Saturday 23rd November
Central Midlands League North Division
Easington
United 4 Ollerton Town 1
There
are times when even I have to accept that football is not headline news. There are times when “The Beautiful Game”
must take a back seat to other events going on in the world. And I hold up my hands and acknowledge that
this is one of them...
Just
what did one of this country’s biggest sporting icons of the Eighties, Steve
‘The Nugget’ Davis – six times World Professional Snooker champion, soul music
aficionado and saviour of ‘Voices From The Shadows’ magazine – think he was
doing parachuting into the Australian jungle with the likes of Joey Essex? How has it come to this? In what times we live. Cuh.
But I digress.
Against
Ollerton Town we gained only our second win of the season. Admittedly there was a touch of fortune
involved, the visitors’ losing defender Bowler for the foul on Gav from which
Lewis levelled matters via the penalty spot just before the break.
For a
time afterwards we struggled to make the extra man count but when Sam H was
felled by keeper Sprigg and Lew doubled up from twelve yards, the old swagger returned.
Sam
himself got in on the act late on before Lew capped things with a fine solo
effort that completed his hat-trick and a 4-1 win.
As I’ve
suggested before, home games aren’t necessarily the most interesting topics
blog-wise – they can easily just turn into a re-hash of the “official” match
report. This one did have its moments
though, not least when objections were raised to the Ollerton goalkeeper’s
refusal to retrieve a ball from just yards behind the Seaside End goal.
“Gerron you lazy b@stard!”
“Why?
You don’t see Robin Van Persie going for balls...”
“’Robin Van Persie’? When did he play for Ollerton?”
As the
game wore on and the visitors’ frustration with the performance of the referee
grew, such light-hearted exchanges between both sets of supporters became few
and far between.
No
matter, we had finally completed a second win of the season, now to go on an unbeaten run...
Ollerton's report - if any ever appears - will be found on their club website.
Saturday 30th November
Central Midlands League North Division
Thorne Colliery
1 Easington United 0
It would be easy to say that the feel-good factor inspired by the win over Ollerton was ended just one week later, courtesy of the defeat at Thorne Colliery. But it would be quite wrong to do so.
For
despite a poor first half display that ultimately proved our downfall, there
were plenty of signs in the game that the current campaign could yet turn out to be a
positive one.
Thorne
are this season’s surprise package. They
came into this game in fourth place and with only two defeats in 13 league
games. Their ten wins have been built on
a solid defence, the best in the competition, having conceded only 12 goals
thus far.
At the
other end they’ve only scored 31 goals, 10 of which have come from leading
scorer Ross Ebbage. He took this tally
to 11 in the game’s decisive moment, which came on 35mins when we were yet
again punished for coughing up possession in our own half.
We were
much improved after the break, without really creating anything clear-cut; that
is until 12 minutes from time when Hutch – employed as Sam Mc’s latest central
defensive partner – picked out Stef Radley with a great diagonal but “Lenny”
could only steer his shot wide of the far post.
At the
other end Thornse struck the woodwork twice more as we were constantly caught
out pushing for the equaliser. But further goals would have been harsh on the lads, their improvement second half
being deemed worthy of a point by several observers post-match.
The fine
old stand at Moorends Welfare, a tasty half-time burger and some cracking
post-match nosh in the Moorends Hotel contributed to another away day that was
to be enjoyed...despite no return in terms of points.
The home report that appeared in the Thorne Times can be read here.
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