Wednesday 4th November 2010
Toolstation NCEL Premier Division
at Olivers Mount, Handsworth
Handsworth FC (0) 1
Leon Howarth 46
AFC Mansfield (1) 2
Ross Duggan 18, 50
Attendance: 268
Ken Allesbrook's match photos: Click HERE
Where does one even start to try articulating an overview of such an open, fast paced and action packed game of association football as this one was?
I genuinely feel that mere words won't be enough do the contest that unfolded at Handsworth FC tonight justice, but I'll have a stab at it.
AFC Mansfield took all three points on offer, but the real winner on the night was non-league football itself.
Both sides played their part in what was an enthralling and high tempo encounter, which was played in a completive but very sporting manner, which helped to create a great vibe throughout, for all of the impressive crowd of 268 that turned out to savour.
What we had here was a great advert for just how entertaining the game at this level can be and the standard of the football was first rate too.
I'm sure that a lot of those present, who would usually have found their football fix elsewhere, at the homes of the bigger clubs in the area, will have started to cotton on to the fact that, while the current restrictions dictate that their teams have been playing behind closed doors; at places like Olivers Mount and the Forest Town Arena, there is far more fun to be had at a fraction of the cost, without even a murmur of hostility between the friendly rival camps who follow the fortunes of teams in the NCEL. Although to that end, please don't fall into the trap of thinking that non-league football is just a cheap or novelty version of your usual tipple... it is 100% the real thing for the thousands of people who are either involved with or regularly watch the game outside the so called 'elite clubs'.
I concede that I needed to be a bloomin' contortionist tonight, attempting to practice social distancing... while having a foot planted in two camps, which is quite a challenge when you've only got little legs like mine. It's just as well that my split personality disorder caters for such occasions.
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| Mr Holmes... AKA the caged singing man, proved to be a very popular attraction |
Officially, my colours were nailed to the red mast of the visitors (although there was a very discreet Handsworth badge pinned onto my rather snazzy AFC Mansfield coat), because, once again, my loan spell to supplement the depleted ranks of AFC Mansfield staff members and club officials, has been extended, up until such a time that NCEL football is suspended for 'Lockdown 2' (AKA midnight tonight), which by my reckoning will afford all of those who are chucking in sickies, or malingering (or both) ample time to get better and return to work. Seriously though... I hope that you all get well soon guys and don't feel under any pressure to resume your duties until you are completely confident in yourself that it is safe to do so. It can't be much fun being poorly on top of all of the other crap that is happening in the world at the moment and my thoughts are with you all. While I'm on the subject of recovery, it was nice to see Dale Ward and Sheila Allsebrook both looking so well and adding a touch of glamour to the home ranks tonight, after their recent ailments.
The game itself saw the visitors set off at a cracking pace, with Ross Duggan giving the Ambers an early scare when he shot just over the bar, while Ben Algar and Josh Wilde threatened the hosts in tandem out on the left.
However, while Handsworth shaped up to face the threat from that side, the Bulls captain, Phil Buxton, stroked a pass out to Lynton Karkach on the opposite flank, who rode two challenges as he cut inside, but his shot on goal was blocked.
Ant Mackie pushed forward on the right and knocked a well weighted pass into the path of Leon Howarth, but as my favourite Handsworth player went for the bottom corner of the net, Hugo Warhurst got down well to his right to make a save.
Mackie made another run down forward, but his cross towards Kyle Jordan was cut out by Jack Harrison, but as the visitors moved the ball quickly from one end to the other, Duggan had strayed a fraction offside and play was pulled back.
But Duggan didn't have to wait much longer to make his mark and in the nineteenth minute, Algar released the Bulls hitman with a pass into the left channel that the Bulls number nine took in his stride before muscling past his marker and slotting in one of his trademark angled strikes across the face of Ben Townsend's goal ,that nestled inside the far post.
The Ambers keeper was called into action again, almost straight from the restart, when Wilde's lengthy pass almost put Jon D'Laryea clean through on goal, but Townsend reacted quickly and got to the ball first before clearing away the danger.
Moments later, the Ambers were on the back foot again and as they retreated to face another Mansfield attack, Karkach unleashed a thumping shot from just outside the area that fizzed over the bar.
Towards the end of the first half, although the Bulls still continued to pose a threat, Handsworth were also getting forward more often.
The action was relentless... and having chosen to record the nights events by scribbling my report into a notebook, all I can say is, it's a bloody good job that I always carry a good stock of biros, because trying to keep up with all of this lot was filling up numerous pages with my barely legible hieroglyphics by now.
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| It takes all sorts! |
The home side were almost on level terms when Andy Gascoigne threaded a pass out to Howarth on the left hand side of the visitors area, who in turn rolled a low cross beyond the back post that Mackie reached at full stretch, but could only hit the ball against the outside of the upright.
Bailey Hobson was setting things in motion for the Ambers along with the livewire Mackie as Gascoigne and Howarth both had half chances too.
But Mansfield took over the attacking initiative again and Townsend was called on, to push Algar's effort round the posted after the Bulls number eleven had seen off the attentions of Mackie as he cut inside the area from the left, before Karkach strode forward, straight through the middle of Handsworth's rear-guard and tested the Ambers keeper with a low shot, but Townsend was down in a flash to keep the score down yet again.
Howarth exchanged passes with Joe Parkin before letting fly with a shot from ten yards out, that Warhurst managed to push away, before Harrison blocked Howarth's shot on the rebound.
Gascoigne shaped up as though he was going to take responsibility for the resulting dead ball situation, but us eagle-eyed regular Handsworth watchers knew better and I informed the committee from 'my team': "You watch Leon Howarth here. This lad has got a lethal strike on him... and that's his kind of distance". Eyebrows were raised around me when the hosts number ten hit an unconvincing effort straight into the wall and then scooped a harmless punt straight into Warhurst's hands as the ball rolled apologetically back to him. Bloody hell Leon... this lot'll think that I'm making all of this up now pal!
HT: Ambers 0 v Bulls 1
Anyway, as if by magic, the Ambers attacked straight from the restart, while a lot of people were still making their way back from getting a hot drink (it's Sheffield, in November, after all), when Howarth chased a reached a loose ball on the right hand corner of the Bulls area and turning on a sixpence and crashed a sublime shot into the roof of the Mansfield net. "That's the real Leon Howarth", I said: "This lad has got a lethal strike on him and that's his kind of distance". How could I ever have (even momentarily) have had any doubts about him. Remember the name this one has got a real future ahead of him.
But there was another striker who is on op of his game and in a rich vein of form at the moment and he didn't feel like sharing centre stage with this young upstart from Sheffield and within five minutes Mansfield were ahead again and inevitably their second goal was scored by Duggan, just as their first had been, when he advanced into the home side's area from the left and placed a shot past Townsend that took a slight deflection en route.
The Bulls had a penalty shout turned down when Steve Wankiewicz tangled with Morgan James in the area, but to be fair old 'Vank' tends to look a bit clumsy and cumbersome now that he's getting on a bit and he didn't actually mean any harm.
Meanwhile, Duggan had got the scent for a hat-trick in his nostrils and when Algar nudged the ball into his path, he battled into the right hand side of the area this time, before pinging a shot off of the left hand upright.
Jordan meanwhile, thumped a shot wide of the target at the other end... this game was far from over yet.
Having switched back to the left again, Duggan, whose heat map for tonight is probably a great big scorch mark across the whole width of the pitch at both ends, advanced towards the Ambers goal again, Alfie Eagle did well to get a blocking tackle in, but the Bulls striker stuck out a foot to retrieve the loose ball and hooked a shot beyond the far post. Maybe he hadn't seen that Karkach was well placed and in space... then again, maybe all good forwards are selfish as hell and his record warrants his craving to find the net and singlemindedness (the longest word ever to appear on this blog).
Duggan (who else?) was unlucky to strike the ball into the side netting from James' lay-off.
Algar's right-wing corner was cleared as far a Duggan, loitering with intent twenty yards out, from where he rattled the frame of the goal, with a blistering strike that hit the top left angle of the frame.
Townsend did well to save Duggan's next effort, that had been set up by the Bulls substitute, Matt Sykes.
Sykes provided a comedy moment for the crowd on a par with Carl Haslam's legendary miss in the Bulls colours a few years ago, that regularly still shows up on social media, when Duggan rolled the ball sideways to him, with Townsend advancing from the line to set up an 'unmissable' chance to roll the ball into the wide open goal. Methinks Sykes will become a YouTube star in his own right when the footage of how he spurned that opportunity and hit the right hand post instead gets out... and it will do in the very near future, of that you can be quite sure.
To spare himself any further blushes, Sykes rolled the ball to Duggan when he was next inside the Ambers area, but Townsend dealt with the resulting shot comfortably. In the final minute Sykes spotted Townsend was off his line and tried to beat him with an audacious lengthy punt from forty yards out, but it came to nothing.
Handsworth were nearly on level terms in stoppage time, when Howarth set up a last gasp chance for Harry Mitchell, but he screwed his shot wide.
FT: Handsworth 1 v AFC Mansfield 2
At the end of the game, my good friend Pete Craggs, the AFC Mansfield stalwart and all round decent bloke, who is a bit poorly at the moment, contacted me with an interesting piece of information: Ross Duggan, including his brace tonight, has scored 49 goals for the Bulls in 46 appearances, it's no wonder that he was busting a gut to get a third tonight then. That is a phenomenal strike rate at any level, isn't it readers!? Assuming that any of you have stuck with this write up this far.
I felt guilty about not paying to get in tonight, because I was working for the visitors, so I bought six raffle tickets off of the ladies who were going around the ground instead... and chucked them away in case I won. It's a conscience thing innit. Non league football is skint and every little helps.
Being perfectly honest... and as impartial and neutral as is humanly possible, I think that on the balance of all of the goal scoring opportunities that they created, AFC Mansfield deserved to win, but I don't reckon anybody present, supporting either team (or any of the neutrals in the ground) would've begrudged Handsworth a share of the points, given the massive part they played in what was a very, very good game of football. Regardless of the end result, everybody left Olivers Mount with a smile on their face, despite the fact that it's going to be a bloomin' long time until we can get out and about to watch another game. Whenever that might be, it'll need to be a classic to improve on this one. Stay safe y'all.
