Saturday 3rd 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.
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.
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| The bright spot |
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.
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| 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...
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