Bishop Auckland 1-1 West Auckland (5-6, pens), Tuesday 15th February 2022

Bishop Auckland 1-1 (5-6, pens) West Auckland, Durham Challenge Cup Quarter Final, Voneus Stadium (Heritage Park), att. 459

The day after Valentine’s Day and it’s a fixture close to home: the Auckland Derby in the Durham Challenge Cup. Bishops, or the Two Blues, 10 time Amateur Cup winners (a record) against the winners of the 1st World Cup (in 1909; look it up.) Or 17th v 5th in the Northern League, so West started as hot favourites.

Parking up right outside the ground, on a grass verge, I was pleased to come across the unique sight (at this level) of a queue at the turnstiles. Obviously this was the place to be of a Tuesday night in ‘Bish’. I’d been putting off my trip all season, partly cos it’s so close to home (I regularly fill up on petrol at the adjacent Sainsbury) and partly cos…well, I’d no real love for Heritage Park, a new build on the edge of town. The Bishops are ground in history (even providing 3 players to Manchester United following the Munich air disaster) but what use history when you’ve lost your town centre ground (shared with the cricket club; what a weird mix of stands and terrace that was) for a ground closer to, ironically, West Auckland?

Heritage Park does have its appeal though. The Main Stand is steep, with the club house at the top, a la Dulwich Hamlet. One would have a superb view up here, stood behind the seats, if not for all the signs forbidding you. Thus a pile of folk stood slightly inside the doors of the club house, blocking each other’s view. To the left is a proper terrace, with cantilevered roof, while quite a few stood on the bank and touchline opposite. Behind the other goal are a couple of hundred open air seats I’ve barely seen used in my 2 visits here.

However, if I’ve ONE reason to return, it’s the creaminess of the Staropramen. Definitely my non-league pint of the season. Is Star to Prague like Guinness is to Dublin? If so, this is the best pint of it this side of Wenceslas Square. I didn’t have to queue either, nipping off a couple of minutes before half-time. It wasn’t till I got my pint in that I realised the game kicked off at 7:45, not 7:30. No wonder the half had gone quickly! Anyway, I was so admiring of that pint, I had to have another (half).

West, another mile or so….west….have been one of the better sides in the Northern League in the last couple of seasons, though their title bid has faltered. Tonite they were comfortably the better side, going ahead with a rifled effort into the top corner from 15 yards. Thereafter, it looked like they were trying to Arsenal it in…tippy-tappying it around the box instead of having a go…and they paid for it when the Two Blues cut inside and found the corner from inside the box. There were 10 minutes left. Do we have extra time or straight to pens?

I had my answer before full-time, as I overheard a fan telling someone Shildon-Crook had gone to penalties in one of the other ties (they kicked off at 7:30). So, having spent the second half in the stand, I had a quick trip to the loo and went and stood behind the goal for the shootout. West won, the duel being bookended by a couple of penalties put wide; unfortunately, Bishops was the last one and West march on to the semis; they’ll fancy their chances, albeit National League North Spennymoor must be clear favourites.

The Damage:
£7 ent
£1.50 prog
£5.80 Staropramen (pint and a half)
= £12.30

The Tunes:
The English Riviera (Metronomy)

*reading the programme, I see West had a 23 year old winger (Adam Mitchell) who made his debut debut for Sunderland in 2013 away at Spurs. Let’s just say I’m surprised I’ve never heard of a player who played in the Premiership at 14…

BFC 1-0 QPR, Saturday 12th February 2022

‘I’ve got more chance of winning the half-time draw than we have of winning today.’

What is that weird feeling? I can’t quite put my finger on it. A sort of tingly sensation, making one smile nonsensically like a demented patient of Bethlem Royal Hospital (‘Bedlam’). A strange sense of joy, of positivism, of joie de vivre (is that right? My French is merde.) Oh yes, WE WON A GAME. Was it the Righteous Brothers who sang ‘You’ve lost that losing feeling...’? Barnsley are back (Barnsley are back)!

We outfought and outshot a Rangers side lacking the creativity and fluidity which have taken them to 4th in the table. Who’d have thunk they were 7 unbeaten, and us 13 without a win? Yet they should have opened the scoring early, as a cross to the backpost had a Ranger on his own, 6 yards from his nearest marker. Thankfully, instead of simply directing it towards goal with his right foot, he did everything to get it onto his left and blazed it into the crowd. What is it with one-footed players?

Talking of creative, we have Benson, who nearly broke the deadlock with a sublime pass which created a 2 on 1. Unfortunately, the 2 on 1 was in Rangers’ favour, but hey ho. Small steps, and all. Helik legged it across to make a superb block. In the meantime, we took pot shots from 20 yards which, while often on target, never really threatened. The most eye catching effort was from Jordan Williams, who ran from his own half and burst past at least 4 opposition midfielders in a way no-one else in our team can, before launching it over the bar in a way many of our team can.

One thing I’ll say for the second half – Rangers didn’t once threaten. Even when that last minute cross was millimetres from Dyke’s head, I was never worried. Us? Gomes blazed over on the volley from 10 yards. Poor. Another couple of ‘sighters’ and the best we had was 2 breaks down the left with Quina. Shirley (Bassi) was ahead of him, unmarked, an easy ball and a chance to cross. Quina ignored him, twice, to get his head down and run into traffic, the ball greedy so-and-so. The danger with this approach is that Shirley will stop making those runs. So it was with some trepidation that Quina broke away again, ignoring my screams to ‘PASS THE BALL!’ to lash home from 20 yards. What do I know? (Well, I know he wasted 2 promising attacks with his earlier unwillingness to part with the ball.)

Onwards and upwards!

*** Quina. Am I really giving MOTM to someone just for scoring? YES! But he did bring the ball forward a few times, which is a few times more than anybody else save for Jordan.
**Helik. Am I really giving 2nd for someone making a goal saving block? YES! (I’m having trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff this week; they were generally much of a muchness.)
* Vita. Why not? Looked comfortable coming forward.

Official MOTM: Quina. Won….so we named one.

Londontykes’ MOTM: 1. Quina 2. Vita 3. Helik

Despatches:
Leaving the ground, there were people doing that weird thing they do, where open their mouths and show off their tooth decay. Smiling, I think they call it. ‘How many points are we off t’play-offs?’ I heard one fan ask amid joyful cackling. I was just happy we were off the bottom after Derby’s defeat. Oh. (I didn’t realise we were a staggering FOUR points behind a team who’d given us a 21 point headstart.) So, no, no time to get carried away. Just proof we’ve carried our midfield all season and we’re looking to a Watford reserve player (note: Watford are bottom of the Premiership) and a clean sheet to eke out a victory. I guess I was just disappointed Jonesy had finally seen a win this season. I was looking forward to us taking it to the wire!!!!

As for winning our 1st game in whenever, one must assume we did something different today. And I did – was it the pre-match steak bake? Or walking through the Alhambra to the ground, avoiding the usual hike around the train station while that bridge never gets built?

Drink du jour: What was that IPA in the record shop pub beginning with ‘E’? Epilogue? Epilepsy? Leprosy? No, can’t have been the latter, doesn’t begin with ‘E’. (What begins with an ‘E’? A decent night out!)

Away: 1,405. Never seen so many of ‘em. Took them 8 minutes for a round of ‘Barnsley’s a sh*thole, I wanna go home.’ Point of order on this one, chairman – QPR (or Shepherd’s Bush) is the only place I’ve ever been food poisoned pre-match, vomiting all over a pub wall within an hour of imbibing.

Number of league games since a midfielder owned by Barnsley FC scored a goal: 25. Can someone else check this, please? I can hardly believe it myself. Benson, Palmer, Styles, Brittain, Wolfe….ok, I believe it a bit more now. (FYI, Styles bagged in August. August!) Tell me I’ve missed one…

The Damage:
c. £32 petrol
£3 programme
£18 mugs
= c. £35

The Tunes:
BBC 5Live
Skywriting (The Field Mice)
Craig Charles’ Funk and Soul Show (BBC6 Music)

Huddersfield Town 1-0 BFC, Saturday 5th February 2022

‘Did you see that bird…...of prey?’

I got out of the car. It was raining. I got back in the car some 4 hours later and it was raining. And inbetween, it rained. It rained, it carried on raining, and it rained some more. So it was the perfect day to take Sarah for a day out in Huddersfield, and while she overdosed on caffeine in a succession of coffee shops, I braved the inclement weather to traipse to the stadium and see another goalless defeat. HTFC must have known how much fans like to stand in the driving rain too, as it wasn’t just the away end that had abysmally long queues outside the turnstile with kick-off looming.

Despite only having one competition left to play for this season (the FA Cup) top coach Asbaghi decided to ‘rest’ Helik and Morris, and give a trot out to carthorses like Iseka and Halme. Oh, and a debut for young Aidan Marsh after his promising cameo against Bournemouth last week. They lasted 45 minutes, dragged off at half-time for a chance to stay in this trophy. Usual story, they scored, we created nowt and the fans bounced between support of the team, taking the p*** out of the team, and criticism of the ownership. But still they made noise. It was too cold not to.

The matchwinning goal? Halme gives it away on the halfway line with a shoddy pass and one pass later they are clean through. I wouldn’t mind, but Halme (frozen out all season, so lacking in match practice, speed and ability – the Holy Trinity? – had already tried giving the Terriers a goal earlier with another careless pass, this time in his own area. Iseka’s contribution appeared to be to hide behind defenders when we were in promising positions to cross a ball. Why doesn’t he run across or in front of the defender, on the OFFCHANCE we’ll put the ball there? Or do we practice crossing balls and having professional footballers deliberately miss the ball for an Iseka tap-in? He is dross. Marsh meantime, well, the one time I saw him with the ball, wide right, he tried to drag it with his left foot (on his right) onto his left foot…basically, a move which wouldn’t come off against a Sunday league defender, telegraphed as it was. (I presume he can’t kick it with his right foot.)

And what a difference! On came Helik, Morris and…ok, Benson….and for 10 minutes we blitzed Huddersfield. A cross to the backpost was headed goalwards by Morris, but it hit a defender (so I don’t hold to the ‘zero shots on target’ the stats say). A couple of minutes later, Benson, with plenty of space to aim at, gets the cross wrong enough for Kitching to have no chance of getting it on target. The latter was on his own, nobody near him. The closest we got was when a Hudds defender completely sliced a cross off the far post, about a minute after they scored. No idea how it didn’t go in…but it didn’t.

And of course, that ‘luck’ continued into the last minute, as Helik’s injury-time equaliser was ruled out by a ref not wanting another 30 minutes in the driving rain. I can’t knock him, I’d have done the same. (In all seriousness, I never saw a foul, no-one did – by Bassi, I’m told – and the ref has a better view. But dare I suggest the goal would have been given 9 times out of 10?) I didn’t see any Terrier appeal, but maybe I’m wrong. I was too busy celebrating that a) we’d whipped in a decent cross and b) had men in the box wanting to get on the end of it.

* later footage taken from someone's cameraphone showed the Huddersfield player throwing himself to the floor under neglible contact. Ref - you've been fooled again.

However, any claims of ill-luck have to be balanced by the number of chances Hudds missed. The most blatant in the 1st half came from OUR corner, as the clearance bounced in front of Jordan and Randy Camel (Andy Rammell) ran clear, only to miscontrol it to the keeper. (Am I the only one to remember Rammell’s inability on 1-on-1s? He was almost as bad as Oddjob.) 2nd half, they could have scored 3 or 4 on the break, as we pushed forward. Fair enough. Some of their misses would have put Rammell to shame.

So there it is, or ‘we can concentrate on the league’ as some wag (note: not WAG…though don’t get me started on that…how can someone be a wife AND girlfriend? Surely it’s a wife OR girlfriend? Oh.) put it in in the post-match pissoir. ‘I hope you stay up’ said a sympathetic middle aged Terrier on the way out. ‘Well, that’s not gonna happen.’ I leant forward and headed into the driving rain.

Onwards and upwards!

*** Morris. 2nd half, we suddenly had a player who could hold a ball up, thereby helping others join him in their half. Imagine.
**Jordan Williams. Same as the last few games. Looks confident joining the attack and defends ably (one unlucky bounce aside). Proved an able deputy for Brittain by also finding the stand from a promising shooting position.
* Bassi. A midfielder who finds other (Reds) players and is confident in possession. What’s he doing here?

Londontykes’ MOTM: 1. Morris 2= Andersen / Bassi / Jordan Williams

Despatches:
Our shooting. Who coaches them? Callum Brittain? Williams blazes one high and wide from inside their box. Styles hits one 15 yards wide (almost as far wide as the distance he shot from). Morris curling one a yard beyond the top corner. They’re just the ones I remember. Abysmal. Benson. Apparently I wasn’t harsh enough about him last match. An Artist Formerly Known As A Londontyke messaged me ‘I thought Benson had a much better game than usual. He was only sh*te, rather than weak as f***ing p*** sh*te’. I also had a conversation at half-time with a long time face I know. ‘How does Palmer keep getting picked?’ He asked his mate. ‘Are you trying to make my blood pressure f***ing rise? COWARD. That’s what Palmer is. Can’t stand him.’ Blimey. Anyway, there’s a couple of our mainstays in midfield. And you wonder why we’re bottom and out of the cup. By my reckoning, we have a Championship defence, a 4th division midfield and (perhaps) a 3rd division forward line.

It was nice of Asbaghi to compliment the support too, though he obviously couldn’t make out what we were chanting. While we are still ‘by far the greatest team the world has ever seen’, my own favourite was ‘Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, we’re going to Shrewsbury, que sera sera’. Or the less succinct ‘Barnsley get battered everywhere we go (everywhere we go)’. I can see Nice Guy Chris turning in his armchair. Oh, and there was still plenty of room for ‘We want Conway out’ which, admittedly, is a bit catchier than my ‘We want Conway to repay any monies he’s robbed from fans in order to pay for the club, followed by a sign of contrition and some investment in the team.’ But it’s early days.

ps, is my quote of the day the most Kes thing you’ve ever heard? But I heard it, I did! On the way to the ground.

Drink du jour: A lovely latte in some café in a Victorian (looking?) arcade. Lovely.

Away: 2,700, a sellout. (But why do Huddersfield give a third of the stand to their own fans when they’ve 5,000+ empty seats elsewhere in the stadium? Or is it our own fault, as ‘away clubs have the right to claim for up to 15% of all accommodation’ (the FSA website)? At a tenner a ticket, and the game 15 miles from Barnsley, is our team so bad that the powers-that-be didn’t think we’d sell out the whole of that away end? (Don’t answer that.)

Number of games since we last scored 2 goals or won a game against Championship-grade opposition: 13. 0100110110000 or LLLDDLDLLLLLL. Whichever you prefer.

The Damage:
c. £30 petrol
= c. £30

I’d have had a programme too, if I could find one. (There were plenty trodden into the wet concrete of the stand, so they did exist.)

The Tunes:
BBC 5Live

I’d have listened to some music, but it’s that Sarah – she just loves a bit of sport. (True.)

BFC 0-1 AFC Bournemouth, Saturday 29th January 2022

‘We want Conway out, we want Conway out’

I don’t quite understand some of the positivity that’s being bandied about after yesterday. Yes, we had the ball (31% possession, btw!), yes, we made it into their half (occasionally), yes, we had a couple of shots….no, we didn’t score. No, we couldn’t hold a ball up front. No, we couldn’t create a decent chance. All I saw was a team lose an early goal and then never look like scoring. QED, 12 minutes in and we’d lost the match. Indeed, we should have been one down before I’d even seen one of our players touch the ball. Getting in late (as ever – I’d forgotten my season ticket, again) Bournemouth ripped us apart down their right with a quick give and go and a low cross was stabbed wide at the front post from 6 yards. But I didn’t have to wait long. And in some positive news…we have found A NEW WAY TO CONCEDE!

Collins came haring out of his goal and failed to get there. Solanke nipped in, took the ball wide, then looped a high cross into the box. Indeed, it was so high that Collins made it back to the 6 yard box, lost all semblance of where it/he was and flapped as Billing headed home. Still, there were 2 other defenders there who stood and admired Billing’s leap and Collins is entitled to make a mistake after the season he’s had. The wonder is that after a season and a half of clearing up behind our defence, it’s taken till now to see it go wrong. I’ve also no doubt the wind played a part in Solanke’s cross, bamboozling anything in red.

So that was it. Game over. We can’t blame Collins for our inability to put the ball in their net (or can we, a couple of his hoofs clearing everyone and landing at their keeper?) We had 2 decent strikes all game, Iseka being free on the left and although hit well, it was an easy diving save, and the other was from sub Marsh, within 30 seconds of coming on for his debut. To put that into perspective, an 18 year old debutant stung the keeper’s hands as much in half a minute as the rest of the team in 90. Apparently we had 7 shots on target (I’ve looked!), but that means 5 others were half hit scuffed dribbles to their keeper. There are some of US who could have kept a clean sheet for Bournemouth yesterday. (By us, I don’t mean me, I’d definitely not have saved Iseka’s.) I’ll tell you how good it was…while I took a phonecall near the exit at half-time, at least 5 fans walked out. ALL the best chances fell to Bournemouth, who could have had 4 or 5 (not including all the 2 on 2 attacks they messed up).

Otherwise, the entertainment was provided by the angry yoof of Oakwell, with constant rounds of ‘We want Conway out’ and ‘You greedy ba5tard, get out of our club’, followed by the longest conga line I’ve seen at Oakwell in a while. Turned out we weren’t ‘having a conga’ though, we were wandering to the front, then heading to the corner by the Main (West) Stand to focus our ire on the director’s box. (I can only presume Conway wasn’t there.) Did our Londontyke massif in that side of the Ponty join them, I wonder? Afterwards, I had the mispleasure to see a couple of them ‘offer out’ an older bloke who I presumed to be a Bornmuff fan till I heard him speak. Is this the beginning of ‘The Great Fracture’ as it shall be known heretofore, as our fans fall out with each other over the running of our club?

200 yards later, as we passed the station on ‘The Great Walk’ (that there bridge over the railway line STILL not having been built) 5 of the yoof were wearing traffic cones on their heads, before chanting some more about how much they hate Bournemouth. Hang on a minute. Hating Bournemouth? Nobody who supports Barnsley save for The Captain (who lives on the south coast) has any opinion whatsoever on the Cherries. In fact, they don’t even know who the Cherries are. Or where Bournemouth is. Though I can understand any jealousy towards a side bankrolled by the Russians to the Premiership, and now bankrolled back towards the Premiership by parachute payments. But that should be more grist to the mill of criticism for our (super rich) owners, who, nevermind bankrolling second division survival, use money provided by the fans to pay for their ownership of the club. If I knew I could do that, I’D own Barnsley FC! (Actually, no I wouldn’t.)

Onwards and upwards!

*** Mads. Head and shoulders above anything else in a red shirt. I don’t see how anyone can say otherwise. (Come and sit next to me if you need these things pointing out in real time.) Blocked numerous shots, made interceptions, great tackling.
**Helik. Quiet, yet still saved at least 2 certain goals.
* Jordan Williams. (or just ‘Williams’ since we’ve sold Ben). Defended well, looked to join the attack. And has my favourite current BFC hair. Oh, and him in the team saves me screaming at Brittain for shooting.

Londontykes' MOTM: 1. Andersen 2. Wolfe 3. Styles

Official MOTM: We don’t do MOTMs when we lose, do we?

Despatches:
I am seriously worried about our future. If the billionaire owners need £750k of our money to buy the club, why would any of us be insane enough to renew our season tickets? What if we renew, and the owners steal more of our money (let’s call it what it is, stealing)…because they can? How STUPID will I be feeling if that happens? (Very.) We will lose £6-7 million in TV money when we go down. If the owners aren’t willing to subsidise this, we face a fire sale of our best players, which basically means cut price deals for Helik, Mads and Woodrow. £5m for the trio? (Collins, albeit POTY, probably wouldn’t get a game for any of the Championship top 6 for whom we’d be looking to sell to.) We might get another £200k for Styles and Brittain, based on this season’s form. The rest? You couldn’t give away. Basically, we’ll return to division 3 without a decent spine to the team, at a time when we could be up against most, if not all, of Sunderland, Pompey, Washday, Ipshit, Charlton, in addition to well managed sides like Wycombe and Oxford. If the owners aren’t prepared to dip into their pockets, we could see another 20 years in the lower division wilderness a la the 60s and 70s (which I’m fortunate enough not to be old enough to remember). Ever since the Premiership days, the fans have shown remarkable loyalty in season ticket numbers, including the thousands who backed the club during lockdown when we knew we’d barely see a game. The owners now probably have 2 months to rescue a situation of their own founding. How do they bring the trust (not the Trust, that’s a different entity) back, following the debacles – sorry, I can think of no other word – of the West Stand closure, £750k thievery, poor summer signings, on pitch and off…and the continual buzz around the future of Oakwell? The Chief Exec claimed in the Trust interview ‘it is our aim to stay at Oakwell’. AIM? It’s a non-negotiable. The only people talking about moving from Oakwell are YOU LOT. Why? Cos the dark forces of Cryne and the council are preventing ‘the redevelopment of Oakwell (and we don’t just mean the West Stand)’? Well, tell us what your plans would be, were you to own the ground/land. The car park sold for housing? Training grounds built on? West Stand demolished for hot tubs? (The latter gets Slacki’s vote.) And who would pocket any windfalls? The owners? The club?

Yes, having written that, I don’t see what the owners can possibly do in 2 months to rebuild that trust. There’s nothing they can SAY in so short a time period which will repair the damage done. We can only hope that in the next year (presuming they stay) that their ACTIONS will prove they have the interests of the CLUB and its FANS. But, (worst case scenario) should the fans not renew in numbers and the owners lose interest ‘because the fans aren’t doing their bit’ (!) we’ll be in administration and facing the kind of future…or past…the likes of Luton, Stockport, Darlington, York City, Macclesfield and Bury (to name just a few) have been through. Just saying.

Further depression (and maybe this is just me) as a yoof in the box office asks for a ticket for the ‘South Stand’. I have never (ever) heard anyone refer to the Ponty End by its official name. I can find a nadir from anywhere. I’d already tried entering into the spirit of things by wearing one of our old Koala-made Vodka Kick sponsored 3rd division shirts. Might as well prepare for the inevitable. The good old days of a half-ar5ed Michael Boulding (who, for all his talent, would famously rather play tennis than football), Craig Ireland (who?) and Tony Gallimore (eh?). That’s not our past. That’s our future, that is. But on the plus side, the shirts are the size of tents and I can put on a couple more Covid stones without fear of my torso actually touching the inside of the shirt. Did I mention how cheap it feels too?

Back to the players. Wolfe made his debut in midfield, and the best I can say is that he wasn’t Palmer, Or Benson. He made one great Cruyff turn to take out 3 Cherries, but, otherwise, my abiding memory of him was us on the attack…and him standing on the halfway line with 5 (five!) defenders. That new left back? Vita (I had to look him up) played like he looked….a 12 year old schoolboy. Couldn’t defend to save his life. The run forward and nutmeg? Luck, not skill. Benson came on and with his locks shorn (so he looks like Ray Winstone in ‘Scum’) he actually put himself about. I don’t think I’ve seen him make a tackle before. And did I hear from the Chief Exec that the reason Jasper Moon (obviously, with a forename like that, I feel duty bound to use it) gets occasional runouts in midfield ahead of actual midfield player Hondermarck is cos he can take a throw in? Well, that worked, as his 2 long throws were comfortably cleared by Bornmuff centre halves. If I were the coach, I’d concentrate on playing FOOTBALLERS and teaching Moon how to pass a ball. (Mind, he was another who made a goal-saving block.) Cole and Iseka were completely toothless, but at least with Cauley injured, we got to see exactly why he never loses his place when fit. Styles and Palmer had exactly the kind of games they’ve had all season, with the inevitable result that Romal was dragged off. How does he keep getting picked? How many times can I ask ‘how does he keep getting picked?’ How many times can I ask ‘How many times can I ask ‘how does he keep getting picked?’ Marsh had a promising 12 minutes. Or 15, including injury time, the last 6 of which were played against 10 men. Cole had finally used his pace to good effect after 87 minutes, winning a 40/60 race to the ball with Cahill. I thought the subsequent (second) yellow was harsh, Cahill being a fraction late, though 10/10 to Cole, who rolled over at least 3 times, added a pirouette and finished with a triple salchow. You can guess how many saves their keeper made in that 6 minutes. (Note: Cahill’s first booking was for a cynical take out (of Styles?) on the halfway line to prevent a 2-on-2 break, the classic yellow card which should be punished by something stronger.)

To leave on a (genuine) positive…it was great to see Farnham pre-match, accompanied by Farnham (very) senior, on their way to reclaim their old seats in the West Stand. I’ll not mention our pre-match predictions of 0-2, 0-3 and 0-4. (May I say, I was the optimistic one.)

Drink du jour: Northern Monk ‘Eternal’ in that there new bar with the crap name that has an in-built record shop in the Arcade. Cracking turn out too, Jonesy x 3, Reedy x2, Slacki, Locky, Molly, Lord S, Wadd and Chris (Captain Haddock, Reedy’s old mate wearing his fisherman’s jumper again). The unfortunate fact is, if we don’t come and watch the Super Reds, there’s no way this eclectic bunch meets for a drink. This makes me sad.

Away: 926, or as many as I’ve ever seen Bournemouth bring. See, it IS possible buy support!

Matches played in front of a Main Stand safe enough for journalists/directors/non-playing players etc, but not safe enough for fans: 0. Fans were BACK! The stand is suddenly SAFE! Unconfined scenes of joy as….actually, what it looked like was we’ve peed off a few hundred more fans into not returning, after the closure debacle. Or did it just reflect the ground in general, as there were huge gaps in the Ponty and East Stands too? Still, small wins, eh?

The Damage:
c. £31 petrol
£3 programme
= c. £34

The Tunes:
None. Yapping.

Consett 0-3 Shildon, Tuesday 18th January 2022

Consett 0-3 Shildon, Durham Challenge Cup 2nd Round, Belle View, att. 354

Consett’s old ground till 2013, Belle Vue Park, looked full of character; at its peak containing two large stands (one later knocked down), plenty of terracing (including paddocks in front of the seating) and banking formed from colliery waste. The new ground, ‘Belle View’ leaves me cold – literally, on a midweek night in January. There are two stands, identical in design if not size, which look like they were delivered by lorry and put up in an afternoon. They probably were. Four rows of seating, low to the pitch. Everything is pristine – but not in a good way. However, with no terracing and a plastic pitch, it is anodyne to say the least.

Any semblance of enjoyment is taken from the quality of the football and the general crowd hubbub (Consett currently being the best-supported side in the Northern League, with an average of over 500. Tonight’s Durham Challenge Cup game brought a lower 354). There’s no worry of matches being postponed, a la the previous ground, and the ball does run smoothly as the home side generally like to pass it around. But am I the only one irritated by the glare of the pitch from the floodlights? Or the lack of anything approaching a tackle? (As I mused the latter, a player finally went through his opposite number to earn a booking.) I was further annoyed by my tea, though I blame myself for this one. I should’ve told her to leave the teabag in, because had I not seen her wringing the thing out in my cup, I’d swear it’d never seen a teabag.

Consequently, I found myself rooting for the Railwaymen of Shildon against the Steelmen. Promoted to the Northern Premier League East this season, Shildon are a division up on tonight’s opponents. Consett, endeavouring to follow in their rivals’ footsteps, have been virtually unbeatable in the Northern League this season and possess crowds far in excess of Shildon. Would home (plastic) advantage be key? No. After an early miss from Consett when the centre forward tried to lift it over the keeper, Shildon ran out comfortable winners, 0-3.

The opener was a deft bullet header from star striker Billy Greulich-Smith. I thought he’d put it wide, as did everyone else judging by the lack of acknowledgement. It was only when the players started celebrating did most of us know different. I’d chosen the wrong end, thinking Consett would put up a fight, so wandered along the touchline to get a closer view of the Shildon attack. There’s a decent gap in the crowd, I thought. Yes – because the bloke nearest appeared to be giving a running commentary on the game. Highly bloody irritating, but he was obviously a regular, knowing all their names. I headed to the (slow) queue for the tea in time to seethe keeper get not quite enough of a paw onto a 20 odd yarder. At least the clubhouse was sizeable, and warm…and pristine. So that was half-time, before Shildon got an early penalty, second half. Game over.

The Damage:
£7 ent
£1.50 programme
£1.20 tea
£0.90 Snickers
= £10.60
The Tunes:
New Long Leg (Dry Cleaning)
Tomorrow’s Harvest (Boards of Canada)