Just like watching Mossley

10^th September 2011 – Curzon Ashton v Salford City

It was to be a strange day.

Prior to kick off, Curzon’s John Flanagan received his award for Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Manager of the Month for August. He deserved it. Curzon have made a fantastic start to the season and haven’t lost a game. In fact, all of the local Tameside teams have started well this season. All that is, except local rivals Mossley who have struggled at the bottom of the table. More on them later.

It was good to discover where Jimmy Ogoo had disappeared to since departing from Curzon at the end of last season.  It was nice to see him as he pootled around the pitch in his Salford City kit before the teams came out for the start of the match. Although his footballing skills never quite matched his enthusiasm, he was always something of a favourite with Curzon supporters.

Salford came out fighting and took the lead after 14 minutes due to a cock up (not literally) between Peter Collinge and Connor Hampson which resulted in an own goal.  Unfortunately this also resulted in Hampson being carted off injured and had to be replaced by Matty Kay.

Our flags are bigger than your flags

Rhodri Giggs, Salford’s player/manager had made a good start to the match but was subbed off with an injury after around 15 minutes.  He spent the remainder of the match hopping around in his technical area wearing an odd shorts and leggings combination.  I’ll just leave you for a second so you can fix that image in your mind..........

Despite looking promising pre-season, Lee Blackshaw was yet again consigned to the bench. All wasn’t lost for him though as it allowed him to scoff a pie as he sat on the sub’s bench watching the game.  Not sure if that’s part of his training schedule.

Mike Fish had obviously been playing FIFA 11 on his Playstation or something as he kept attempting an odd new move of using his shoulder rather than chesting the ball down. He failed miserably and even got carded for handball. Back to the drawing board for him.

Jimmy Holden, who is on loan to Curzon from FC United, really isn’t impressive to watch. He seems incapable of hanging on to the ball for more than four seconds and you can guarantee when he passes it, he will pass it backwards. Oddly enough, this is identical to the style of play the aforementioned Jimmy Ogoo favoured while he played for Curzon. Bizzarely, it appears that Jimmy is the new Jimmy.

Back to the game, and Curzon’s metaphorical bacon was saved when Matty Kay headed in an equaliser half way through the second half.   All credit to Salford City though, they played to win, and to be honest, Curzon were very lucky to get away with a draw.  It seems that Giggs’s spying mission the previous week had paid off.

To make matters worse, Twitter updates were showing that the Mossley scoreline was steadily increasing, ending with Mossley winning 6 – 2 against Ossett Albion.  This is the Mossley that have had such a dreadful start to the season. Oh, the irony.  

So Curzon have lost their 100% record this season and go second behind Lancaster City who top the table on goal difference. Never mind. To quote American basketball coach Dean Smith, “If you make every game a life-and-death proposition, you're going to have problems.  For one thing, you'll be dead a lot.”  Onwards and upwards.

Final score – Curzon Ashton 1 Salford City 1

I spy with my little eye

Saturday 3rd September 2011 - Curzon Ashton v Bamber Bridge 

It's FA Cup time again. Curzon's hopes of emulating their cup run back in 2008 began with a preliminary round match against Bamber Bridge.The game began well with both Curzon and Bamber Bridge putting in an equally good effort and offering an entertaining start to the game for those of us who had bothered to turn up on 'Non-League Day'. 

But then around 20 minutes in, Curzon's Chris McDonagh went in with a two footed tackle which ironically left him injured on the ground. When he eventually staggered to his feet, he was shown the red card and had to be helped off the pitch by the physio. So Curzon were down to ten men and there was still another 70 minutes to play. Daunting. But they played on and despite several chances from both sides, the players went for their orange segments at half time with the scoreline still at 0 - 0.

With no oranges available for spectators, I went for a little stroll around the perimeter of the pitch, I spied Rhodri Giggs with his sweatshirt hood up over his head away from the other spectators, trying to look inconspicuous. As it happens, he just looked dodgy. He was either there to get a glimpse of the new look Curzon team, or he was hiding from the press given his recent shenaningans.

The floodlights had come on during at half time providing a depressing glimpse of the matches to come as we march towards winter. This doesn't make me smile. Then as the players came out for the second half, the rain started, and worse than that, it was that fine rain that gets you wet. While it lasted, this provided an amusingly slippery surface, with players providing us with slapstick head over heels falls all over the place. Oh, how I laughed.

A few times during the game, the ref had managed to miss seeing the liners flagging for incidents on the pitch, and on a couple of occasions, the crowd had to point out that the liner had his flag up. At one point, one of the liners was repeatedly shouting the ref’s name to get his attention, and didn’t stop until he eventually heard him and blew his whistle. Very reminiscent of the Alan Partridge sketch.

Bamber Bridge eventually broke the deadlock and scored. However, the depleted Curzon side didn’t give up, and five minutes later, came back with an equalizer from Kris Dennis who just can’t stop scoring!

At the end of a great game, the teams had to be content with a tie and a replay to take place at Bamber Bridge. This time, both teams will have eleven men each. Game on.

Final Score - Curzon Ashton 1 Bamber Bridge 1

I want my money back

Saturday 20^th August 2011 - Mossley v Woodley Sports

With Curzon playing an away game, we chose to go to Mossley to watch our first game at Seel Park this season.  The first thing of note was the price of admission. £8. Yes, £8. At a time when the whole country is suffering a recession, the committee at Mossley have seen fit to increase the price of admission. So that's the end of me buying a programme there then.

What followed was a complete mismatch of a game. It’s usually apparent by the amount of fouling that goes on when a team isn't as competent as their opposition, and this was certainly true in this match. Mossley were out of their depth and fouling Woodley for fun. The ref's yellow card certainly got a good workout.

By half time, Woodley should have been five up. As it turned out, they’d only managed to score once.

The best view in non-league

The final five minutes saw a mini goalfest, with Woodley managing to put three goals past the Mossley keeper. What was more amazing was that it had taken Woodley so long to score again as there was no one in the Mossley defence that competent enough to stop them.

To sum up - Mossley were hopeless, in all senses of the word. It’s going to be a long season for them unless they drastically improve their performance. I’m not sure I’ll be spending £8 to watch them again in a hurry. Not unless they start offering refunds to their supporters when they play as badly as this.

There was nothing amusing about this game at all. Nothing.

Final score – Mossley 0 Woodley Sports 4