New ground, same place. Leicester must win some sort of prize for the proximity of their new ground to the site of their old. I’m sure Foxes (do they scrounge around in bins at night and run away from the Aristocracy?) look back at Filbert Street with some affection but I can’t say I’m sorry to see it gone. The new ground is nice and utilitarian but quite remarkable as to how unremarkable it is. Ten years ago it might have seemed pretty smart but now one can only think “yeah, seen that. But better”.
Anyhoo for our first visit to the Walkers Crisp Bowl we had filled the cheese and onion corner, watched with attentiveness from the police control centre, the smokey bacon box. The lads and lasses were in good voice from the outset and were prepared to overlook (code for block out of memory) last week’s defeat at Millwall.
To be honest I can’t tell you much about the first half. We were about two thirds of the way back in the cheese and onion corner, at about the level of the Perspex sheets at the other, south, end of the ground. Those of you familiar with the tilt of the earth on its axis and satda’s bright cloudless weather in the East Midlands will realise at once why I unable to report. Every time I tried to look up the pitch I got a blinding view of the sun.
Notwithstanding my Galileoan problems, I could sense that nothing much was happening. We were kicking down towards the other end, away from us. We had the ball in the back of the net twice – once we were called offside (the sun’s corona shifted just a bit, allowing me to see no way was it offside) and once from a corner, which actually I did have a decent view of – hard to see what the infringement might be.
The abiding memory of the first half was Stewart being thread balls through to run onto and looking like he was in one of those dreams where you’re running but don’t seem to be moving. Ha’way Stew lad, you’re better than this. You’re still just in your early thirties – don’t throw it all away. By Christmas you could find yourself as fifth choice striker at a Championship club.
So the first half ended and we thought “well nowt much there but we came saying a draw would be a canny result and there was nothing going on to suggest we couldn’t get one.”
Second half and we looked a more convincing outfit. Robinson really should have put us ahead. The ball came to him in the inside right position inside the box with just the goaly to beat (but lots of players not that far away). Either the ball got stuck under his feet or he froze. Let’s deem him to have got the ball stuck under his feet shall we. The result was that the defender nipped in and the ball was away.
Stewart was taken off and we were expecting Bridges to be brought on. When I saw it was Brown I thought “oh, oh the fans aren’t going to like this”. Whether they would have been against it or not was irrelevant as Brown did enough to justify being brought on and had every one won over by the end.
Elliott came very close with a brilliant piece of individual battling. He chased the ball down the left wing, dispossessing one man, beating another but then hitting the side netting from a tight angle.
Mid-way through the second half Brown got the ball at the edge of the inside left position of the box and took a cracking shot that the goalkeeper did well to tip over. The resulting corner from Whitehead looked fairly poor and I was just about to whinge as it fell into fatty Pressman’s waiting hands when up steps Caldwell to almost casually head into the net. Quite bizarre – Pressman didn’t even jump. Never mind – it made us very happy and the noise was notched up quite a few decibels.
At some stage (I’m losing track of sequence here) Myrhe made a brilliant save from a Fox put clean through, then parried the effort as the striker tried to get a shot on goal, finally ending up with one of our defenders doing a diving header away from just in front of the line.
Also from a Fox attack, the ball came to Brown who burst down the centre of the pitch in a manner reminiscent (for those of us old enough) of his dad. Brown sent the ball over the charging goalkeeper but heartbreakingly it hit the bar and came back out. Such a pity, it would have been a stunning goal.
Lynch went off (injured I think) after a pretty good performance, particularly given how poor his other performances have been. Deano dropped to right back and capped an excellent overall performance with a really good RB role, including one stunning tackle that was worth the admission money alone.
Leicester pushed us hard. I thought there was a reasonable chance of a second goal for us from a breakout given how many men they had to commit forward, but it was not to be.
So, a happy day. Filbert street was rarely a great place for us but I like the crisp bowl already (not that we’ll be visiting it again for some years we hope).
Back on winning ways means we are now in a position where already we’ve got to believe we are going to get a play-off place. Ipswich keep winning and Wigan have a lot of points on the board already but we’ve got to have them two in our targets. Next week against Ipswich at the SoL is going to be interesting.
