It's now eighteen years since the former Newcastle United player: Stewart Barrowclough, resigned from his position as Frickley Athletic manager, in the aftermath of a 12-0 defeat at Worksop Town, a game in which the Blues had two players off, in one of the many memorable matches that I have seen contested between these two sides over the years.
While you could probably write a fairly weighty journal pertaining to the details of players and other personnel, who have represented both of these proud old non-league sides; who have in common the shared ignominy of plying their respective trades considerably lower down the sliding scale of football's food chain, than their loyal fan bases had become accustomed to in the not too distant past.
But, although there was never likely to be a dozen goals tonight; both teams demonstrated a refreshing eagerness to actual try to make a fist of actually winning this county cup game, in a competition that is much maligned and considered to be something of a nuisance and burden on fixture lists elsewhere.
There was an added bit of spice to proceedings, given that: in the amber corner, Danny Patterson was putting a foot in and battling for every ball for the Tigers cause, while in the blue corner, Richard Patterson was orchestrating the midfield of the park for the visitors. It must be a scream on Christmas day, when these pair have tucked into a few beers and they bring out the 'Hungry Hippos' box and have a competitive bout of family bonding and brotherly love... and Danny in particular, must struggle on those occasions, without having a referee to protest to after each game that his sibling wins.
These days Frickley operate in the EvoStik Northern Premier League (East) these days, having finally succumbed to relegation from the NPL Premier Division the season before last, after several years of narrowly avoiding the drop, while bouncing up and down recklessly on a balsa wood trapdoor leading to oblivion. They very nearly regained their Premier Division status after just one season in the 'East', but missed out when they lost to Stamford in the play offs. Manager Spencer Fearn recently left the Blues fold, to take on a role at a lesser club who play on the northern periphery of Sheffield, while John Stancliffe, Fearn's former assistant, at both Frickley and Maltby Main, has taken over the reigns at the South Elmsall Club... I always preferred 'Stan' to 'Spen' myself anyway ;-)
Worksop Town of course, took a voluntary drop from the EvoStik Northern Premier League to the NCEL and have recently started their fifth season at this level, where manager Craig Denton is looking to reverse the recent trend at the club, who have progressively (if that is the right word) finished in a lower position than in the previous year since initially finishing second during their inaugural step 5 term. They are currently sat in fifth position in the table with several games in hand on all of the teams above them, and so are well placed to make an assault on the top of the table this time round.
Jacob Hazel, the visitors captain, set the tone for the first half, when he fizzed a long range shot over the crossbar inside the first minute and Sam Liversedge (upholding the tradition of having played for both of these teams) wasn't far away from giving Frickley the lead moments later, while Matt Sykes unleashed a screamer on the turn at the other end, that looked like it had gone in just inside the posts to some of the spectators on the uncovered side of the ground, as brief murmur of celebration was quelled as the ball crashed against the advertising hoardings at the clubhouse end of the ground.
Frickley appeared to have just that bit extra in reserve over the home side, with Hazel in particular looking as if he was a man on a mission, but Aaron Moxam broke free at speed into the Blues goalmouth but was halted by an offside flag. The linesman had a better view than me, but I'd wager that there wasn't very much in it when the ball was originally played forward, but the officials were doing a grand job of letting this physical and all action, fast moving game flow, so I'll have to give the ref's assistant the benefit of the doubt.
A pulsating end to end first half, seemed to fly by in no time at all, as I gave up trying to scribble down every attack of note. It was 40/60 split in Frickley's favour, but the home side were digging in deep and putting in a decent shift in and creating chances of their own too.
But five minutes before the interval, an incident flared up that would ultimately dictate which way this tie was going to pan out for the remainder of the night, when Craig Mitchell tangled with Jameel Ible as they competed for the ball and intertwined in a fashion resembling page ninety four in the Kamasutra.
As they wrestled to free themselves from their very public tryst, Mitchell caught Ible with his trailing outstretched arm and as (R) Patterson separated their 'coming together' (so to speak) by tugging Mitchell away from the intimate encounter, Mr Watson moved in for a piece of the action and brandished his red card at the Tigers number ten.
If only he'd gone with the more soft-core 'Joy of Sex' manual instead, Mitchell might've got away with it, but his team were now going to have to play out the remainder of the game a man light and adopt a safety first approach, after losing 50% of their penetration in attack, after the 'two's up' approach had served them so well thus far.
Well spotted! This is a picture from a totally different game.
And the Tigers strategy of absorbing Frickley, who were turning the screw and making good of their numerical advantage after the break, almost hitting them on the counter attack nearly worked in the Tigers favour.
(D) Patterson was winning just about everything in the air in the middle of the park for the hosts, while his better looking brother, ably assisted by Jed Wilkinson, were just about shading the battle for midfield supremacy.
But in and around both goal areas it was Hugo Warhurst in the Blues goal and David Reay in the Worksop number one shirt, who were calling (and) saving the shots, especially Reay who had a really good game. But just as we were all settling down for what looked like being an extra thirty minutes to settle this 'blink and you'll miss summat' firecracker of a cup tie, Jed Wilkinson stroked a defence splitting pass into the path of Lewis Szanto, who'd only just come on as a late substitute and he steered the past Reay and into the bottom right hand corner of the net, with just four minutes remaining.
Connor Brunt and Kyle Jordan both went close to levelling things up during the closing exchanges, while Szanto created a late, late chance for Hazel to double the winning margin, sending him darting forward through the right channel, but Reay thwarted him.
FT: Worksop Town 0 v Frickley Athletic 1
A 'proper' cup tie, between two sides who should both be applauded for the way in which they approached this highly entertaining encounter. It would've made a great final.
I asked the latter of these two 'in house' media experts, if he'd had a clear view of what had actually happened when Mitchell and Ible 'locked horns' in a sweaty embrace the middle of the pitch, but I'm still none the wiser, because he started sobbing and broke into song by way of an explanation.
It's now eighteen years since the former Newcastle United player: Stewart Barrowclough, resigned from his position as Frickley Athletic manager, in the aftermath of a 12-0 defeat at Worksop Town, a game in which the Blues had two players off, in one of the many memorable matches that I have seen contested between these two sides over the years.
While you could probably write a fairly weighty journal pertaining to the details of players and other personnel, who have represented both of these proud old non-league sides; who have in common the shared ignominy of plying their respective trades considerably lower down the sliding scale of football's food chain, than their loyal fan bases had become accustomed to in the not too distant past.
There was an added bit of spice to proceedings, given that: in the amber corner, Danny Patterson was putting a foot in and battling for every ball for the Tigers cause, while in the blue corner, Richard Patterson was orchestrating the midfield of the park for the visitors. It must be a scream on Christmas day, when these pair have tucked into a few beers and they bring out the 'Hungry Hippos' box and have a competitive bout of family bonding and brotherly love... and Danny in particular, must struggle on those occasions, without having a referee to protest to after each game that his sibling wins.
