BFC 2-2 Middlesbrough, Saturday 14th October 2017

‘It wer shocking.  Had to change mi’ pyjamas.  Twice.’

An unseasonally sunny October day...

What a mental game.  2-1 up after 8 minutes, didn’t get a kick of the ball for the next hour, yet still missed chances to win the game.  ‘Football’s a fanny old game, saint.’

Expecting the Old #7 to be busy, what with Middlesbrough 'bringing 2.5million by coach’ (Phil), we decamped to the Arcade Ale House.  Made a pleasant change, though they no longer have Brooklyn on tap.  ‘We don’t often get lager drinkers in here’ she said.  Well, no, not if you don’t serve it.  Thankfully they had some in bottles.

Grove Street turnstiles.

Got a rare phonecall from Pops.  Given it was 1pm and it was from his home phone, I deduced he wasn’t making the game.  Southbound M1 shut, and it’d taken him 2 hours to crawl 15 miles.  He gave up and went home.  I don’t blame him.  Later, I noticed quite a few Boro coaches arriving close to kick-off, so there was obviously a problem.  

Today, Matthew, Boro were coming as a ‘Big Team’.  They’d sold out the away end, though for reasons I can’t fathom, it seems we’re not allowed to sell 1100 tickets in that stand anymore.  What’s the point of building it?  Personally, I’d have sold them that empty chunk of the West Stand.  The more the merrier, especially at 30 pounds a pop.  Daylight robbery, BFC.  (Or was that only Katrin’s ticket in the East Stand?)  Anyway, good to see BFC bring back that 5 game ticket – just after Katrin had shelled out for 4 different home games. 

The Boro hordes.

Thus, without Marshall snr, I went upstairs 1^st half.  Personally, I have no clue why people elect to sit downstairs when the view is so much better above.  Especially when you sit down in time to see a corner swung in and the ball cannon in off Bradshaw’s head.  Only it wasn’t Bradshaw, it was Ashley Fletcher of the Boro, presumably thinking he still plays for us.  2 mins in, 1-0.  F***ing yes!  The 1^st 5 mins was all Barnsley (!)  Cue Boro to equalise with their 1^st foray into our half.  We prove our defending can be just as bad as Boro’s as a loose ball off a corner is scuffed home.  Now, perhaps if we had a man on the post…’Who are yer?  Who are yer?’ sang the Smoggies just to my right.  Galling.

Looking towards the old Main Stand.

Not to worry.  Zaki Fryers (the new Kpekewa, as far as defending is concerned) drives forward down the left, the ball is laid off and the cross is headed home by an onrushing McGeehan.  Echoes of last season’s lightning breaks.  ‘Who are yer?  Who are yer?’.  Arf arf.  Such a barnstorming start broke the scoreboard and at the rate things were going, this could be headed for six-apiece.

The scoreboard, just before it gave up the ghost.

However, the game took a turn.  Boro retained possession after possession and for an hour it was all about how we could stop them scoring.  I don’t know how many times this routine was repeated, but I can summarise it thus: we would lose the ball.  Everyone apart from Bradshaw would leg it back behind the ball.  Boro would pass it around 6, 7, 8 times.  A Barnsley midfielder or centre half would win it back.  They would give it back to Boro (occasionally via a hoof to Bradshaw’s head).  Repeat the process.  The last time I saw a BFC team work this hard was probably the Chelsea quarter final.  But we couldn’t find our own players with the ball, so whichever of our players won the ball the most, must have lost the ball the most.  I couldn’t see how we could last.

The Barnsley bench, sans Hecky (suspended).

Half time came, 2-1.  Got a text from Wadd: ‘I don’t know how we’re winning this game.’  Me neither, if truth be told.  Decided 2^nd half to sit in my usual seat, so’s I could get out of the ground on time and make the 17:12 to Wakey.  Saw Anton and asked if he fancied taking my dad’s place, but he was too superstitious to give up a winning position.  ‘I’ll see you in the 55^th minute, then’ I said.  I was only 4 minutes out.

The second half began as the last half hour of the 1^st ended, with Boro having a staggering amount of possession.  Hecky (enjoying the view from the stand?) persisted with 4-5-1 but as we continued to look out of our depth, he went bold: on came Thiam for Potts, 4-4-2.  We enjoyed our best spell since scoring, so it was with some irony that we got done a couple of minutes later, a fast break down the left from Boro ending with £15m Britt Assombalonga slotting home.  That’ll teach us to attack. 

The banner, temporarily moved to the West Lower.

Course, the Boro tails were up now, but I remained optimistic; their pushing for a winner might leave gaps on the break, and while Davies made 3 excellent saves, Thiam hit a couple of 25 yarders on target, dragged an easier chance wide, and then, with another break, Barnes hit the far post when I could swear it was going in.  An intriguing game ended two-all.  We had dug in proper.  The stats say we had 33% possession, but for huge swathes of this game, it was around 10%.  Well done Reds.  I am more optimistic about our chances this season than at any time thus far.  

Onwards and upwards!

*** Jackson.  Tremendous.  Best game he’s had in a Reds’ shirt.  Stuck tight to his man, won every header.  Obviously had something to prove against his old team. 
Twitter MOTM: Fryers.  Can’t defend, but had a hand in both goals.

** McGeehan.  As well as notching it was his sheer workrate, constantly getting back in position when we’d lost the ball.  There’s a reason he’s ousted Moncur.
* Davies.  Ok, he tried to set Boro up by throwing the ball straight to their forward, but otherwise a tip-top performance.  Great saves, excellent catches and even his kicks landed on the pitch.

Londontykes' MOTM: 1. Jackson  2. Lindsay  3. McGeehan

Looking towards the Ponty.

Despatches:
Starting with the defence, Lindsay was excellent.  So many Boro attacks stopped at him or Jackson.  Pearson improved 2^nd half, tho neither him norFryers look capable of consistently stopping a cross coming in.  Fryers’ run for the 2^nd goal was something else tho.  The midfield worked their proverbials off.  Just a shame that every time Williams won it, he’d give it back to them – invariably on the edge of our own box.  Later, he ran 25 yards to join an argument and get himself booked.  How very Scouse.  Talking of which, Hamill rarely gave the ball away, unfortunately, rarely had it to begin with, but again, worked bloody hard getting back into position.  Got a bit frustrated when Thiam took one of his long shots, while he was on the overlap, but, come on Adam, how many times have you done the same!?  Bradshaw arguably had a great game up top on his own.  I say arguably, cos he battled and battled and while he rarely ever held the ball up, it’s rather difficult when the defender keeps banging the back of your head with his arm.  Sadly, neither Premiership ref Lee Mason nor his linesmen could see any of this, despite several thousand Barnsley folk trying to help them.  Thiam came on and, like at Millwall, ran their defence ragged.  Suddenly, they couldn’t amble out with the ball, as he hassled and harangued them into booting it long or into the crowd, meaning we’d be winning the ball high up the pitch.  And he frightens the living daylights out of defenders when he runs at them, with his pace and power.  This guy could be the real deal – but I worry there’s no way he can play like that for 90 minutes.  I just love him though (love him)!  

That train back to Wakey.  It was like the Black Hole of Calcutta.  Sweat dripping off the walls, as the numbers were swelled by Boro, quite a few of whom we had to leave on the platform.  ‘I’m so pleased I live in Wakefield’ said a Boro fan on getting off the train.  There’s a sentence I never thought I’d ever hear.

Drink du jour: bottles of Brooklyn, vodka and orange, pale ale and Spurs fans at the Goods Yard, where we convinced one idiot that Katrin was taking Andy and I home for a threesome, ‘one for his size and one for his endurance…’

Away: 4,853.  A great turnout for the midtablers.

The Damage:
£24 train
£3 prog
= £27

The Tunes:
Vulnicura (Bjork)
Proxima Estacion Esperanza (Manu Chao)

Panorama v Boro.

The Super Reds take their plaudits.

The new improved Groggers Rest.