football rambles

Yesterday was probably the coldest day of this season so far and therefore obviously there weren't even any goals to cheer us up. The crowd was also one of the lowest that I have seen at the ground. Despite Downham for most of the time playing two levels below this there has been a drop off in attendance thanks to their struggles in the league. There were a few away fans, and fair play to them travelling up to Norfolk from Canvey island. Despite the lack of goals it was a decent game all in all and as I always seem to write at Downham games this season, they were unlucky not to get more out of it. The first half was a bit of a stop / start affair at times, but with the assessor being there, the ref wasn't ever likely to let things slide that he might otherwise have done. Fo most of the half Charlie Royle, Eoin Mcquaid and Dylan Kirk caused problems for the Concord defence but not enough to seriously worry the Concord keeper,which ha pretty much Ben the story of the season so fa...

 On Saturday we went to Posh v Barnsley in the second round of the FA Cup. I am afraid there was very little cup magic on display. A poor performance from two weakened sides saw us being put out of our misery by Patrick Skelly who scored for the visitors in the 73rd minute. To be honest, I'll remember this day more for what was a final visit to the Blind Tiger as they concentrate on their Tap House in Nene Park and shut up shop in the town centre. There was also the small matter of a game at Villa Park where a last gasp Emi Buendia goal saw Villa defeat league leaders Arsenal and go third in the table. Unfortunately though the game at London Road was a real disappointment.

 This game saw John McGinn make his 300th appearance for Aston Villa and like most other people (although I would never admit it) saw this as an easy win for Villa. After a poor start to the season, Villa have been in some incredible form and we're up to 4th. Wolves on the other hand were routed to the bottom of the table on a measly 2 points. It therefore came as no surprise that wolves main tactic was to defend in numbers and try and hit Villa on the break. At times this looked like it might work, as Wolves forced a few good saves from Emi Martinez. However, not to detract from Martinez's efforts, a number of these efforts were given offside, and fortunately one that beat him was to. I think that if we were still in the era where linesmen put their flag up straight away, a number of people wouldn't have convinced themselves that Wolves were in this game as much as they might have thought. Villa had most of the play and most of the shots, but as we have seen of late, the p...

 At the weekend I was in Birmingham for a double header as Sutton took on Corby in the Northern Premier Midlands Division and Villa took on Wolverhampton in the Premier League. Going into the game Sutton had recently had some poor results, so it came as a slight surprise that they started to look the most likely side to take the lead in the opening exchanges including missing wha was pretty much an open goal in the second minute. Corby were starting to moan a bit as the Royals continued to push them, but all that was about to change.  On 23 minutes Corby floated a ball in from a corner and it seemed like a number of arms went up including that of Sutton defender Ryan Jordan. It hit Jordan's arm and a penalty was awarded. Jordan was also given his marching orders and shown a red. I am not entirely, if it was just for the handball, which in my opinion probably only warranted a yellow or for something that was said or something else the referee saw in. Whatever. It was from my pe...