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| Pre-match entertainment Washday-style |
Things I don’t remember about yesterday: journeying home to Peckham, meowing at the cat when he woke me up, staring at Match of the Day while making the V sign at Alan Pardew.
Thing I do remember: waking up at 3 in the morning convinced it was time to go to work and getting up and putting the shower on. ‘Allan, what are you doing?’ ‘But it’s 3 in the morning and it’s a SUNDAY!’
What a game, what a day. A decent turnout from the Londontykes with half a dozen optimistic fools making the journey up, 2 in first class (Phil and Tim). Our company is only worthwhile one way. (True). Onto the north and Sheffield’s finest real ale pub, whatever it’s called at Kelham Island. For a second year in a row I make the mistake of ordering an Erdinger ‘dunkel’. I may not have the opportunity to make it a hattrick. Good to meet Molly and Sharon in there too, though they wisely decided to avoid the pain of Hillsborough.
I don’t know what to say. What I do know is that for over an hour the Super Reds battled bravely with 10 men and barely gave Washday a sniff of goal. Barely a sniff. Steele tipped one over the bar and made a couple of other regulatory saves, but that was it. And then, in the 7th minute of injury time (!!!!!), with us down to 9 men, a Washday pot shot from distance skidded along the turf and flew into the bottom corner beyond a diving Steele. Even worse, I was in line with the shot all the way and you knew before it hit the net it was a goal. Fate decreed it.
The inquest began at 3:29pm however, around the time debutant Frimpong was sent off. There’s no doubt he deserved his cards. The first yellow, he’d only been spoken to by the ref 30 seconds before. The second one, I was even more livid. Like the rest of us, Frimpong watched as Kennedy and Mellis resolutely refused to put a tackle in on the 2 dawdling Washday players in the corner. (Ironic considering what happened later). So Frimpong went over to sort it out, their player cleverly shielded the ball away from him and he ran into the back of him. See ya! Till then, I thought he looked the best player on the pitch.
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| The walk of shame (idiot). |
So, we sat back and soaked up what ‘pressure’ there was, while in Jennings we had a player who looked like he could do something on the break. And then our chance came: Washday went down to 10 with about 10 to play, their lad nearly brekking Shea. We had played a wily, patient game with the Fowls and now we could exploit their stupidity and take our chance. The crowd were willing on the Super Reds, now was our time. The ball bounced around their box a bit and Mellis went down claiming a pen. I wasn’t convinced – though his reaction seemed to suggest otherwise. Indeed, the Angry Man of our midfield still hadn’t calmed down a minute later and went in studs up on their winger. Given the straight red earlier, there could be no other option.
9 v 10, even more difficult than 10 v 11, and as Washday poured men forward for a corner, our chance came. The ball broke loose for us outside of our box and if O’Brien could just switch it left, we had 2 players alone on the overlap. He tried. He failed. Washday strode forward, unleashed the shot and we’d lost another derby against that bunch of shysters. Selwood’s pre-match prediction of us ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ proved prescient.
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| South Stand |
So, who to blame? I’m taking entries for:
1. Frimpong. Despite his obvious class, he looked an accident waiting to happen. Obviously not the most intelligent of footballers, considering the ref had actually chatted to him about his conduct and he simply carried on.
2. The ref. Premiership (!) ref Andre Marriner manages to add on 7 minutes of injury time (the 4th official having announced there’d be ‘a minimum of 5 minutes injury time’ - well, he was right there!) as well as making a whole host of other ‘interesting’ decisions. If this is the best we have in this country, how badly would a ‘normal’ ref have handled this game?
3. O’Brien. If only he’d just hoofed the ball down the line, we’d have come away with a point. But we were all screaming for the crossfield ball – weren’t we?
4. Jacob Ba5tard Fcuking Mellis. What an absolute tit of a footballer. Can’t tackle, won’t tackle – until he gets so riled he can’t help himself. We’d got the game to 10 v 10, we were now in the ascendancy, and then he unleashes his ridiculous tackle (fnarr, fnarr). Being that he is such a ‘talent’, how come Danny couldn’t find someone to take this pesky footballer off our hands during the transfer window? Still, we’ll not have to put up with him for the next 3 matches. Tw*t.
*** Ramage. Out of this world.
** Crainie. Unbelieveable.
* Jennings. Really.
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| North Stand |
Despite the fans willing the team on to hit Washday on the break, I thought Danny and the team got their tactics spot on when we went down to 10. More than once we saw players have to restrain themselves from chasing down balls in the Washday half and we so nearly got our just desserts.
On another note, Washday are really straining my ambivalent relationship with them. I couldn’t give a rat’s ar5e about them under normal circumstances. They are as inconsequential a team as you could wish to meet. I’ve never lived anywhere near their beautiful city and I’ve never lived anywhere their supporters are visible. (Even in London, I’ll see Mags or Mackems, but I never see one of those blue and white stripey knobs, however ‘huge’ they purport to be on Radio Sheffield). But losing 13 matches in 15 at their place, when they haven’t had a decent side in all that time, is highly f***ing annoying. In fact, such is the predictability of our doom, invariably in ‘controversial circumstances’, that you could put your house on it. So why does yesterday hurt so much? Well, as someone once said, it’s the HOPE I can’t stand. We’d come SO close, only to fail, yet again. It's like Groundhog Day, again and again and again.
Drink du jour: vodka. Lots of it, but not enough of it.
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| Sheffield Superclub, Hillsborough |
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