Part One - Our yesterday man went on his way to fulfil his dream of playing in front of fifty thousand plus spectators at one of the hallowed cathedrals of football at St James’ Park. There he was with a record of two goals; two assists for Tammy tap ins; only one howler of a miss so far; ready to take the next step in his extraordinary career. Problem number one. He was replaced in the starting line up by an ageing fella, who was drinking beer in pubs and eyeing up girls not much younger than his Mum, while he was guzzling milk from a bottle and wearing nappies. To cut a long story short, the old man poked in an early goal with his walking stick and poor old Matty never even got on the pitch. I expect he is already feeling a bit peeved with the antics of the Manic City Head Chef. Ah well! C’est la vie Matty!! At least it’s the life you have chosen. Part Two – Scunny were the opposition. Riding high in the table. I took my grandchildren to this game and stood in the Family enclosure. Now Odin decided he was pissed off this weekend and acted accordingly. At the start, Rovers spent the first ten seconds after the whistle admiring the state of the pitch which was no longer under water as in the past. Scunny walked the ball through to the penalty area at which point Lumley realised the danger and made a first class save. For the rest of the half the game was played around Scunny’s penalty box. From where I was standing half a mile away from the action, I couldn’t see much. Mainly because Scunny were wearing dark green and black kit and kept appearing out of the shadows. I’m pretty sure Rovers scored a goal in this half because of the reaction from the crowd. Second half Rovers took pity on the crowd and evened up the game by giving the ball to Scunny to stop them going home completely depressed. At half time, someone slipped Matty’s old drinking bottle into the Scunny dressing room and the result was effective. A Scunny forward managed an extraordinary Matty Moment and failed to side foot the ball into an empty net. The Blackthorn End responded with a cracking anthem to Matty immediately. But all was not over. DC brought on Ellis with obviously strict instructions to be as generous as possible. Attacking in Scunny’s half, he turned and booted the ball back into his own half. The rest is history. I have to say, joking apart, the relative league position of the two clubs on the day’s performance is a mystery. But Rovers need to sort out how to score goals without Matty, and quickly.
I bet Taylor was gutted not to get on the pitch because to play on the Newcastle turf as must be a brilliant experience. Its 1 stadium that I havent got to do myself. I guess LJ is trying everything possible to get a result and now is relying on an OAP. It worked though yesterday! I hate being in the family enclosure. I tried it once and I thought there was no point because you can hear the foul language from the North stand and the view is poor too so whats the point of it. As for the game itself, I thought we were going to concede straight away from kick off but well done to Lumley. If that was Roos or Puddy, would it have gone in? Holloway has done us a favour in letting us have Lumley. I wonder how much he will cost us to sign to keep him! I thought we played brilliant in the 1st half but like 90% of the time this season, we fail to take advantage when on top of the game dominating. It was the same when we had Taylor and nothing has changed since he left, apart from us not having a natural goalscorer available to us any more because clearly Gaffney, Harrison and James will struggle to score 10 between them in a full season. So now its a lot of huffing and puffing without causing the opposition keeper to work. I hope DC sorts this out next season and I hope DC realises that EH, LJ and RG are not good enough for a league 1 promotion challenging team. 4 new strikers needed for next season. The 2nd half is what I expected. Scunthorpe to push themselves back into the game while we slowly drop deeper. The miss from the Scunny player was just like watching Taylor. Its funnier though watching it happen against us rather watching it happen to us of course so the song that started after that miss regarding Taylor had me in stitches. What the hell was Harrison doing on that back pass? 2 points dropped! But I would have taken a draw before kick off.
Sapphire who's this Matty you keep mentioning Listening to DC in his interview I got the impression that Luke James has a Calf muscle tare
As a more serious issue......... Football is a spectator sport at the professional level. ie. Those who pay should be able to get a reasonable view of what is put in front of them. Now as an old bugher, despite my 20/20 vision, I do have poorer sight as the light fades. On Saturday the strip that Scunthorpe wore, Dark green shirts and black extras, was not the best to pick out. And as the game in the first half was played pretty much as far away as it could have been for me, I was struggling at times to pick out Scunny players, especially when they 'disappeared' into the background of the dark shadows of the stands! So there could be a margin off excuse for Ellis, who had recently come on, in that he turned quickly and may not have spotted the opposition player who picked up the played back ball.
The Peterborough strip was one of the worst for colour I have seen in a long time but at least they could be seen wherever they were on the pitch
