Tuesday 14 August 2007

Into The Valley - Redditch United 3 Tamworth 1 14/08/07

I am a Tamworth fan so all reports involving my team will be hopelessly biased, I thought it best to get that into the open straight away.

This evening my team were appalling, dreadful, second to everything, toothless, rubbish, spineless, pathetic and above all, utter crap. Redditch were okay though.

Tamworth have played here before in their Dr. Martens League days but I didn't go so as is usual when I go to a new ground I got hopelessly lost in the suburbs and only found the ground by accident after a taxi driver sent me the wrong way, still had time for a pint in the clubhouse though, the Banks's bitter was off so I had a pint of Fosters, well needs must and all that. Decent turn out from The Lambs faithful, probably coming close to outnumbering the home fans, it's hard to tell when there's no segregation and both teams wear red.


View from the clubhouse, should have bloomin' stayed there!

Tamworth started brightly enough but were gradually muscled out of things in midfield, this is very worrying because we will meet many clubs in this division who will hustle and bustle and try to throw us off our game, and Redditch did it all to easily, pre-season predictions of a swift return to The Conference will need to be drastically down-graded on this showing.

Abysmal marking from a free-kick allowed the wonderfully named Exodus Gheoghagon to rise and head Redditch in front, equally comical defending let them take a 2-0 lead and the first chant of "You're not fit to wear the shirt" of the season was heard. Oh dear.

Still, surely Gary Mills would give them a rocket at HT and they would come out fighting, well yes, to a point. Just after half-time came the real turning point of the game, Tamworth had the ball hacked off the line in a mad goalmouth scramble and Redditch broke away and scored their third, game over. At 2-1 Tamworth would have had the crowd back behind them and the momentum, at 3-0 it was finished.


Slugs, infinitely better than watching Tamworth.

All that was left was to swear a bit and mutter a lot, oh, and watch a couple of slugs make their serene way off the pitch!A bad night at the office but hopefully a swift kick up the pants and we'll come back, there's a long, long way to go.

Price - £10 for me £4 for Cameron
Attendance - 561
Pies and mushy peas looked nice, Bovril was decidedly average.

Sunday 12 August 2007

Tipton Town 3-1 Stapenhill - Midland Alliance 11/08/07


I've been to The Tipton Sports Academy before, it's very close to home and just a short bus ride on the 313 from Wednesbury, but I have never seen Stapenhill, so my first competitive game of the season was a fairly easy choice, after all it saves me traipsing over to the wilds of Leicestershire (or are they from Derbyshire?). See, that's why I could never be a proper Groundhopper, I don't particularly like going too far out my way. Oh, and my geography is woeful.

My son Cameron has been a constant companion over the last few years but at 11 I fear he now thinks I'm a "bit sad", but because he had nothing better to do and because I assured him he would be allowed to kick a football around the perimeter of the ground he decided to come with me. It cost me extra pop and chocolate of course.

Lovely day for it though, maybe a bit too hot, I notice all the regulars at Tipton had bagged the seats at the back of the stand, only the last two rows were in the shade, south facing is great for a house but not quite so good for a football stand!

Stapenhill, playing in red, scored within two minutes, a nice start to their season back in the Alliance, but were pegged back almost immediately. I don't know who scored, I could look it up but then again I can't be bothered. There you go, yet another reason why I'm not a hopper, I have no attention to detail.



Tipton were awarded a dubious penalty towards the end of the first half, it looked like a 50-50 challange by the keeper on the forward but the referee saw it differently, if it was a foul then the keeper had to be red carded as he was definitely the last man, but he recieved only yellow so the ref was not only wrong but he is also a bottler! Lee Bullimore slotted home the spot kick.

2-1 at half time and off to the spacious Social Club to see if my real club Tamworth were winning, they certainly were, 4-0! Now I regretted not being there but I would never have got back in time for my night shift.

I spent most of the second half wandering around the ground and kicking a football at Cameron, then some more time trying to retrieve said football from the vicious nettles guarding the slope up to the Asda Superstore, I can still feel the stings on my hands, if only I knew more about alternative medicine then I might know what a dock leaf looks like. Tipton scored again and were never in any serious danger after that so a solid start for them.


Price: £5 for me and Cameron together.
Programme: £1.
Attendance: Officially 76 but I could only count 57.
Food: Only had a Lion Bar, wasn't really hungry.
Beer: Driving for this one so none, this won't last throughout the season!

Well you have to start somewhere.

A Technophobe blogs!

Groundhopping - it's probably up there with trainspotting for percieved geekiness but it's increasingly popular. I'm not a groundhopper though, I'm sadder than that! I'm a Teamhopper, I try to watch as many different teams as I can which has the added bonus that I can often do it from near to home and at grounds I am familiar with and already like, good eh?

I've been doing it off and on for years although I have kept no records or even bothered to take many photographs so it's all in the memory banks for me. But now I've decided to take my first tentative steps into blogging, no one will read it but I'll still have my own little presence in cyberspace, it's all good!