football rambles

Yesterday we went to London Road for the clash in the Championship between Peterborough and Middlesbrough. The first half was a bit of a disappointment. Middlesbrough are clearly a decent team and should be looking at a play-off place at the least. They were clearly the stronger side in the first half but they didn't really look like scoring, although Peterborough seemed keen to give them a helping hand with some shocking blunders in defence. That's perhaps a bit unfair as the Posh defence saw a lot of the ball in the first period with them unable to get the ball out of defence. Anyway, the half drew to an end with neither side scoring, which wasn't helped by a whistle happy ref. The second half was a lot better, but it was Boro rather than Borough who scored first with Matthew Bates putting the visitors ahead with a header on 58 minutes. Posh fought back though and Boyd and Tomlin both came close only to be denied by Jason Steele in the Boro goal. Grant McCann had a go at

Yesterday Ely were away to Brantham and the only game nearby seemed to be March v Cornard, so I decided to go to watch the reserves play Leverington Sport in the first round of the Cliff Bullan Challenge Cup. Basically it was a glorified park game. It's not often you see a right back having a fag as the game kicks off or hear a referee say 'get up you tart' when a player gets down easily,but as I still needed to pay £2.50 to go in I think that it counts as a game. The game though was big on commitment. Ely's centre halves managed to keep Leverington at bay for most of the first half. They had a few chances themselves, but never really threatened to score. The Ely Reserves keeper did well and could perhaps step up if Lee Pacey does leave the first team. Ely didn't manage to hold on until half time though and Leverington went ahead on 41 minutes. At half time I spoke to a couple of the A-Team players who had been playing against Cherry Hinton and had lost 8-1. It soun

Yesterday Ely took on Gorleston and as has been usual of late there were plenty of goals. Gorleston were quick out of the blocks and Lee Pacey had to get down well to block a Gorleston shot on 3 minutes. Ely soon got back into the swing of things though and Adam Wallis was unlucky to shoot wide. This led to a sustained period of pressure by Ely, but the Gorleston defence were fairly resolute and the attackers looked dangerous on the counter attack. On 20 minutes the visitors caught the Ely defence napping and were 1-0 up. Ely continued to pile on the pressure and Gorleston continued to mop it up and on 38 minutes things went from bad to worse for the Robins when a well worked move from the Gorleston players led to a second goal and it looked like Ely would be lucky to get anything out of the game. If they were to get anything it was probably necessary that they got something in the first half. Luckily Ely did strike back quickly and a Ben Lawrence throw was flicked on by Adam Murray an