BFC 1-2 Port Vale, Saturday 14th November 2015

‘Barnsley’s losing habit knows no bounds’ (Channel 5 highlights, whatever it’s called)

Fans queue in the rain

After last week’s expletive-raddled, insult-ridden diatribe, I am going to attempt to be something more…less drunk.

Little Lee is on the verge of something special.  Never before, since the early 1950s, have we EVER lost 9 league matches in a row.  The Special One Little One is one off this target.  Unlike the early 1950s, however, we are a division lower and a hellovalot better in terms of…I dunno.  Club cat?

A dank and dreary Oakwell

We started well. We never conceded, till we did.  When did they score?  Who cares?  What I do know is that Davies had never made a save before a hopeful lob in from the right ended with their bloke outjumping Mawson and looping a header into the top corner. In real terms, it was slow motion.  It wasn’t a free header…their bod just got lucky and it floated into the only place Davies couldn’t reach it.  Still.

Before then, we’d ran the game.  If only Little Lee’s best chance of keeping a job in football (Adam Hamill) hadn’t blazed a 25 yard half volley half a foot higher than he did.  Glorious effort. Did Little Lee REALLY sign Hamill?  Or did someone within Oakwell point to his unemploy?  (I wish I was there in midweek to describe how some random free transfer creates one, scores a blinder and we win!!!!!)  Really, it’s getting silly now.  A bloke who hasn’t played a league game since May (I’m guessing)…who hasn’t played for ANYONE since….comes in and looks the best player we have.  I am not kidding.

278.  A Valiant effort.

Of course, Vale go 2 up cos of said player.    It’s the 1^st minute of the second half and Hamill makes the mistake of beating 2 players (was it 3?) down the left and whipping in a cross.  The ball is half cleared and Pearson gives it away cheaply, resulting in the kind of hilarious chase not seen since the days of Wile E. Coyote.  The little Man U fella would never catch their guy up, save for a surreptitious pull, but, fine, we got players back. In fact, when the pull back came and a lonely Valient pulled the trigger, there were numerous BFC players in the box.  Word to Little Lee: tell the red shirts to mark the amber and black shirts (note: opposition colours may change), as opposed to legging it back to the line in panic.  (That’s what we did as un-coached kids.  ‘We’ as in me and you, not ‘we’ as in BFC, altho…).  

In defence of the midgeted one, (look away Vale fans) this was a goal of Premiership class.  They broke at speed from an opposition corner and bagged.  Credit to ‘em.  (Still get rid of Little Lee. I’m not heightist – honest – I believe in making Oakwell a meritocracy…and he ain’t meritable).

ex-Oakwell dirty ba5tard Carl Dickinson

So, 2-0 down at home.  If I was Little Lee, I’d panic after 55 minutes and take off the 2^nd best chance we have of a goal (the 19 year old Newcastle loan bloke) and the tiny bloke from Southampton who stands on the wing doing nowt.  Replace them with Winnall and Smith, ‘two proven goalscorers’.  This leads me to the single biggest highlight of my day:  I’m walking out of Oakwell and I hear a bloke ranting on to his mates.  ‘He’s (Little Lee) f***ing cluelss’  (I’m with him so far).  ‘How can he be leaving two proven goalscorers on the bench while….’  It’s a good job a) it was p***ing it down, b) I had a train to catch and c) I just thought ‘how stupid is the average Barnsley fan?’ cos if anyone is seriously calling Winnall (f.all goals in loads of appearances this season) or Smith (scored when Swindon were good) anything other than s.hit, you have not been watching 3^rd division football this season.  

I like this photo.  Makes Oakwell look busy.

Hilarously, Winnall bags for 1-2.  To discover how comedy/lucky this is, look it up on you.internet.  Their bloke heads it against their bloke and our bloke, simply by standing still around the 6 yard box, ends up with an open goal.  (See also: most of Brooce Dire’s goals – apart from the ones where he cuts inside from the left onto the only foot he has.  And he was always offside…sorry, where was I?). 

A rare thing happens.  The crowd get behind the team.  What a noise a few thou can make.  (Ahhh, the good old days…a passionate Ponty End wot makes some racket).  Even rarer, I see a Smith header at goal (going wide, but the keeper’s dive makes it look good). Hourihane runs in and drives a low 25 cracker just wide (deflected).  That was a corker.  Unlike the earlier effort from 8 yards, with the keeper to beat, where he misses the goal entirely.  Get rid.

The Ponty.

I have to confess something here.  By now, I’m hoping we DON’T equalise.  JOHNSON OUT!  JOHNSON OUT!!  We have played well, we have gone forward, we have created chances…but any point gained keeps Little Lee in a job.  So what if we don’t get a point v Port Fail? Small beer compared with the slow disintegration of a football club and future Northern Premier League football.  (You think I’m kidding?  What if Cryne walks?  And have you seen the state of Stockport County these days?)

Me?  I’ll still be there.  Cos I’m a mad, passionate fan of the Super Reds?  Maybe.  Or cos a) I’d rather not have my better half find ‘improvements’ for me to complete in our house* and b) I don’t have kids to fund. 

*I was forced into a conversation last week about what kind of sideboard I’d like in the hallway.  Why do ‘other halves’ never like the answer of ‘same as you’ or ‘couldn’t give a sh*t’?  This can’t just be me, surely?

The benches.

*** Hamill.  Runs at players, beats players, gets crosses in, sometimes loses it (but at least he loses it trying to DO something).  Gets shots off, delivers a mean dead ball.  (Can we get rid of Hourihane now?)  I get a chortle out of the East Lower by repeating last week’s Scowen joke: ‘ADAM, WILL YOU STOP PASSING TO BARNSLEY PLAYERS!!!!!’  Aside from setting up their 2^nd (!) the highlight is a 1^st half snapshot, the like of which Conor Hourihane dreams of.  Hamill anticipates where a ball will drop, runs in, and hits a shot on the half volley which the keeper somehow tips over. A foot higher and we’d be calling it ‘sublime’.  10 yards wider and we’d be calling it ‘Hourihane’.
Anyway, WELCOME HOME ADAM.

** Toney the Loanee of Newcastle United.   Big, powerful, strong, quick.  Does everything every other BFC forward can do – but there’s only one of him, six of them.  The best I can liken him to is a ‘more interested Devante Cole’.  Still, that makes 3 (THREE) centre forwards we have on loan.  This must be a record.  Made worse by the dwarf’s insistence on only playing one of them anyway.   At what point do Little Lee’s bosses realise HE DOESN’T HAVE A F***ING CLUE????????????????  (Even the Ponty, upon finally realising who their hero, Super Sammy Winnall, is coming on for, chant ‘You don’t know what you’re doing!’).  THAT is possibly more damning than anything I can say.  The vocal minority, famed for their lack of knowledge towards anything approaching football, have turned.  (As an aside, I heard folk in the pub beforehand describe Winnall as s***.  Lads, you’re only a year behind me, but nevermind.)  Next, you'll be telling me Hourihane is rubbish.  (Actually, two people in the pub told me exactly this.)

* f*** knows.   (What’s the plural of asterisk?)

Londontykes' Top 3:
1. Hammill

2. Toney of Newcastle

3. Bree

The view from the Ponty.

Despatches:
Possibly one of the funniest things that happened was the Twitter MOTM nominaton of Jacob Marley.  He was s***.  No, really.  When Little Lee was bringing on Winnall, I knew it was Marley or Hourihane going off.  It had to be…  It was good to see Bree back, though his cause can’t have been helped by kicking it sideways for 70 minutes, then long to uselessness for the last 20.  (Anyone would think we were desperate).  Nyatanga looked like what we always thought he was – the weak link in a central defensive ‘partnership’.  But Hey!  You all loved him last year, he’s far better than Martin Crainie, etc etc  George Smith wasn’t his usual self and it’s difficult to compliment Davies when all he did was pick the ball out of the net.  Pearson has been better, and his shocking pass set up their second.  Tis ok, that’s 2 weeks in a row – but he’s not Digby, so nubdy notices.  Let’s not hunt down his family and friends, yet. Oh yeah, to prove how appalling Simeon Jackson must be (you know, the forward Little Lee signed permanently in the summer), Smith of Swindon gets another run out from the bench.   As I said, he had a header.  (He’s just s***, isn’t he?)  Honestly, Toney wins more headers, makes more runs, holds more balls up…than the rest of our forwards combined.  But I can no longer use words like ‘embarrassing’  anymore.  Losing to a part time non-league team was embarrassing.  This is simply losing to a 3^rd division side with less than half our budget.  Embarrassing.  Oh.

Away: 278.  T’coppers nearly made this a 12:15 KO for this.  No matter – the mount of dibble I saw in Grove Street, they still made their mint.
We are now 23^rd.  23^rd.  That’s very nearly second off bottom.
ps, yes, I fell asleep on the bus and got woken by the driver at the last stop.  And it was the #45 so not even walking distance home....

Drink du jour: Erdinger in the #7, Stella in t’Tut ‘n’ Shive, Vodka and Tropicana on t’train.

The Damage: £25 train

I didn't bother with a programme. It's bad enough WATCHING them, without having to READ about them.

Though respect where it's due, a tasteful Poppy Day centrefold of an East Stand behind a field of poppies. 

Home time.  8 league defeats in a row and counting.

A pre-match floodlight, yesterday.