Monday 28th December 2020
Toolstation NCEL Division 1
at the Rail Ground
Retford FC (2) 5
Matthew Robinson 44, 80
Zach Casburn 45+1, 47 pen
Luke Abdy 66
Worsbrough Bridge Athletic (0) 0
Attendance: 150 (no more, no less)
Jon Knight's match photo gallery: Click HERE
Twenty five minutes prior to this afternoon's kick-off, the temporary Covid-compliant attendance limit of 150 had already been reached at the Rail Ground and subsequently the Choughs were having to turn spectators away, several of whom found a perch to watch the action from on the adjacent Babworth Road rail bridge that spans over the ECML and overlooks this chilly scene.
Yorkshire Live Sports Streaming were in town today broadcasting the game live... right from the first whistle, it became apparent, during the feisty open exchanges, that they might've done well to have employed Kent Walton to do the matchday commentary.
As all of you readers of a certain vintage will know, Kent was the go to and authoritative figure in the field of televised professional wrestling, AKA undignified slapstick grappling.
Back in the day, wrestling was a sport (of sorts) or a choreographed form of comedy entertainment, wherein a fat man (real name Shirley) wearing a ladies bathing suit, who had signature moves that consisted of the 'Daddy Splash' (i.e. knocking opponents into orbit with his big belly) and asphyxiating his victims by laying on top of them, was the king of the ring.
He always won, of course... it's not just football referees that display 'alleged' bias at times.
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| 'Big Will' Tomlinson. Whoops! I mean 'Big Daddy' AKA Shirley Crabtree. |
The spectacle got the housewives of a certain age and the nations grannies all moist on a Saturday teatime every weekend and was very funny, if 'nowt else, in an era when television channels were still few and far between... kids these days don't know they're chuffing (or should that be chough-ing?) born.
Any road, focussing back on the matter in hand, namely: a game of Northern Counties East League Division One football, let's chuck in Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Two Tribes' (played at ear-splitting volume) as the theme tune to set the scene, stand back and embrace the wondrous sight of twenty-two alpha-male types kicking the absolute crap out of each other, based loosely around the framework of a 'well-contested' sporting event.
Ding, ding... 'Seconds out! Round one!'
As the teams locked horns and the ensuing tussle began, it was pretty clear that the referee: Colin Bailey, was going to need eyes in the back of his head today, not least because his front pair appeared to be malfunctioning quite badly.
Whether he had adopted a policy of letting a few hefty challenges go, in an attempt to let the game flow, or was genuinely missing a lot of things that were happening outside the sightlines of his peripheral vision, is open to conjecture. I suppose there is always the possibility that the match official enjoyed a good old scrap and his pre-match meet and greet with the team captains, had consisted of just seven words: "Get stuck in!" and "Gladiators are you ready!?"
Either way, even though it was no hiding place for the faint-hearted out there on the field of battle, it was still a very entertaining contest nevertheless.
But, let's be frank, nobody present was expecting, or wanted, to see any of that three across the back, buggering about with the ball in front of your own keeper, tippy-tappy variant of the game, that is channelled into our homes via satellite dishes and cathode rays. We'd all turned out to see some proper football. That's not meant disrespectfully or as a slight on the very willing and able coaches at these respective clubs, because needs must on a sticky wicket in the middle of Winter, when there are three points at stake. I don't envy whoever will be forking and rolling this lot over in the morning... assuming that we're not all under a foot of snow by then. Those clouds moving in from over Bill's mother's house looked weighed down with the horrible stuff.
Matt Robinson almost put the Choughs in front from the first attack of the game, but Luke Forgione's WBA cleared their lines... and once we'd seen a couple of potential flare ups come and go as the players from both sides decided to indulge a bickering festival, it needs to be said that the visitors looked anything but a side who are struggling along near the foot of the table.
People will no doubt look at the final result and respective league placings tonight and assume, incorrectly but quite understandably, that fifth placed Retford completely rinsed their lowly opponents.
The home side deserved their win, there is no disputing that... and there were some quality finishes among their impressive haul of goals that were forged out of sheer ruthlessness at a particularly critical period of the game. But on the balance of play, I personally felt that the Briggers were unlucky to have been on the wrong end of such a top heavy margin of defeat.
Alas, it's a time-honoured ritual and brutal tradition, that teams occupying the lower rungs of any given division are forbidden by the football gods to claim anything like their fair share of any 50/50 rub of the green decisions, while Dame Fortune will turn her back on them completely at the same time as well.
Harry Scott in the visitors goal was well placed to deal with several promising raids on his goal by the hosts, the most threatening of which saw Jack Johnson pick out Jake Scott with a quickly taken throw-in on the left, that the industrious playmaker took under control before quickly switching the ball into the right channel into the path of Haydn Goddard who took a touch before letting fly with a stinging shot from fifteen yards out, that the visitors keeper did well to deal with.
The turning point in the game came in the thirty-eighth minute, when during yet another argument between players from both sides, just outside the visitors area, that had erupted following a heavy lunge by a Worsborough player, the referee was subsequently subjected to a string of 'potty-mouthed' invective and decided to sin-bin Worsborough's Lewis O'Connor for an alleged abusive comment.
And, to my way of thinking, it did seem grossly unfair that O'Connor was singled out to sit it out, when the man in the middle had been letting so many other things go unpunished thus far.
But apparently, the official wanted to make an example of somebody (anybody seemingly) to defuse the frequent squabbling and stand-offs that had punctuated the first-half.
Retford exploited their numerical advantage to the full, as you would expect any team in a similar situation to do, so fair play to them for making good of the imbalance that they had been gifted.
But it will have been agonising viewing for Lewis O'Connor, watching on as the Choughs netted three times during his enforced absence... and I don't imagine that 'fair play' are the words that he would've used to describe his predicament.
A local supporter in our midst was chuckling to himself and shouted out: "You're doing a great job referee, keep up the good work mate!" and "You're welcome back here anytime ref!"
Do these sort of things balance themselves out over the course of a whole season?
Ask the Worsborough bench that question... but be prepared to run away fairly sharpish when they respond accordingly.
Robinson opened the scoring in the forty-fifth minute, burying the ball from twelve yards out, after Goddard had teed the strike up for him with a sideways knock, as the pair advanced in tandem towards the Briggers goal through a bloody great big chasm of space, that only a few minutes previously would most likely have been occupied by a certain player wearing a red shirt with a white number eight on the back of it. Within a minute, as the game entered first-half stoppage time, Zach Casburn found the net with a great finish, when he directed a glancing header beyond the reach of (H) Scott.
By a quirk of fate, Casburn wasn't even in the Choughs original starting line-up this afternoon, but was only drafted in as a late replacement when Graeme Severn limped out of the warm up.
What an inspired substitution that one turned out to be, inadvertently.
Two minutes after the restart there's a ball to hand situation just inside the Briggers area, we've all seen 'em waved away and we've all seen 'em given too. But while this particular referee and Worsborough Bridge Athletic were involved in the equation, nobody was ever in any doubt what was coming next. And Casburn stepped forward and emphatically put the ball away from the resulting penalty kick.
When O'Connor entered the fray, the resident comedian greeted him cheerfully: "Welcome back... you haven't missed much while you were away!"
In all likelihood, it was already 'game over' by now, but the diminutive Harley Holt, almost reduced the deficit when he crashed a dipping long range strike against the crossbar after the ball had been cleared away in his general direction.
To their credit, Worsborough had kept their heads up and were still trying to take the game to their hosts, but salvaging anything out of this encounter became a lost cause when Luke Adby fired a snap shot across the face of their goal, that nestled just inside the left hand upright.
Owen Wildblood (at least I think it was him) as I peered through the frost forming on my spectacles test Jon Kennedy with a thumping thirty yard shot, but the legendary keeper turned the ball away at full stretch and Retford broke away quickly from end to end, as Casburn galloped forward at full pelt, Maxim Hague wiped him out with a body check, but Mr Bailey played the advantage which the home side couldn't take advantage from.
But it wasn't long before the Choughs added goal number five, when Robinson nudged the ball past (H) Scott as he advanced from his goal and his knock had just about enough puff behind it to crawl over the line.
Elliot Wilson was a fraction away from netting a consolation goal for the Briggers, when he showed a few good touches out on the left wing before floating over a cross that dropped just inches wide of the far post.
Ever the consummate pro, regardless of the fact that the game was heading into stoppage-time and his team were five goals ahead, 'Kendo' gave his defence a rollicking for allowing Wilson to get into such a dangerous position.
FT: Retford FC 5 v Worsbrough Bridge Athletic 0
In the final analysis, besides being a decent side anyway, the Choughs had the added elements of heaps of mettle and application in their arsenal today... and it was always going to prove difficult for their visitors to overcome such a strong side anyway.
But Worsbrough will won a lot of people over with their approach to the game, by still battling on and trying to play football the right way, even when the game was running away from them and beyond their reach.
No doubt the sin-binning was a contributing factor to the final outcome, but it would be churlish to chastise Retford for dealing with the scenario they were gifted with in such an effective and efficient manner. In fact, quite the opposite... they would've needed their collective arses kicking if that hadn't made hay while the sun shone on them.
This visit to the Rail Ground marked my last game of 2020 and ended the year a high note.
Away from football, it's been a fairly crap and often quite scary twelve months on so many different levels and the kind of stuff that they show you on the telly stokes up people's fears unnecessarily too.
For example, only this morning they were showing a trailer for the new year edition of 'Doctor Who', and it transpires that Daleks can fly nowadays. Jesus wept! Those things used to frighten me half to death when I was a kid and they couldn't even climb up stairs back then... these are bat shit crazy times that we're living in.
Being mindful of the fact that travelling between two different tier three areas, unless I'm working on t'railway or fulfilling my duties as a club official, is not an option... as things stand, my first fixture of the new year (and new decade) will hopefully be in played in my hometown of Retford too, when Clay Cross Town are scheduled to visit Cannon Park to take on Retford United on Saturday, as the top two teams in the CMFL North go head to head.
Of course, the possibility of another impending lockdown, and/or raft of postponed games because of the Winter climate dropping in on us any time soon. will probably, in all likelihood, scupper those plans.
And in truth, I'm not even slightly optimistic that I will be venturing outdoor to watch any football again for quite a while.
Though it pains me to say it, there is a very real possibility, probability even, grimly heading in, that 'non-elite' football is facing the prospect of a second successive uncompleted stop/start season.
The fact of the matter is, we should all be bracing ourselves in readiness for yet another round of debate/arguments and (heated) discussion, pertaining to 'points per game' and/or 'null and voiding' and an impending, even bigger than ever, 'what a to do' situation.
But, there is more to life than football and we're all going to have to grasp that particular nettle, very tightly, with both hands, any time soon.
Mind how you go and stay safe.
