I’d been looking forward to this game for a while. Obviously I’m not obsessed or owt and clearly I have a life outside SAFC (and work – the bringer of coins to follow SAFC) but bloody hell – nee WC, nee Euros and crap weather doesn’t make for a great summer. Anyway my plan was to come up to the NE on the Wednesday and make a bit of a mini-break until the Monday taking in Darlo and Scunthorpe. Such plans were scuppperd when I had to get to a meeting on the Thursday but I thought “ah, bugger it, I’ve got my Darlo ticket. I’m gannin in any case”. The outcome of that though was that I had to drive back down south after the match and am now typing this at Heathrow airport after about 3 hours sleep.
The next part of the plan was a relaxed drink in Darlo market square. However, this plan was scuppered by the fact that we didn’t get there that early, Darlo’s ground is over by Tees-side airport rather than in Darlington and the weather was throwing it down. What is it with this summer? Are we not burning enough fossil fuels so that this global warming is not coming. Can everyone please rev their engines at the traffic lights a bit more please. The week after next we are camping in Ireland on the pre-season tour – a tent in the rain isn’t anyone’s idea of fun.
Anyway, having been told the local pubs only welcomed locals and anyone attempting to park in County Durham would be shot, we pulled into a pub car park 800 yards from the ground, got parked up and found the pub full of SAFC supporters. One of the main talking points was Chopragate. A poll we ran on the message board (which got over 1.300 responses) suggested 55% of SAFC supporters were broadly happy with signing him (mainly based on faith in Keane admittedly), 25% were unhappy with 19% prepared to wait and see (1% were mags who couldn’t get onto their own message board because of the waiting list). I suspect those who vote on internet polls are more likely to be of the warm fuzzy types, more likely to accept Chopra than the support as a whole. Our group probably was a bit more skewed towards unhappy – ranging from me (he was awful in the Prem for the mags, really worried as to whether he can cut it for us) to my brother (I think it was something about him being the anti-christ – it was really hard to filter the swear words out to work out what he was saying). Chopra wasn’t playing and since his signing we had got Richardson who has received a warmer welcome. I was pleased as I think if Chopra had played and there had been no further signings there could have been trouble between sections of the support. By the time he plays at Scunthorpe hopefully most, whether unhappy or not, will more want to cheer a player in an SAFC shirt than worry about the character of the person inside it.
The Darlo ground is a neat little thing. You do wonder if they really need a 20,000 capacity mind. Is it true that they don’t have a licence to sit people in whole sections? Certainly our support was somewhat strangely split evenly between the section behind the goal and the section opposite the tunnel.
Of the new boys only Halford featured. We effectively played two different teams in the first and second halves. In the second two youngsters featured whee I have nee idea about (they were at RB and CB). Other than that it was faces we were very familiar with. Edwards didn’t feature at all, which I thought a little odd.
There had been a real downpour before the game and it continued the whole first half. This made the pitch a quagmire, particularly down the left wing (as we looked at it from behind the goal). Still this probably made it a good runout for the players.
We got a canny goal early on – Leadbitter sending the ball across the goal for it to reach Wallace out on the left who fired in confidently. I thought I would be able to employ the floodgates metaphor in this report but despite dominating and always being comfortable our shooting was canny pants.
Halford was probably the most encouraging result of the night – looks good, comfortable on the ball and knows how to tackle. Collins was back in the centre of defence, which was a bit of a surpise – can’t see that continuing in the Prem. Clive Clarke played at LB – I think the question is “why?” – he looks as woeful as ever. Kav was back in central midfield. Now I know this is Darlo but I think he looked really good. He played very deep, which I think he’ll have to do if he plays in the Prem. I do worry about the lack of experienced Prem players so Kav might still surprise us and do the business. Wallace clearly wants to play – he put by far the most effort in, which I am sure Keano approves of.
We still look light up front – John in the second half was woeful, his shooting was dire beyond belief. Stokes did get a good goal with a ball over the top that he latched onto and finshed well. It looked like some of the goals we saw from his Falkirk days. I am still hopeful of this lad and think he could end up our top scorer (which of course in some of our Prem seasons has not been a high target!).
Varga played in the second half and the same question as re Clarke comes to mind. He is so slow now – surely he can’t be going to play in the Prem?
Anyway a good evening’s work out. Be really nice to get a goaly. Fulop is not looking the business and while I think Ward did a great job for us last season surely even he doesn’t think he could cut in the Prem.
Must fly now (literally) – back on Saturday morning in time to drive up to Scunny. Hope the bloody weather cheers up.
John aka Herts