Preview of Monday's game against the old enemy

Tomorrow is Easter Monday and Ely take on Mildenhall in the traditional bank holiday fixture. That said, although the Easter Monday game usually goes off without a hitch the Christmas / New Year game is usually a rearranged fixture. Over the three seasons that I have lived in Ely, the two teams have been quite equally balanced. This season sees Mildenhall in the ascendancy though. With just two games to go they currently lie in fourth place in the league and have just won the Cambs Invitation Cup for the second year in a row. Earlier in the season they applied to go to the next level, but they seem to have put that idea on hold. Not least I expect because their ground is a little bit crap.

It will be the fourth time I have visited this fixture. The first one was on the Easter Bank Holiday of 2009 when Ely lost 4-2 after some almighty whingeing and mad, mad refereeing. Then last season the game at the Unwin was a rescheduled game from Boxing Day that was held on an awful night in February. The conditions were atrocious and the Mildenhall players did some almighty whingeing (I think we can see a pattern emerging here) to get the game called off. The referee didn't oblige and Ely went on to win 2-0. Funnily enough there was a hell of a lot of stoppage time and the Hall didn't seem to want the game to finish after they had done their upmost to have it called off. Then earlier this season I made the trip to Mildenhall for another game that had been rescheduled from the Christmas period. Ely managed to snatch defeat from the draws of victory and went down 2-1.

If the past is anything to go by there will be some strange decisions by the officials a lot of moaning from the Mildenhall contingency and some diabolical defending by Ely. Well, I think the first two of those predictions will come true. Ely seem to have put their defensive shockers behind them (I'm not sure how many times I've said that in hope though). Anyway, I'm going to stick my neck on the line and predict that Ely will win the game tomorrow (probably have cursed that now).

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