Archive for March, 2022

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Middlesbrough v Luton, Saturday 5th March 2022, 3pm

March 7, 2022

Whilst we are going well in the Cup, we’ve faltered a little in the League lately with away defeats at Bristol and Barnsley contributing to a slip to eighth place. There’d been a good result for us in the Friday night game though with the draw between Sheff Utd and Forest resulting in both of the teams dropping two points.

I’d seen some of that game in the Malleable Club in what was my first visit since attending their Christmas parties as a child. Paul and I had called in on the way to see Altered Images at the Georgian. I’d read mixed reviews of their recent performances, but they did well. It seemed like an enjoyable night for both the band and the capacity crowd.

That draw meant that a win against Luton would allow us to leapfrog both them and Sheff Utd and move back up into sixth place. It’s ridiculously tight at the top of the Championship and whilst Fulham are probably far enough ahead to ensure automatic promotion the other spot could still go to any of the teams in the top eight, maybe even top ten. The play-offs are even wider open with clubs currently below half-way in the table still in with a shout.

Wilder had made two changes from the line-up that faced Spurs, switching out the strikers to allow Connolly and Balogun to start. The high-pressing game that we play makes big demands on the front-men and it makes sense to share the workload.

Luton looked a better side than us when we played them at Kenilworth Road back in October. We’ve improved considerably since those Warnock days though and, providing the Spurs game hadn’t taken too much of a toll, I was reasonably confident that we could take the points. Harry had no doubts. His logic being that if we could see off Tottenham then Luton should pose no problem at all. I was like that at his age.

Harry’s confidence wasn’t misplaced. Luton played a niggly game, trying to break up our rhythm at every opportunity. It’s exactly what we would have tried to have done under the previous manager. Once we’d got the first goal though it was always going to be difficult for them to get back into it and Watmore’s late clincher sealed the win despite an even later away consolation. The win was our ninth home league win in a row. That’s promotion form.

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Middlesbrough v Tottenham Hotspur, Tuesday 1st March 2022, 7.55pm

March 4, 2022

Well, well, well, how good was that? Outplaying Spurs in the fifth round of the FA Cup on a night when the game had displaced EastEnders and the like on national telly. I love the idea of people sitting down to with a cup of tea expecting to watch the Mitchell brothers gurning their way around Albert Square but instead getting a Jonny Howson masterclass and then seeing the Boro defence hardly giving Harry Kane a touch of the ball all night.

I’d switched seats for this one and so Harry and I were in the front row of the West Stand Upper. It’s the same row that Gibbo sits in, albeit around fifty yards to our right. The atmosphere was one of the best I can recall at The Riverside, maybe the best. The Liverpool game in ’98 usually gets a mention in conversations like this but that was in the pre-Red Faction days of just one singing end. When songs are started and taken up at both ends of the ground it makes it much more likely that those down the sides will join in too. And we did.

The performance was so much better than when we rode our luck to beat Man Utd in the previous round. We grew into the game in the second half and took it to them in extra-time. What a finish from Josh Coburn. He’s a fella with an eye for a goal and his strike rate per minute on the pitch must be up there with the best at the moment. Here’s hoping for a home draw in the Quarter Final.

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Billingham Town Reserves v Ferryhill Athletic, Saturday 26th February 2022, 1.30pm

March 3, 2022

I hadn’t been intending to go to a game on this afternoon as I had too many things to do. I knew that there was a game on at North Shore Academy just a few minutes from my house but I reckoned that as it was a school with an artificial pitch dogs wouldn’t welcome. I was looking after the beagle and so thought that I’d save that venue for another day.

Things change though and I found myself driving past North Shore on the way back from the shops. It was at the time when the game was on and I couldn’t bring myself to pass the turn without calling in for a quick look.

North Shore is a school built on the former site of Tilery Sports Centre which was somewhere that I spent a fair bit of time at. As a kid I played table-tennis and five-a-side there as well as failing dismally to progress beyond a white belt at judo. Later it was somewhere for games of squash and seven-a-side football on an outdoor gravel pitch.

Up until recently there had been some tennis courts there too. I can only recall playing on them once, back around ‘84ish. My friend Paul and I had walked past them in the early hours of a summer’s morning after a night out that had concluded around 4am in the casino. We nipped home for racquets and returned to play a few sets whilst everyone else was asleep.

With the casino being long gone and now the tennis courts too, I’ve no idea what people find to do when the pubs shut these days. It’s as well I’m generally in bed by nine.

Anyway, the game. It was a second round tie in the Washington Aged Persons Cup between Billingham Town Reserves of the thirteenth tier Division Three of the Wearside League and Ferryhill Athletic, who play one step higher in Division Two. Billingham were in blue and a goal up when I got there. Ferryhill soon squandered a chance to equalize with a penalty that was hit too close to the keeper.

The ref looked to be in his sixties, but kept a tight grip on the game, tolerating no backchat. I like that. Twenty minutes was all I could spare though, partly because I had a couple of live goldfish in the car, and I left them to it. A quick check later on revealed that Billingham ran out four-one winners to progress to the third round.

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Heaton Stannington v Durham City, Friday 25th February 2022, 7.30pm

March 2, 2022

Jen has been in America for the last few weeks and whilst Harry has been coming along to a few games he was at his Nanna’s for this one. He’s got millions of Nannas and Great-Nannas. Fewer Grandads though as we are all dying off. That’s how it works.

I was dogsitting over the weekend and so Henry the beagle stepped in as a match-day companion. He wasn’t too keen initially as he’d already settled down on the settee for the evening but once we got up to Heaton he perked up. He’s a weird dog. On Bonfire Night he sat on the back steps and watched the firework display. If he’s up for something like that then some lower league football should be a treat for him.

It was a fiver admission at Grounsell Park for humans with no charge for canines. I suppose they usually earn less than we do. My losing raffle tickets this week were for a Heaton Stannington branded coat. That’s marginally better than the usual two bottles of booze if you are a ‘Stan’ fan of just the right size, but I’d have made more use of some screw-top sauvignon.

It’s quite the done thing to bring a dog to Northern League games, more so at this ground than most. There was an airedale, a pug, something that looked a bit like a spaniel with a perm and a long-haired sausage dog. I don’t think I’d ever seen one of those before.

The area near the entrance and outside the bar was packed, so I headed further along to the covered seated stand and we watched the first half from there.

Heaton Stannington were in a skinny black and white striped kit with Durham City in yellow and blue. It didn’t take long for the home side to open the scoring and they were three up within half an hour. The scoreline wasn’t much of a surprise as Heaton Stannington are running away with Division Two of the Northern League whilst Durham City are adrift at the bottom of the table with only two points all season and a goal difference of minus one hundred and twenty-six.

There was part of me that hoped to see a rout. Is that mean spirited? I usually try not to be. Durham City had already lost by ten goals on three occasions this season and back in November were beaten sixteen-one by Carlisle City. You don’t get to witness outcomes like that too often.

At one stage in the season it looked as if Durham City might fold due to debts of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. But, approaching March, they’ve managed to stick around.

There were another two goals early in the second half but to everyone’s surprise they both came from the visitors. Order was restored with a quick response from ‘The Stan’ as we approached the hour-mark.

The final half hour was end to end as both sides pushed for an oddly crucial seventh goal of the game. It was the home side that managed it in injury time to seal a five-two win that flattered them to an extent. The dog seemed to have enjoyed the evening out but was happy to return to the settee.

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