Saturday 19th December 2020
Friendly
at the Martin & Co. Arena/ Northolme
Gainsborough Trinity (0) 0
Ilkeston Town (0) 2
Keaton Ward 67
Mason Lee 85
THE66POW Point & hope pictures: Click HERE
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| Two burgers!? That is the start of a slippery slope mister chairman. |
The five previous non-league games of choice that I'd recently pencilled in... and rest assured, they were all ones that I was actually allowed to travel and/or gain access to as well... were all postponed. This was due to a myriad variety of reasons, including: player unavailability affecting either one or both of the participating teams, Coronavirus issues, a flooded pitch, the ever-spiralling cost of Clock DVA records on eBay, an eleventh hour Duckworth–Lewis–Stern method discrepancy, the shortage of trifle sponge fingers in Asda during the run up to Christmas and numerous unfathomable Government graphs and equations, that have taken on the guise of the accepted day to day status quo, under whatever restrictions and guidelines the politicians (and scientists, apparently) have concocted during the so called 'new normal' way of doing things during 2020.
My current domicile stands equidistant to three neighbouring counties, all of which have football teams that are close enough to my happy abode, as the crow flies, to be considered as local to me.
My employment encompasses regular movement around all four adjacent 'tier three' territories and on occasion necessitates going even further afield too. Apparently hi-vis clothing provides me with immunity to any strain of any virus you might care to mention and it's far cheaper to mass produce than a vaccine too.
But lockdown rules forbid, or at least frown upon very sternly (and suggest in the strongest possible terms) that any cross-border journey through the tier system maze of red tape, that I might choose to make in my quest to watch a game of football, are at best, to be discouraged and in the worse case scenario, constitute a complete no no altogether.
But I digress... while we're living under the ever tightening grip of martial law, what the effin' hell was I doing over that there River Trent, in famous Lincolnshire, this bright and chilly afternoon, watching an approximation of the beautiful game of association football ?
Well, it's like this your honour: I started work at 6AM today, at a site just a short distance away from the Northolme, and as such, I was merely making a pit-stop on my way home when this fixture kicked off at the highly convenient time of 1PM.
If the game had commenced at 3PM, I would've been at home already and probably would not have been able to travel back into Gainsborough for the purposes of being a football spectator.
Loopholes are the last bastion of a scoundrel... but either way, I hadn't made an unnecessary and/or ill-advised trek to be here, I was already in situ.
It's been a long, loooong forty-five days since I last watched any non-league football and a day longer still, since my most recent visit to the Northolme, to see the 'Holy Blues' of Trinity in action.
This game was only arranged yesterday, at very short notice, after Pickering Town had to pull out of their planned visit to Gainsborough. But as a preparation stage for the apparently imminent recommencement of the Northern Premier League, this fixture ended up being a bit of a dead rubber, when it was announced late in the afternoon, before I'd even reached home, that the Holy Blues forthcoming game against Grantham Town, on Boxing Day, has already been postponed.
But these low key kind of games are actually a Godsend to sad anorak types, AKA: people just like you and I, who've been craving a football fix of some sort... well, any sort actually.
The familiar sounds on the approach to the ground, "Second ball... shadow him... squeeeeze!!!", as the teams went through their warm up drills, the smell of the frying onions from the nearby take-away burger van and even the click of the turnstiles were all reasons to be cheerful.
Both teams gave some new personnel a first run-out this afternoon as 'Ilson' ran out 0-2 winners, which just about reflected the balance of play as the game unfolded, although the hosts did have what appeared to be a good shout for a penalty waved away during the first-half, when Lewis Dennison was upended as he cut in towards the Robins goal from out on the right, but VAR evidence supplied by Kate Simmonds, Trinity's photographer, clarifies that the referee got things right, because although the ball was inside the area the challenge was made fractionally outside.
Keaton Ward, who is on loan at Ilkeston until the end of the season from Barnsley (and was a possible contender as man of the match, on his debut), opened the scoring when he linked up well with Ollie-Brown-Hill before turning the ball just inside the left hand post with a deft touch after sixty seven minutes and towards the end of the game, Mason Lee thumped in a second to seal the win.
It's a shame that a few more people hadn't chipped in at the gate to attend this early afternoon encounter, but the last Saturday before Xmas is notoriously bad for enticing football fans away to fulfil duties elsewhere and not everybody would've spotted this additional fixture was even going ahead in the first place. Those that did turn out, all seemed to be very grateful to have the chance of taking a game in, while getting out of the house.
I have two local games lined up for Boxing Day, one of which I will be working at.
In the meantime, enjoy Christmas.
FT: Gainsborough Trinity 0 v Ilkeston Town 2
