Bradford City 1-0 Barnsley, Saturday 25th April 2015

30th Anniversary of the Bradford fire disaster.  R.I.P.

Never forget.

On a day we commemorated the 30th anniversary of the 56 people who died in the Bradford Fire disaster, I’m still left with a bitter taste in my mouth after Saturday.  Not at the abject nature of another end of season away game with nought to play for, but at Bradford City FC and their sh*thole of an away end.  Looks nice on telly, a cosy modern double decker behind the goal. However (and it’s a big however),  there are posts everywhere.  Even Bramall Lane’s upper tier isn’t plagued by posts (though, yes, Hillsboro is).   But these posts, with CCTV plastered all over them, blocked out the entire centre circle from where we were sat, nevermind whatever happened on our right wing.  (Nothing?)  I wouldn’t even mind so much, had Bradford advertised the seats as having an ‘obstructed view’. 

Fortress Valley Parade.

In this day and age, with the level of engineering out there, there’s little excuse for Bradford, particularly how they’ve spent fortunes and gone into administration to build their 2 super stands.  It’s a 3^rd division Sportsdirect.com@StJamesPark, as these stands tower over their lowly neighbours.  And yet, to our right, there were Reds fans in another bunch of seats, in the cantilevered (ie, no posts) Midland Road stand, where I sat last time I was here (0-4, Dire up front - things could be worse!)  At half time, we elected to go down and see if we could move seats.

Guess again.  (No programmes today, matey)

You know the answer.  Not a chance.  ‘They don’t allow transfers’. Who?  Who are ‘THEY’?  Dunno, but the stewards themselves acknowledged that some fans had left due to the s*** view, while a couple with more money than sense (or principles) left and PAID to get in the Midland Road stand. You see, if you’d NOT bothered to buy your ticket in advance, you could have got yourselves a better seat.  Go figure.

See them seats? Them's Barnsley fans over there an' all.

We stood behind the seats in the lower tier.  ‘You can’t stand there’ said chief pr*ck Barry Sh*tskill (not far off).  ‘Why don’t you sit in one of those seats?’ he said, pointing at a few empty seats close to the front.  ‘I can’t’, I said.  ‘I don’t have a ticket for those seats’.  ‘Well, I’m giving you permission’.  Ok then, I wouldn’t mind a sit down if FA is happening on the pitch, which it wasn’t (or was, if you're being pedantic with my English).

If I EVER sit in this end again it's cos we are 15 points clear at the top of the league.  I look forward to it.

Good job nothing everything happens in midfield!

Oh yeah, Bradford scored a goal, 1^st half.  A super cross left Nyatanga thinking/praying Stead would miss, but he never.  Smart volley.  That was it.

I could also whine about the lack of any match programmes, but, y’know, I’d have begrudged them the extra 3 quid, ba5tards. 

*** Hicksy, Loko and the West Stand Bogs crew.  Well done on walking the 30 odd miles to Bradford.  Meantime, the closest the players got to giving a s*** was Davies going up for a corner late on.  

** Jabo Ibehre.  Good movement, good hold up play, keen, enthusiastic – playing for a contract?

* I dunno.  Davies – for not making any mistakes and showing more forward movement, in running 80 yards for a corner, than virtually anyone else in a white shirt.

Despatches:
Johnson says we’ll make signings in the summer.  Well, duh!  Please let’s not make any of ‘em Declan John, George Waring, Jacob Mellis…any more?

Drink du jour: Great pub pre-match. I thought we’d agreed to keep the Bradford Brewery a secret, but since Salisbury has named and acclaimed it already…anyway, wheat beer on tap but I plumped for Krusovice.  Why does Czech beer taste so much better than Fosters, Peroni, etc etc. On the train?  Vodka and orange.  In keeping with our day of anti-climax, we never even finished it.  One of us had been out too late doing techno (Jon Hopkins) the nite before in Brixton.

The Damage: 
£20 ent (as in 'entrance' not 'entertainment')
£35.60 train

Crowd: 15, 560  Away: Maybe 1500 (at kick-off).

Coral Stadium?  Coral Windows?  Make your mind up.

The Main Stand

That corner would've housed us nicely too.

Action shot of CCTV camera

Disputed territory...

Where I was last time I came here.

Come on you Reds Whites! 

Upper tier behind the goal.

Don;t worry, there were obstructions no matter where you looked.

Things you really ought not to see #647.

I know folk wider than these toilets.  'An experience'.

Note: when visiting Croatia, this is NOT the hotel you want.

You don't have to have tatts to work here (but it helps).

Barnsley 1-1 Peterborough, Saturday 18th April, 2015

'Everyone knows women only sh*t glitter and rainbows.'

It's official. Grogger's Rest, R.I.P.

For the first time in years we are facing meaningless end of season matches with 3 games left.  I s'pose we should be grateful, after stressful years of relegation battles.  Time to put our feet up, play a few youngsters and hope we get away with it.

So it was, Johnson had a starting 11 containing ZERO loan players.  FINALLY!  It's also a home debut for centre half Jack Cowgill, whose only previous experience was 10 promising minutes at Walsall while the away fans chanted 'You're not fit to wear the shirt' at the rest of 'em.  Some bloke called 'Digby' also got a runout.  I'd forgotten all about him.

'Toby, Toby!'

Cowgill has a 'mare.  He loses his footing on a throughball and Washington nips in to blast home. (The same bloke scored the goal of the season against us at their place).  Then Cowgill steps out to intercept another throughball, doesn't reach and Davies saves the resultant one-on-one.  Even headers were meekly nodded away.  He looked a bag of nerves.  He was also turned rather too easily and slow to react.  He looked faster than this at Walsall. Maybe their forwards are slower than Posh's?  After half an hour I told my dad he'd only played 10 minutes before today.  'He's still only played 10 minutes' came the response.  Although he improved second half, he was dragged off after 65.

Then there's Digby, in for Pearson.  Now, I like Digby, though he's hardly pulled up any trees this season. But what he does give is one-touch simple passing. Even Pearson has a tendency to take a touch to control the ball before playing the pass.  Still, someone has to provide all those square balls.

Spread yerselves out, lads.

The equaliser comes when Alnwick (he makes me panic) came running out of his box and the ball bounced clean over his head, for Hourihane to run onto and slips it home.  'Cept he doesn't.  He drags it wide with an open goal.  Good job it was on his left foot.  He could even have taken an extra touch, but no.  Someone put him out of his misery. Second half, he misses another sitter. Lalkovic (another one back from the dead) takes it to the byline, looks up, cuts it back and puts it ON A PLATE for Hourihane to sidefoot it narrowly high and wide from 10 yards.  Christ.  Someone put him out of his misery.

The midfield is completed by another return...Luke 'does nothing everywhere' Berry. I don't know about you, but it was a welcome return of the hairflicking.  He can control a ball, stride forward, and still find time to flick his hair before he makes a pass.  Well done that lad.

Bit sparse today.

As you can tell, we are going nowhere fast.  The only other shot (on target) I can think of was when...Lalkovic?  Winnall?...broke from midfield, beat 3 players, got chopped down and Scowen ran onto the loose ball to hit a soft effort to the keeper from 25 yards.  Then one of theirs gets a 2nd yellow for taking out Scowen and we've a chance.  Posh still look more likely on the break though but deep into injury time we get a corner.  Once again I take the acclaim for the goal, cos I was shouting at the keeper to come up (cos I was bored, not cos I was excited) and in the ensuing commotion, Luke 'does nothing everywhere' Berry scores a diving header from 4 yards.  Whatthehell?  A welcome reward for those of us who stayed.  (For some reason, the Ponty looked like the Stadium of Light, most had left with 5 mins left).

Even sparser, most left BEFORE we scored.  Ha!

Oh, and btw, we did send the loanees on in the end.  Declan John came on for an injured Smith and actually looked like he was trying to make things happen.  I s'pose these things are relative.  But he made runs, ran at people.  Usually lost it.  And Pearson came on to show Digby exactly what a square ball looks like.

MOTM is a bit difficult. No-one stood out for the 90.

*** Lalkovic. Looked like he meant business in the 1st half. Maybe the manager's criticism of the 'wingers not doing their jobs' gave him a bit of impetus?

** Scowen.  Does something everywhere.

* Berry.  Twitter MOTM (BEFORE his goal!).  Go on then, just for a laugh.

Extra despatches:

Good to see the return of Bree (on as sub).  Smith played well, but injured after 55 (hamstring?) Holgate got a run at centre half when Bree came on for Cowgill.  Some of Hourihane's deadballs were excellent, the rest of it wasn't.  Though I felt for him when he made a great tackle - and the ref gave a free kick and booked him!  How's THIS gonna encourage him to put a foot in?  (A minute later, a professional ankle tap from Digby, preventing a break, went unpunished 'cept for a free kick). Winnall was...I can't remember.  Did he do owt?  Nyatanga looked calm.  Needed to be.  Possibly could be more vocal though with the young lads.  Then again, when they improve, he's lost his place. And Davies saved that one-on-one but had little else to do.

Full-time.  'Well done'. 'Well done'. 'Good effort'.

Overall, today, I was pleased to see a few of our homegrown get a runout, but I was a bit gutted we didn't put Alnwick under more pressure, especially given we know how USELESS he is.  We just dinked crosses into his arms all day long.

I think today gave major clues for Johnson's plans for next season.  Crainie on the bench (out of contract), Nyatanga not.  Might we offer the latter a new deal?  I s'pose Crainie's too expensive.

Drink du jour: Southern Comfort and coke.  I had a right nightmare pre-match, Got served an IPA the barmaid claimed was a wheat beer...which then ruined the taste of my next 2 beers.  I don't think I've ever had this happen before.  Beers #2 and 3 (Brooklyn lager and a Corsican wheat beer) tasted EXACTLY the same.

Away: 380.  Or 318.  One of the two.  Looked more like 2 dozen.

Barnsley 1-1 Chesterfield, Saturday 11th April 2015

‘It were not sensical'

The teams about to enter the Theatre of Screams (cheers, Andy)

The dream is over, if not mathematically.  Needing 5 wins from the last 5 games (and more) we fail at the first hurdle, only drawing to the side holding 6th, Chesterfield.  And fair play to them - I thought they outclassed us 1st half and took a deserved lead.  Furthermore, whilst the only difference between the teams at the New Saltergate (whatever it's called) was the class of star centre forward Eoin Doyle (now sold) they looked very much like a team on the up without him.  Note, a TEAM.

Don't be fooled by the sun. It was cold (see hat).

After nearly scoring twice in the opening 2 minutes (the first from Waring losing it cheaply) the match settled down and was predominantly played in our half.  Then a player got a head injury and I nipped off for pie and pee...and whilst zipping myself heard a small cheer.  Those toilets are well soundproofed, but the PA confirmed it.  'And the first goal for Chesterfield...'  Christ.  I was probably pleased not to have seen it, when it was later described to me:  Hourihane slipping over in possession and one pass later they're clean through to bury it to Davies' far corner.  Bl**dy Hourihane. I'd have probably exploded.  At least he's finally made a difference!

'Condiments station'.  WTF?

Yet before the half was over, we somehow nearly scored twice without ever creating owt.  Crainie hit the bar with a looping header.  Everyone stood and stared...until it hit the bar.  Anticipation?  That's for other teams.  Then as the half closed, the keeper pulled off a save from Waring, who was given a free shot on the backpost.  Was he 3 yards out or 4?  Should the keeper have even had a chance?  No, it was poor.  Waring had the whole goal to aim at, 3 yards out, and he's hit the spot just above the keeper's header, giving him the chance of making the save.

Second half and not much changes, so Johnson asks me who he should take off.  'Well...Hourihane and Waring for a start'. He does.  Hourihane being dragged off is the 2nd biggest cheer of the day after our goal.  Ibehre comes on, and finally we have a forward who can move, hold a ball up and win headers...or if not, win throw ins.  It takes us 4 minutes to equalise.  Their guy goes straight through Ibehre, the free kick is lumped up and the Spireites fail to clear.  And from the 2nd phase (I hate that phrase) the ball is crossed in from the right, there's a little flick on and the  header is latched onto by Winnall, sliding in on the backpost.  Offside? I would say so, but I don't think the officials spotted the flick-on.

Tremendous turnout from the Spireites.

Sadly, the charge of the red brigade doesn't come.  The ball is mostly in their half, but the only chance comes Winnall's way. If he sees it again he'll kick himself, as he's on his own and he takes the ball back on himself before meekly shooting with his left.  If he'd controlled it the other way, he'd have been clean through 10 yards out.  Oh well.

One more (small) highlight for me, the manager finally takes Declan John off, so the 3 changes I'd have made before KO finally come to fruition.

*** Scowen.  1st half, he was everywhere.  Tackles, makes passes, drives at people, covers. 

** Nyatanga.  Twitter MOTM.  Marshalled the defence very well, always looked cool under pressure.

* Crainie. Competant display at right back, as well as playing a part in the goal...and hitting the bar.

Londontykes top 3:
1. Nyatanga
2. Scowen
3. Crainie

The new right winger - an improvement on that Stewart bloke from Ipswich.

Despatches:
6 matches without a win and counting. Not Berry's fault, as he came on, looked enterprising (ie, better than Hourihane) and drilled a 25 yarder the keeper was pleased to hold.  Pearson always chose the sideways or backwards option.  I could understand that against the Blunts, we couldn't keep possession, but not this week.  Ramage made a welcome return. He's one loanee I'd keep (wages permitting).  Declan John is one I wouldn't (so we will). Constantly threatened to deceive, but usually lost it.  Smith recovered after a shaky start (note to John again: it's YOUR job to ensure the opposition don't double up on the left back;  you should KNOW THIS cos it's where you've been playing the last few matches.  Indeed, John DID chase back once...when I f***ing screamed at him to do so. He ended up winning us a goalkick.)  Smith delivered some good crosses and played some good one-twos with John 2nd half.  Waring couldn't hold a ball, and when he did, promptly misplaced the pass.  There was one in the 2nd half, we were breaking in numbers, he held it up superbly...before playing the ball behind our onrushing player for a throw-in.  He's crap.  His mate Winnall ran around enthusiastically in midfield 1st half.  Would he have been standing where he was when he scored if Waring was still on the pitch?  We'll never know.  Was he given licence to get into their box once the subs were made?  Otherwise, he fell over alot and moaned about it.  As usual.  Ibehre looked the pick of the strikers.  Lalkovic was poor. What's happened to him?  As for Davies, 2 early saves and then not much to do.

Drink du jour:  Vodka and orange

Crowd: 11,268 (away 2,459)

Less than 9,000 home fans.  And it showed.

Colchester United 3-1 Barnsley, Monday 6th April 2015

‘How sh*t must you be, we’re winning at home’ 

Someone looks happy to be catching the shuttle bus!

Well, that lays it to rest, doesn’t it?  A nightmare of a weekend and we’re now 11^th.  Or so I’m told – you don’t think I’ve actually looked at the table, do you?  An awful, awful, second half display redolent of away performance of this season past…Crawley, Walsall, Port Vale…anymore?  It was quite bewildering, the turnaround from the 1^st half.

It was a strange 1^st 45.  Colchester had obviously heard how good we are, cos they camped all 11 men in their own half and showed absolutely no ambition whatsoever.  Imagine, aiming for a 0-0 at home.  Is this the Keith Hill / David Flitcroft school of management?  So it was, we knocked it about sideways, sideways, backwards, possibly in an attempt to tempt them out.  It didn't work, they stayed behind the ball and we huffed and puffed, creating little.  

1st sighting of ground (last building in town).

Then we only went and ruined it.  Another deadball goal (we’re the new Stoke; we can’t actually do owt in open play) as Hourihane swings it in, there’s a header..a frantic effort from the keeper…Holgate ready on the rebound, but he’s got his arm in the air claiming a goal….and we see Super Georgie Waring wheeling away in celebration.  What a player!  I’ve always said so.

This is great for the game, cos surely Colchester will now have to attack us, and we will, of course, murder them on the counter.  It doesn’t happen in the remaining minutes of this half though.  Play continues as before and George fails to get on the end of a whipped in cross (too slow?  No anticipation?)  Apart from this we had a couple of earlier low crosses into the box which went in front or behind our players.  On another day…(well, on another day, we still wouldn’t have a striker who was able to pick these things off, cos Winnall was on the bench).

A satisfied customer clutches his programme

At half time I chatted to Wadsworth and his bro-in law Craig, Essex geezer born and bred.  There’s only one player on the pitch according to him  - the Man U bloke.  Pearson is (again) the only player capable of putting his foot on the ball and not look like he’s sh*tting himself.  Meantime, Paul shares his views with me on Super Georgie Waring, who’s having another of those games where 6ft 5 doesn’t win you a header (apart from the one he DID win.  Super George!)  He’s an enigma. 

The 2^nd half is more even, but neither side will score in a million years..until Colchester do.  Loanee Declan John shows what his defending is all about by letting the player cut inside and cross it.  The cross is inch perfect into the corridor of uncertainty between Davies (welcome back!) and Holgate at the backpost.  Quick movement from the striker (imagine!) and an outstretched leg and it’s one-all.  Howthehell have this lot scored a goal?  (I forget, I’ve just described how).  

Comedy; Thursdays and every Easter Monday

No worries, there’s half an hour left and we have to remember, we’re dead good and they’re not.  Super Georgie Waring brings a ball down and lays it off for an onrushing Pearson to slide it home…’cept their guy slides across and blocks.  Pearson curls another effort into the top corner…but it’s a little too gentle and the keeper makes a Hollywood save, tipping it round the post.  Then they score the same goal in reverse.  This time the ball comes in from the left (after Holgate is skinned) and as everyone runs to the middle of the goal in panic, the ball goes to the backpost where they their guy has an empty net. (I’ve since seen it on TV; when I say ‘empty net’, I mean ‘marked by Declan John’)  Two f***ing one and we look as likely to score as Colchester did in the 1^st half.  Everyone knows we’ve spunked away our play-off chances and Holgate proves he’s in on the belief by simply letting their guy run round him before laying the ball back for the finish.  3-1, goodnight Barnsley.  What a shower of s***.

A busy away end..and a not-so-busy...

*** Pearson.  Make the most of him while he’s here, cos he won’t be here for long.  Tackles, passes, intercepts, has shaggy hair, shoots.  What’s not to like?

** Scowen.  Closed players down and tried to make things happen when he got the ball.  One move, he broke past 3 players and only desperate lunges from a couple of players prevented him being clean through.

* Super George.  Why not? Scored, had a couple of good 2^nd half knockdowns.  No worse than anyone else.

Londontykes top 3:
1. Pearson
2. Scowen
3. (Super George) Waring

Despatches:
Holgate was poor today.  Smith wasn’t – cos he played Declan John again.  Remind me, where were we in the table when this lad came along?  ‘But he’s quick!’  Yeah, yeah.  Not too keen on defending though, is he?  The centre halves and keeper had nowt to do – so they scored 3. I’ve still no idea.   Hourihane was dreadful.  Someone tell him that round thing isn’t a hot potato.  At least he had a shot this week – the ball dropped nicely for him, edge of the box (1-0 up), on his left (only) foot, and he skied it over the bar.  Taken off for Berry (but not until the 90^th minute. What’s the point?)  Lalkovic was given a trot out and was as appalling as the Stewart who replaced him. Well, maybe not quite THAT bad, but anonymous nevertheless.  I thought Bailey did alright, made a few interceptions.  But how many holding midfielders do we need, against 2^nd off bottom Colchester United?  (A few more, judging by the result).  Winnall came off the bench, to do FA.  Needlessly offside once, but was he onside on another occasion, when he rounded the keeper to tap home the equaliser from an acute angle?  I s’pose I’ll never know.

Oh dear.

Drink du jour:  Wheat beer frenzy!  Benediktiner at Wetherspoons, Victoria (9:30) followed in the Victoria Inn (great pub) by Blanche de Namur.  You don’t know what you’re missing!

Crowd: 5,157 (away 699)  . If that ground holds 10,000, there were NEVER 5000 people in there.  Never.

Nice stadium, considering it’s newness.  Steep stands and great views.  But it’s annoyingly built right on the edge of town, next to the main road (A12?).  You even pass farmers’ fields to get to it, it’s that far out.  At least there’s plenty of shuttle buses (£2.50 return) from the station and some pubs.  But what happens when they get a crowd? There’s only one road to it.  It reminds me of Wycombe, without the industrial estate.  Still, it’s nice to see some trees from the away end.  I hope they stay up (we’ve done our bit!) cos Colchester is still a pleasant day out for us Londontykes, even with engineering works.

Shame Tim wasn’t with us for the replacement bus service from some place I’ve never heard of (Ingatestone?) cos I could’ve pointed out the celeb sat across from us…none other than Colchester’s most famous football fan…6 Music’s Steve Lamacq.  (‘Who?’ I hear you cry)  Anyway, he was playing cards with his mates so I left him alone.  Which was nice of me.

**Have a look who refereed yesterday (chortle).  No wonder we lost!  (‘Keith Hill’.  Presumably not THAT Keith Hill, ex-Barnsley supremo and whinge-a-lot).

The Bare Necessities:
16.50 ent ('early bird')
16.50 travel (coach there, train and replacement bus back)
3 prog

The Tunes:
Imidiwan - Tinariwen

Only at Colchester...fans traipse home through fields.

Proof we made their box, 2nd half.

Match action

Police control box...at the home end.  They're a rough lot, obvs.

Main Stand.  And is that Westlife and Boyzone?  Here?

Barnsley 0-2 Blunts, Saturday 4th April 2015

‘Why does he call me ‘Giraffe?’
‘Cos y’uv got a long neck’

The Blunts are here.  Call the cavalry!

The sun was out, the fans were out, the police were out (more of that in a bit) and The Blunts were out.  Sadly, only Barnsley FC failed to join the party and were comprehensively outplayed by the local rivals in what was our biggest game of the season.  ‘Very poor’ was a more generous assessment of our game by one local afterwards.

Me and Sarah got the train from York and were greeted by a guard of honour all the way from the train station to Oakwell.  A copper every 10 yards wasn’t an exaggeration, in fact, they’d even shipped ‘em in from County Durham (I saw a couple of vans).  Are you telling me, on a day (or kick off time) when no other team is playing in South Yorkshire, there aren’t enough dibble to handle a 3^rd division game round these parts?  Of course, both sides can muster enough idiots for a fight, but still…(after the game, it looked like one of the streets had been blocked off – were the Blunts frogmarched through the away carpark after the game?)  If Barnsley FC changed the kick off day to save money (as Mansford says), then I dread to think what the bill would’ve been on Easter Friday cos it must’ve been extortionate today.

I remember when they only used to bring 1500...

For 15 minutes this game was a thrilling end-to-end battle between two of the division’s better teams.  Then, like a team of Dale Jennings’  (what is the plural?  ‘a pie’?), they collapsed, and allowed United complete carte blanche for the rest of the match.  The Blunts took control, in particular, swinging ball after ball into our box.  And I wouldn’t even blame the fullbacks, the ball was coming in from deeper.  Also, whatever we had for an offside trap wasn’t working either.  Something had to give – and it was our defence. 

The warnings were already there before they scored.  One free kick into our box had the centre halves lost, the keeper off his line…with the resultant header clipping the bar.  Another corner was scrambled off the line, they had a couple of efforts blocked when nailed on to score.  ‘If we can only hold on till half time’ I thought.  I looked at the clock – still 10 minutes left.   A few minutes later we concede.  

The teams are paraded.

Sheffield get a free kick on our left touchline (another chance to swing the ball in – can we not LEARN?)  From memory, their bod is touched by Winnall, carries on going, and falls over with Pearson behind him.  The ref saw nought wrong, but luckily the linesman overrules him (!) and gives it.  (The Blunts do this all day, btw, get in front of a Reds player then stop running / slow down, so our player has no choice but to run into him; their cunning, or our naïveté?  Yet the ref can see through Winnall whenever he tries it.)  There’s a bit of a skirmish, lots of arguing, a talking to.  Did we lose focus?

The ball curls in (beautiful crosses all day from them) and time stands still as their guy meets it full on and it arcs into the far top corner.  Whatever you say about the inability of our centre halves to command the area today, the sheer number and quality of crosses, together with good movement and ability from their forwards, meant they’d get chances.  (I remember another sitter they missed now, their bloke getting a free header 8 yards out, which he headed down and the bounce nearly deceived Wildsmith in goal).  Our only chance was to either stop the crosses coming in, or (here’s an idea) get the ball in THEIR half.  We could no neither.

'You sign rapists, we sign Sammy Winnall, Sammy Winnall' etc

Still, we got to HT, 0-1.  The chance for Johnson to show his mettle and make a few changes, tactically, if not personnelly (is that a word?).  He/we did neither.  We’d desperately play one touch football among the 4 defenders, on a bobbly pitch, until one would scuff it out, or lump it forward to Ibehre, who would be expected to flick it on for himself.  (He actually managed this in the 1^st half, the closest we got to their goal).  For the most part, our 4 defenders failed to knock it to each other as one Blunt ran around harrying (think Dagnall in a fetching yellow number).  We couldn’t cope. 

The one other chance (to make a chance) we had was in the 1^st half, as Stewart picked up the ball and for a split second we were 2 on 1.  The split second was enough for him to panic, play an early ball instead of driving forward and forcing their centre half to commit, and overhitting said pass to the corner flag for Winnall to chase.  Pathetic.

Toby, Toby!!

2^nd half, not a lot happens.  We occasionally get past the halfway line (not often, and not too far past it) before Johnson made the changes to save the game – Jennings and Smith on for Hourihane and Stewart (Smith to left back, allowing John to push on).  2 minutes later it was 0-2.  We only had 3 or 4 chances to clear it (from a corner?) and a gentle header out was rifled in on the volley from the edge of the box.  Game over.  Once again we have crumbled in front of a crowd at Oakwell.  What damage limitation there was came from them – missing a couple of other chances as well as counting down time in the corner. 

Still, it wasn’t all bad.  With a ticket from Sheffield, we caught a train thankfully devoid of gloating Blunts, as they stayed in the ground to hail their heroes – the best 3^rd division team in South Yorkshire.  In fact, we even made it home (to London) while it was still daylight. Perhaps we should kick off at 12:15 every week?

Police lining up, ready for full time.

*** Josh Scowen.  Twitter MOTM (sponsors: Redfearns, AKA Loko and Hicksy, whose favourite player is….Scowen).  Made tackles and drove forward.  Had a shot (wide).  He appeared to be in the thick of things for the 15 minutes we were in the game.

** Ben Pearson.  Made tackles, held onto the ball, before disappearing.  He appeared to be in the thick of things for the 15 minutes we were in the game.

* Mason Holgate.  Looked a class act at times.  Sarah thought he had 90% of BFC possession in that early part.  He appeared to be in the thick of things for the 15 minutes we were in the game.
Londontykes top 3:
1. Scowen
2. Pearson
3. Holgate

Despatches:
They defended, attacked and midfielded better than us.  It’s just not FAIR.  Stewart looked appalling.  God, do I miss O’Sullivan.  Still, he wasn’t ours to miss.  I see Johnson says ‘we probably have too many loanees’…yet plays Stewart, as well as Declan John.  What’s George Smith done wrong? Cos John’s no better, from what I’ve seen.  And at least Smith is OURS.  Anyway, Lalkovic (ours) must be nailed on to replace Stewart on Monday at Colchester.  Ibehre looked half decent.  Held a ball up (when it wasn’t speared at his head) and his strength doesn’t allow defenders a free header.  Had zero support, though we went 4-4-2 with Winnall, who did that thing where he was always on his ar5e, complaining about being fouled.  He’s like a modern-day Andy Saville.  Weak as p***.  The fans love him, obvs.  He has approximately three times as many chants as the rest of the team combined.  Hourihane was Hourihane.  At least he got dragged off this week.  Even with Pearson and Scowen behind him, he resolutely refuses to find his earlier form.  (It must have been 'form' cos class is permanent!)  Crainie and Nyatanga were torn apart.  Their forwards did this thing where they move around, their midfielders did this thing where they played inch perfect, well timed throughballs or crosses and our centre halves looked like the little Dutch boy who plugs the hole in the dike – with rather less success.  The midfield have to accept responsibility for not cutting out the crosses.  I thought John and Holgate weren’t too bad, defensively.  Wildsmith made a couple of saves, but what we probably needed more of was him coming and claiming crosses, as their keeper did all day long (cos despite it all, we had a few corners).

4 matches without a win.  Either we beat Colchester and (crucially) Chesterfield next week, or it’s goodbye play-offs.  But let’s be honest, we haven’t deserved to be there (sorry).  Have we used up all our luck in that unbeaten run?

Drink du jour: I had one beer all day, an unfiltered Bernard at the Sheffield Tap.  Possibly the highlight of my day.

Crowd: 17,532 (c.5600 Blunts).  Cracking atmosphere, especially from our lot. The away lot gave up after a while...only piping up again once they'd scored.  Then they got a 2nd and we gave up.  Then Johnson gave up - sending on Hemmings for Ibehre.  Where's the white flag?

The Dimensions Stand, pre-match

The heathen hordes.  'Barnsley's a sh*thole' etc.

Groundhopper groundspotter

If you are a bit bored this weekend why not have a go on the Guardian's interactive quiz of football grounds then and now?

Part 1
Part 2

Geordie Al scored 18/20 (mostly without looking at the multiple choice answers) and was very pleased with himself especially with his score on part 1 ...
 

How many can you score?