‘E-i-e-i-e-i-o up to seventeenth we go’
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| Shrewsbury, yesterday |
Can the Reds’ juggernaut be stopped? I make that 3 away wins in a row I’ve seen (I missed P’boro). Only 2 more and we’ve equalled the 5 in a row I saw us lose at home earlier this season. That means, in the last 2 months we’ve enjoyed 5 (FIVE!) wins. If one were to ignore the luck in beating Millwall, that means we’ve beaten 4 sides on MERIT - the sides currently occupying 19th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd. Lies, damned lies, etc. Anyway, we’re certainly either reeling teams in (Rochdale and Swindon are next; beat them and we could be above the pair) or we’re leaving teams behind (surely we’re destined to finish above the 4 sides we’ve recently beaten, as well as the hapless Crewe.)
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| The Main Stand from the outside |
The fans (tremendous vocal support today) still sang ‘how s*** must you be’ but a couple of golden oldies joined the fray; ‘up the football league we go’, ‘It’s just like watching Brazil’ (once, not many takers). How the tide turns. ‘Lee Johnson’s red and white army’. No wonder he came over at the end to milk the applause. Tactical genius: 2 up front, with wingers in support. I don’t know why no-one else thought of it. Now, if only we can beat Barcelona this season, that’ll cancel out the Altrincham defeat.
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| A la Wycombe, the last building in town. |
Mind, I’m not sure about baiting these Welshies (Shrewsbury!) by singing the BRITISH national anthem…or ‘Ingerlund, Ingerlund’. But I could understand ‘sheep sheep sheep shaggers’ cos we could definitely see a flock in the distance; a la Wycombe, this really was the last building in town. But as Andy has said, singing ‘Shrewsbury is a s***hole’ is clearly the work of those deluded enough not to have spent some time IN Shrewsbury. I hope they stay up…
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| 'Super Blues'. Almost as funny as 'The Super Reds' |
We battered Shrews in the 1st half and coulda, shoulda been 3 or 4 to the good. Instead, we nearly went in at two-all, as Davies saved a pen and a bullet header off a corner as the half closed. How the ref found them that pen, I’ll never know. It looked a perfectly good tackle to me – and I had a better view than the ref. Perhaps that was the problem.
By then it was 0-2. Their defence look worse than ours, a long boot from Davies resulting in Winnall clean through. Cunningly, he chose to blast it with his left THROUGH the keeper. With such left-footed confidence, I thought it was Hourihane at 1st. Phew. Then, Winnall runs at a couple of defenders, they back off, and he bobbles one in to the far corner from 20 yards. I’d be embarrassed myself if Winnall scored from that range against ME, so I bet that keeper’s not playing next week.Winnall was, of course, joined by Marley Watkins this week – our very own Heskey and Owen (a carthorse and a one-trick pony). We’ll be alright till we qualify for the finals and play against some decent opposition. Or, more likely, Rochdale. Anyway, well done the pair of them, they tore Shrews apart.Second half…we sat back, invited them on (to no danger whatsoever) before the Adam Hammill show took effect for the last half hour and he took the p*** and destroyed them down our left. Still, we only had a Mawson header to show for all our promising opportunities, as he bundled home after his header was blocked from behind the line. Would the 1st effort have counted? I’ll never know.
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| Davies saves the pen. |
My marks?*** Loko. Thanks for the lift to and from the ground. Shrewsbury is a lovely, lovely place, but their new ground is a bit of a f*** on to get to. I certainly wouldn’t fancy walking it.** Hicksy. Had a fiver accumulator which rested on Leicester beating Villa in the evening game. I caught the end, showing Mahrez missing a pen and Villa equalising. ‘F***ing Mahrez’ I texted our resident gambler. ‘It’s ok, I cashed out 4 mins earlier for £130’. Genius! (And also the 1st person I’ve ever known to use that ‘cash out’ thing I see advertised every time I watch football on telly)* Mrs Loko. For telling us the reason she doesn’t care for football is cos it’s ‘too aggressive’ (just after telling me why she likes rugby league and boxing). I presume she means the fans…(Hicksy and Loko??)
Otherwise:
*** Winnall. There is a definite correlation between his ability to stand up and his likelihood of scoring. If he fancies his chances of scoring, he’ll do his best to stand up and vice versa. Today he stood up. And he scored (two). Always said he was brilliant!
** Davies. What can I say? Shouldn’t have even been needed what with our dominance, but who knows what would have happened had they bagged. Another BFC collapse?
* Hammill. I love you, Adam. You make watching Barnsley almost a pleasure. Don’t ever leave.
Londontykes' Top 3:
1. Winnall
2. Davies
3. Hammill
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| 'bury 0 'sley 3 |
Nice to see Bree get another run-out. Not perfect, but more pluses than minuses. AT LEAST as good as Wabara. White again looked good going forward, while I never noticed the centre halves save for Mawson scoring. Hourihane played deeper (told to look after debutant Brownhill?) and looked all the better for it. Wadd will point out he took the corner for Mawson to score. I will point out he took the free kick which flew over the bar (again). Brownhill…I never noticed…performed the Luke Berry role very well…and Isgrove ran around a lot. Someone should throw him a stick.
Drink du jour: ‘You’ve come all the way here and you drink exactly the same drink you could have had anywhere in Europe’. Yes, we hunted out the Shrewsbury and District CAMRA pub of the year so I could have a bottle of Leffe. Later on, I enjoyed a bottle of Erdinger in another pub. Sorry lads, I just don’t care for bitter.
I’m with Andy though: next time, we should get here at 10am and have a pub crawl. Shrewsbury really is charming. Especially when juxtaposed with the charming village of Wolverhampton down the road – where I changed trains. Honestly, there’s a lot to be said for lower league football, one being the lack of visits to the likes of Wolverhampton and Brumingham.
One point of note re: the home fans; however well they were getting beaten, there was no flooding out the ground for them, so give them their dues. If we were getting drubbed by the likes of Barnsley, we’d be…well, we’d be confused for a start!
Onwards and upwards!
Away: 789
The Damage:
99.80 train (via Solihull, Fri nite - treating the other half!)
70 hotel in Shrews (see above)
20 ent (see above - she didn't want to come to the match!)
3 prog
= £192.80
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| Londontykes' flag |
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| Drab day for Shrews fans |
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| The teams come out |
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| Two of these may or may not run Reds' fans bar Redfearns |
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| Shrews fans to our right |
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| A Barnsley flag in the home end. |
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| A minute's silence. I never did catch why. |
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| Couldn't resist. Genius. |
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