out of the game at the midway point given the dominance of a home side still buoyed by their late point secured at Blackpool in Friday's televised game.

Along with the frustration of more dropped points (which was compounded by a below-par second half display) and seeing a Leeds side play the part of pantomime villains to the full thanks to Becchio & Snodgrass’s constant success in hoodwinking referee Stuart Attwell into some fairly deplorable decisions, the main talking points for me and my companions were the pitch and the atmosphere.

On the former, much had already been said and written about the threadbare nature of the KC playing surface, and rightly so.  It’s little short of a disgrace and may yet prove to be the biggest obstacle to City achieving a top six finish.

As for the atmosphere, I feared the worst when Adam Pearson appeared to backtrack on his programme notes for the previous season’s corresponding fixture, in which he referred to Leeds being allocated the entire North Stand and wrote “this has to be the last time that happens if at all possible”.  Hmm. 

One thing you can usually be guaranteed with Leeds fans – aside from their misguided belief that they are still one of English football’s main powerhouses – is decent vocal backing.  To this end I’ve got to say I was disappointed and after the initial opening fifteen-minute blast they were actually outshone by the notoriously lethargic East Stand.  Well that’s how it sounded in the South-West corner anyway.

As we sat in the traffic nose-to-tail along Castle Street on the way home from the game, listening to Saint Nick give yet another post-match interview that seemed to border on tetchy, we were at least all agreed that seeing this current City side remains a pleasant experience.  As such, to read the manager’s subsequent pledge to not ditch his footballing principles in search of a quick-fix to his team’s goal scoring problems came as something of a relief.  As did that win at Cardiff no doubt?!

In the meantime, I am now well on the way to recovery following my trip to the surgeon – though I could perhaps have done without Mrs Slush’s choice of listening on the way there…

Role Reversal

Saturday 3^rd March

CML North Division

Easington United 1 Parkhouse 3

It’s becomingly increasingly difficult to predict any scoreline in the CML North Division on a weekly basis.  Take the game between the division’s whipping boys Welbeck and title-chasing Westella & Willerby, played on the same day as our return meeting with Parkhouse.

According to reports, the hosts had a stand-in keeper and yet another new manager coming into their twentieth league game of the season.  The previous nineteen had all been lost with 96 goals conceded in the process and only 8 scored.  Yet for so long the prospects of a coupon buster were great – Welbeck racing into a two-goal lead.  Of course it couldn’t last, ‘Ella eventually edging home 4-3.  But, once again, it showed just how competitive the division is.  I'll miss it...should we decide to leave.  

That's because it’s similarly hard to predict our results at the moment.  Every weekend can throw up a memorable win (they're almost all that this season!) or another disappointing reversal.  Unfortunately, I somehow knew beforehand that our latest outing would see one of the latter, with Parkhouse gaining ample – and deserved – revenge for our recent win at Mill Lane.  It did.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times Mack, Nicho or I have used our programme pieces to try and highlight just how fine the margins are in our current competition.  The smallest error can prove disastrous in terms of the outcome of a game and this was again shown against Parkhouse.

The bright spot

What made this one worse was that we’d actually been gifted a way back into things once, only to then spurn a similar opportunity second time around.

The first time came when the Parkhouse defence proved as charitable in allowing AG to head home as ours had been moments earlier when Luke Beatson fired the visitors ahead.

Sloppy defending allowed the Derbyshire side to restore their lead early in the second half before we were gifted a route back when referee Duncan Robertson rather generously pointed to the spot for a “foul” on AG.  Unfortunately, Robbie Start’s effort pinged against the bar and the full penalty (sorry!) was imposed by Parkhouse who then sealed a deserved victory with a third goal late on.

Ee, Bar, Gone!

Perhaps it's the fact we're in better company since regionalisation of the league but defeats don't tend to ruin my whole weekend as much as they used to.  And the recovery this particular Sunday was helped by the lovely smell of roast beef I helped prepare for that day's lunch, an old gem from the Beastie Boys on that night's Q The 80s show and the release of the first new single in seven years from those coolest of dancefloor connoisseurs, Saint Etienne.

And I had tickets for City v Leeds on Tuesday...

Coming up...

Empire days

Saturday 25th February

CML North Division

Ollerton Town 2 Easington United 0

On Monday night Jeremy Paxman's new 'Empire' series began on BBC1.  In it, the Newsnight presenter takes a look at the legacy of the days when the term 'Rule Britannia' really did apply.  In the first episode we were treated to shots of some of the magnificent palaces of India, built by the British to give the local tribal leaders a sense of importance.  

Some still look magnificent to this day, others serve as a decaying reminder of the forgotten days of the Raj.  As I watched I couldn't help but be reminded of the cricket pavilion at Ollerton Town's Walesby Lane Sports Ground!

A nice touch

It seemed a bit daft driving past signs for Ollerton on the way home from nearby Center Parcs knowing that in just over eighteen hours time I’d be returning to the same neck of the woods.  Might as well have booked an extra night!

The anomaly that led to the East Riding of Yorkshire schools taking their half-term break a week later than seemingly the rest of the country, had opened up a whole host of holiday opportunities.  Hence we found a multitude of Hull City shirts roaming around their Sherwood Forest site.  And apparently the same could be said of the ones in Cambridgeshire and Cumbria.  As I commented to one well-known City fan who I bumped into over the course of the week, “the gate for the Brighton game will be down by a couple of thousand!”

"Don't warm-up on the pitch" (Why?!)

With no access to DAB radio, I followed the game courtesy of live text, which didn’t really tell the full story of how good a game it was.  And how frustrating for the Tigers.

The City match aside, I managed to remove myself from football for five whole days.  Impressive or what?  Instead, I could allow myself time to enjoy a place I’d always been reluctant to go to.  “Not my sort of holiday” I used to moan, “I like to get out and about, not be stuck in one place blah, blah.”  How wrong I was.  Helped by the fact that the Slushettes and the Rutter offspring got on famously, the week turned into a hugely enjoyable affair.

I was also boosted by the availability of real ale at several venues – Marston Pedigree, Greene King IPA and Old Speckled Hen all being available on cask; though at four quid a pint, I was also glad we’d taken plenty of our own booze! 

Some Ezzie fullbacks of the past would've seen those houses as a challenge!

Allowing myself first contact with Manager Mack on the Friday to check everything was okay for the following day’s game at in-form Ollerton, I was informed we were two down with Bezza working and Jordan away.  However, with the Stiffs shorn of seven players (again!) and the Casuals fielding only thirteen, Dave was happy to go with twelve plus himself.

Pistol Pete hadn’t been expected to do this trip.  It was only three weeks or so since he’d had a knee replacement.  You wouldn’t have guessed.  He through in as many emergency stops, dodgy manoeuvres and bits of road rage as usual…and this was just in getting to the Embassy pick-up point in Hull.  “Ooh, it’s like you’ve never been away”, I said.

Their 'End'

According to the notes sent ahead of their visit to us back in October, football in Ollerton can be traced back to the 1800’s.  The most successful period for the former Ollerton Colliery club came before the Second World War.  The Notts Senior Cup was won in 1937/38, a year after their Reserves had lifted the Intermediate trophy.

Ollerton Colliery ceased to be as a football club in the early 1980’s but was reformed in 1988 as Ollerton & Bevercotes Miners Welfare FC, where it began life in the Mansfield Bitter League before progressing to the Notts Football Alliance in 1991.  They were crowned Division 2 champions in 1992/93.

The closure of the Colliery in 1994 prompted a change of name for the club and Ollerton Town FC came into being.

 In season 1995/96 Town were winners of the Notts Alliance First Division and four years later finished runners up in the Senior Division.

A splash of colour on a grey afternoon

In 2000/01, Town entered the Central Midlands Football League to get onto the pyramid of football, playing in the Premier Division.  They were crowned Premier Division champions in 2007/08 and were promoted to the Supreme Division where they remained up until the formation of Divisions North and South over the close season.

A difficult start to this season had seen them part company with their manager and much of the team.  However, new boss Dave Winter's replacements were in fine form and had lost just two in ten since their 4-1 defeat at Low Farm. 

Town’s home ground, Walesby Lane Sports Ground, is also home to Ollerton Cricket Club.  According to Chris Rooney’s excellent site on Nottinghamshire football grounds, it was also previously shared by Ollerton Rugby Club until “a resident of Main road complained about rugby balls going into his garden”!

When you enter ‘The Lane’ (as the locals call it) the first thing – sadly – you notice is the dilapidated looking cricket pavilion that doubles up as changing rooms.  However, get past the view from outside and there’s a cosy little refreshments venue awaiting you inside.

On the walls are various pictures of times past, including three individually framed shirts in memory of a trio of young players - Craig Charlton, Wayne Brewin and Peter Abram - tragically no longer with us.  The names of the three are also engraved in the brickwork of the impressive Spectator Stand, dedicated to them, that runs behind the nearside goal.

The popular side

The Stand was built in 2001 and was officially opened by former England star Des Walker in front of a then record crowd of over 200.  A factor which helped finance the building work was the supporters’ generosity in buying commemorative bricks bearing their own names, which have then been set into the rear of the stand.  Not one to miss an opportunity, the Club can still arrange for inscribed bricks to added. The stand can accommodate 200 spectators, and has an interesting roof that is raised at the front, in keeping with the Club's dugouts.

The ground itself is impressive for this level, barriered off in neat white painted post and rail, with spacious, eye-catching dugouts and impressive floodlights.

The pitch, on the other hand, is not so good.  Today found it at its liveliest and while it didn’t noticeably contribute to our defeat, the undulations and dry, hard surface certainly didn’t induce good football.

As such, Ollerton’s rather more direct approach would pay dividends – as you can read here.

Up, up and away...

A rather vocal, partisan crowd certainly sounded louder than a head count figure of 42 spectators would suggest.  Unfortunately, Town is another club that doesn’t record its attendances in its match programme but I can imagine The Lane to be a fairly intimidating place for visitors, should the ground ever hold a gate approaching three figures.

Post-match Nicho expressed his frustration at our second half display.  Too many players went hiding being his main gripe.  Given how impressively we’d held our own in the first 45 minutes, I could see his point.  More pertinently, so could the players.

Patty doesn't have to move...which is as well!

Still, as always, the mood had improved slightly by the time we were tucking into post-match sausage casserole along with a lovely pint of Ringwood ‘Fortyniner’.  Another lively bus ride home helped round things off nicely.  Defeat sometimes isn’t that hard to swallow.

All things bright and beautiful

Saturday 18th February
CML Challenge Cup Round 3
Easington United 2 Southwell City 1

You wouldn't have thought it was the same venue as that the previous weekend.  Just seven days since the first real snowfall of the winter had forced postponement of our Baris League Challenge Cup third round tie against Southwell, our visitors finally got to make the trip they'd all been looking forward to!
Also 'down on the Farm' that day were Jim & Ollie Ezard and Denis Cox, stalwarts of the now sadly defunct Hutton Cranswick club.  It was great to see them, along with Kate from the Tiger Twitterati who was in line to see her first Easington win in four attempts!
The appearance of several new faces helped send the "Official Gross Weight" in the 'North West Ryvita Stand' to a new matchday record of 120 stone.  Which put a smile on the face of Ryvita Man himself of course... 

Waiting for the drop...

So, a fair-sized crowd, the sun shining, the pitch looking great and after Southwell had shot into an early lead, the day capped by possibly THE best goal ever seen at Low Farm; Gav setting us on the way to the semi-finals with a spectacular overhead scissor-kick...only Burt managed to miss it.  
Our doughty photographer would also then miss Frosty apply the decisive touch to JC's pass which clinched our place in the last eight.  Never mind.

And talking of missing things, a subsequent glut of home games, a family holiday and - ahem - the small matter of an impending minor operation has led to me again neglecting this blog.
Therefore, as we strode into unchartered territory for Easington United as far as the CML Cup is concerned, all I can offer is the following: 
For the best background to our CML South visitors read here and/or here.
For a match report of the game read here.
For some of the things that were catching my eye in the week leading up to the game read here, here and here.

Frosty scores the winner. Not that you'd know that from these...

The last of these pieces, relating to the death of Whitney Houston, warranted a mention solely due to the fact that her debut album formed something of a soundtrack to many of my memories of the mid-Eighties.  Of course, my musical tastes at that time were far too cool to own up to liking Whitney; a fact illustrated by the latest instalment of Matthew Rudd's Sunday show, Q The 80s.  The following three tracks had me back in (a) the youth club disco; (b) sixth form free periods; and (c) the legendary Spiders nightclub in Hull.  Long before blogging was invented...