Saturday 14th July 2018
Pre Season Friendly
at Langwith Road, Shirebrook
Shirebrook Town (0) 0
AFC Mansfield (0) 1
Johnny Pugh 75
Admission £4
Photo gallery from today's game: Click HERE
As we arrived at the Langwith Road ground, a family of camels from the adjacent Willow Tree Family Farm, were waiting on the taxi that was taking then on an airport run. Apparently they were heading for the Sahara Desert, because the climate there is far more bearable than the 'heatwave' that is currently poaching every single kind of creature on God's earth alive, in north east Derbyshire, with an unremitting ferocity... and by all accounts there is substantially more greenery in the Maghreb region of North Africa in Western Sahara, adjacent to the Algerian border too.
Their destination was Laayoune, the largest city in the Western Sahara region, which has a population of around 260,000, which, by way of a coincidence, is roughly the same number of people who've moved into the Shirebrook area over the last few years, since Mike Ashley bought up every single vacant and available property in the locality and began renting them out, ten to a room, to the imported slave labour workforce he employs at the main Sports Direct HQ in the town.
The question is often asked: is Shirebrook actually a town or is it a village?
Well, it has a market and a football team called Shirebrook Town, so it's a town... obviously!
Until recently the local football club had a chairman called 'Gunner' Thomas. A nickname, not derived from the fact that he served with the rifle regiment, or RAF, or indeed, any kind of military body whatsoever, but it is a moniker that was borne out of the fact that he was always 'gunner' do this or 'gunner' do that... and 'gunner' dip his hand his pocket to pay the people he owed money to; next week, or the one after, or the next one, just as soon as he'd managed to offload a consignment of Mickey Mouse watches and Betamax top loader video recorders at his pitch on Thoresby market, or some other equally fictitious 'big time' business transaction had been concluded.
After punching above their weight last season (according to those who know very little about local football and rather comically demonstrated their lack of knowledge, by referring to them as Raggy Arse Rovers), Shirebrook were rocked when their management team left, but although Jamie Allan and Gav Saxby have moved on, Rob Camm came home and picked up the reigns again, appointing Lee Widdowson and former Mansfield Town and AFC Mansfield player Chris Timons as his assistants. Hopefully no momentum was lost during Camm's brief sabbatical and self imposed exile, which by way of a
slight coincidence (cough), ended when the rogue chairman boggered off, as they say round these parts.
Kieran Watson's total of 52 goals last term, were key to the Langwith Road side competing at the business end of the table, but he's subsequently moved on to EvoStik Premier League side Matlock Town. There are those who think that a three division step up will prove to be too much for Watson, but I most certainly aren't amongst their number... and I reckon that the modest 32 year old will be proving several people wrong and shutting a few mouths any time soon.
But as regards Shirebrook's firepower for the forthcoming campaign, Declan Brewin looked an handful and was leading the line well today and he is obviously fired up for the season ahead and raring to go.
AFC Mansfield missed out on promotion by goal difference last season and were justifiably aggrieved that the turnover of fixtures towards the end of their 2017-18 trawl around the highways and byways of the NCEL Premier Division, did them no favours and they were seemingly punished for getting so many games played on time and were pipped at the post by Pickering Town who knew exactly what they needed to do during an unprecedented extension to the end of their own campaign.
I wouldn't want to take anything away from the 'Pikes', or their manager Paul Marshall, who is one of the good guys in the game... and a top bloke away from it too, but; when the Bulls also reached the EvoStik League, via a back door entry, after an equalisation in numbers was implemented by the FA during their closed season reorganisation programme, I reckon it would be fair to say that justice was done. While the NCEL lost three really good member clubs in: Pontefract Collieries, Pickering Town and AFC Mansfield, who all left in an upwardly mobile direction. Incidentally, by virtue of one of those little quirks of fate that football throws up from time to time, Rudy Funk's side begin life in the EvoStik Northern Premier League First Division East, with a home game against Pickering on Saturday 18th August.
The Bulls have lost personnel who were pivotal to their promotion push too, not least the prolific striker Ollie Fearon and the versatile left sided player Connor Smythe, with the former moving to Handsworth Parramore and the latter going back to Worksop Town for a second spell. But the Funk guy has recruited well in the meantime... and bolstered the Forest Town based club's attacking options by bringing in the Wells brothers, Brad and Kieran. Brad as been a target for AFC Mansfield for a long time and he finally consented to joining them on the proviso, that he could bring his big ginger lump of a brother with him.
It was way too hot to play football today, in the blisteringly hot midday sun, on a scorched pitch that desperately needs at least a few days of heavy rain, yet both teams put on a lively show, played at a decent tempo, that provided a good afternoon's entertainment for the assembled spectators.
The home side gave the Bulls a good run for their money and proved to be very well organised at the back, during the spell after half time that they were pinned back into their own half. Any before and after weighing sessions would've provided a stark contrast in results today given the top heavy amount of sheer hard work that was required to push all of those out on the field of play to push themselves to the limit in horrendous conditions. It was thirsty work just watching it.
Not that results matter at this stage of the 2018-19 season preparations, but the visitors clinched a narrow win with a well taken goal, from an acute angle by the young Johnny Pugh, who took the ball to the dead ball line after a good passing move forward through the right channel and fired in a shot that flew just inside the near post, when everybody else present was probably expecting a cross, including yours truly, who zoomed in on the six yard box with my Box Brownie, only to capture the moment the ball went in, sans Pugh who was out of the shot... it's pre-season for us bloggerists too, so make a few allowances and cut us guys some slack. It was a schoolboy error on my part, but that is what friendlies are for, learning from our mistakes and putting the world to rights when it all starts for real.
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| It's a goal! |
In closing: the game kicked off at noon to allow people to watch England on the telly in the afternoon, against Belgium in the World Cup third place play off game. Now, I'm as a big an England fan as the next man, but FFS! Isn't it time that this unnecessary exercise in 'one game too many' was scrapped in future tournaments? Does anybody genuinely give a flying one about this sort of game?
Both Belgium and England shared the honourable status of being beaten semi-finalists... and that should be an end to it for both of them.
But I s'pose you could counter that argument by asking: if a game to decide which team ranks as the third and fourth best in an international FIFA sanctioned tournament is pointless, what the feckin' 'ell am I doing, already attending my eighth friendly game of the current pre-season so far, when we're only halfway through July?
I could answer that at quite some length, but I'm in a bit of a hurry right now.
Because by the time that you've read through all of this self indulgent nonsense, I'll already be at another game at Gainsborough Trinity's Martin & Co. Arena, AKA the Northolme, with the Mansfield Town Under 21 side, for this afternoon's eagerly anticipated kickabout... fllowing on from that, I'll be back at Langwith Road again tomorrow, for another 'high noon' bounce game between FC Bolsover and Selston FC. Not forgetting the short drive north to Parkgate v Penistone Church on Monday. You know how it is ;-)
FT: Shirebrook Town 0 v AFC Mansfield 1
