Pride? Restored? Shrewsbury at Home.

Still smarting from the thrashing we had up at Bradford I am driving home on Tuesday evening. Unlike the previous week when I was hungry and frustrated by traffic and – let’s face it – just plain late and generally behind a tight schedule …

Where was I?

Oh yes, unlike last week, this time I am foddered, not dehydrated – as I worked out how the damned coffee machine worked – and very early. Just setting out ten minutes earlier and the traffic is slim. All the way home. Along the A5. The road works. The Roman road. The one that leads from London to Holyhead. The traditional route, before the upstart M54 interrupted, from my house to Shrewsbury – or, as you will, Shrewsbury to Walsall (give or take a mile or two).

Shrewsbury, tonight’s visitors. Shrewsbury: the next banana skin? Shrewsbury, still struggling against relegation – and likely to be fired up and scrapping for every morsel on that pitch tonight!

And looming on the horizon, like a plague of Old testament proportion there is, most definitely a storm. In my poet’s mind it is coming from Shrewsbury: a storm that will test our mettle and go a long way to sorting stuff out. For example; do we have the necessary cojones to get over the Bradford fiasco? Will we still be in with any chance of automatic promotion when the dust settles?

But it won’t be actual dust. It will be hail!

I eat, saddle up mentally and drive beneath glowering skies – no precipitation yet – to my usual parking nest. My parking is clumsy – I am, let’s face it, more famous for abandoning cars than parking them. One wheel is on the kerb, three not. But I am not blocking anyone’s access – and I should be in good shape to make a speedy get away.

From here it is a fifteen minute walk to the entrance of the savoy Lounge (if that). I am just three minutes into that walk when the very heavens open. Lightning crackles and thunder rolls long and hard across the skies. There is a plane on final approach to Birmingham International. Bet they got a good view of that one!

But most of the downfall is not simple rain. It is hail – coming down in bullets! That over-tall privet hedge provides some shelter, but I skip and cringe across the car park – a good few visitors from Shrewsbury, all sheltering in the lee of the stadium (what there is of it), some smoking.

All of us nervous. A lot to play for this evening!

I catch up with the day’s news on the big screen in the Lounge. Read that the Hillsborough Inquiry jury has come up with a landslide number of verdicts around the main one of “unlawful killing.” Damning!

 

Then I notice Cully, Andy and Jack. I am still thinking of the Hillsborough disaster, the stories in the media at the time, the wonderful long, long, proud fight put up by the families against massive institutions (press, police and general public perceptions in the days when to be a football fan was to some degree to be an enemy of society).

We do discuss the findings; in no doubt that there were mistakes made, but unsure where this will lead. That ordinary coppers were as sickened as we were, then and now and tried to help but were held back obeying orders. Mostly we are disgusted that this didn’t all come out in the police investigations carried by our very own West Midlands Police Force. That this was, almost certainly covered up*.

But talk soon turns, as it must to this game; to the Bank Holiday Monday mid day kick off, by which time Burton Albion will have played against Gillingham – and we’ll have a better idea of what we need to get done. And our final scheduled game of the season at Port Vale (I have my ticket already!) This is also a mid-day ish kick off.

Then we creep out to take our seats. There is still hail on the pitch, filling up little depressions in the playing surface – and cold!

Kick off and we escape a couple of times; poor back passes. And we go on the attack. This is a side of attacking players, but still we spend an awful lot of time in our own half. Sawyers is back on form. He is out on the left wing, picks out Kieron Morris running through the middle, a couple of strides and he pulls the trigger on a shot across the keeper. Goal!

Relief!

We need a few more, so set about it, but Shrewsbury manager makes a tactical substitution that closes up the defence.

But not enough to stop a long run from Rico Henry going on and on and on. Past defender after defender. Eventually he tries a shot which is deflected off one defender, then comes back off another and beats the Swiss goalie who flaps at it.

Second half kicks off and Shrewsbury with absolutely nothing to lose but face step up and drive us back. Just one point would keep them in this league; they just need to get one goal back to be in it again.

Inevitably (this is Bescot after all and we are definitely not Bradford!) they get the goal.

But final result is a two one win. Enough to get the points. To prove the point that we are psychologically strong enough. Our problem is not of spirit, but simply the inability to make the most of our fluid play. In short, dammit we cannot score gaols. Yet we are in a great position and there is till a chance!

Bring on the Cod Army!

 

• What follows is a reasonable summary taken from Wikipedia. Needless to say there are so many, many more harrowing details; including attempted demonization of loyal football supporters and the anguish of loved ones. My respect goes to all of the people involved, not all of them seeking justice survived to see today’s momentous rulings.

The Hillsborough disaster was a human crush that caused the deaths of 96 people and injured 766 others at a football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, England, on 15 April 1989. The match was the 1988–89 FA Cup semi-final, with Hillsborough, home ground of Sheffield Wednesday, selected as a neutral venue. The crush occurred in pens in the Leppings Lane stand, allocated to Liverpool fans. Steel fencing between the spectators and the playing field prevented victims from escaping the overcrowded western stand. At the time, such fencing was commonly used in English football stadiums to prevent friendly and hostile pitch invasions. The interim report in the 1989–90 official inquiry into the disaster by Lord Taylor concluded that “the main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control.”^[1] In 2016, a new inquiry returned a verdict that the victims were unlawfully killed as a result of an inadequate response by emergency services.^[2]

Entry to the Leppings Lane stand was possible only via one of seven turnstiles, a restriction that led to dangerous overcrowding outside the ground before kick-off. In an attempt to ease pressure outside the ground, Police Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, the senior police officer responsible for policing the match, ordered an exit gate to be opened. The opened exit gate led to a tunnel marked “Standing”, which led directly to the two already overcrowded enclosures. In previous years the tunnel had been closed off by police when the two central pens were full; however, on this occasion the tunnel was unmanned. The findings of the final report resulted in the elimination of standing terraces at all major football stadiums in England, Wales and Scotland. It remains the worst stadium-related disaster in the history of English sport, and one of the world’s worst football disasters.

“Eleven Hours Since …”: Bradford at Home.

Sunday, 29th November, home.

Some of the terrorists blamed for the Paris murders were living in a part of the Belgian capital, Brussels. The Belgian police and anti-terrorist organisations have been searching the area and, allegedly the ring leader was identified and killed.

Great Britain finally made it through to a Davis Cup final. This was being held in Ghent, not far from Brussels. The last time Britain won a Davis Cup final was in 1936 and the present team has done brilliantly to reach this set of games. In Andy Murray we have one of the world’s leading players; but he will be stretched having to play in the doubles game (with his older brother Jamie) and in the singles game on the final day. To be played with the threat of a terrorist incident says something about the spirit of tennis – and a lot about the spirit of the Belgians. Le the tennis do the talking!*

Meanwhile, after a successful morning shopping in Lichfield (and a seriously decent full English breakfast at the dam Fine café) I am saddling up and heading, past the arboretum, for Bescot Stadium. Listening to BBC Radio WM, who happen to mention that the Bradford (today’s opponents, goalkeeper” has not conceded a goal for eleven hours.” That is impressive, but I am trying to work out how many actual games that is:

• A game is an hour and a half, so three hours is two games and six hours is…

But decide for safety’s sake to concentrate on driving instead. And anyway it isn’t like they played Walsall in the last eleven hours is it As we are approaching Christmas this is also the nominated game for fans to take new toys in as donations for Walsall Manor Hospital Children’s Ward? Apparently the club is also collecting the Thomas Project, part of the Black Country Food bank – or to drop change into the collecting buckets for the same cause.

On a good run and, properly, fancying their chances today, Bradford have brought a good crowd: I count three coaches and five mini buses and the away end (the inappropriately named Wolverhampton and annoyingly named University stand) is full. Full and noisy. Bring on the teams:

“… and the pride of the Midlands: the mighty Saddlers!”

It is straight into a fine, fast and passionate game of football. Pleased to see Lalkovic and Morris back in the team. Lalkovic is in his element, head down and running, step-overs and jinks at the defence. Rico Henry too, is pushing up. Bradford have a pack of big players; including six foot four James Hanson, who is something of a throwback to the head days of target men: strong and attempting to intimidate … possibly quite capable of doing so too. But O’Connor and Downing seem to have the second ball covered, with Adam Chambers popping up where needed – as usual.

We fall into a discussion of how effective, in the “modern game” (by which, I assume  we are talking about current fashions) a single big bruiser can be. It’s not working while we are talking about, but we quickly remind ourselves this opinion may best be shelved until the end of the match, because …

And, anyway how do football tactics evolve anyway. The dreaded “catennacio” system from 1960s Italy; the sweeper, the “wingless wonders” that won the F.I.F.A. World Cup for England and Alf Ramsey in 1966. Each had its day … and something new came in. Maybe we are due for a return to the big man up front, the lay-offs…

Today we seem to be playing a loose, 3 – 5 – 3 system.

Lalkovic gets his head down one more time, unleashes a shot that Tom Bradshaw steals from the toe of the big defender and slides it accurately past the goalkeeper.

“Eleven hours and fourteen minutes …” I whisper to the BBC commentary team, but doubt if they are listening. Third goal in three games for Super Tom.

We are all over the bantams until half time, but good defending and poor shooting means we are only a fragile one goal up, despite all our efforts.

They are helped by some weird refereeing decisions and rough house and time wasting tactics. Poor sportsmanship, in the real sense of the word.

From the off they go hard at it, once the second half kicks off. Under pressure, Neil Etheridge pulls of some amazingly agile saves, low and accurate headers, reflex actions. I am already considering him as man of the match, then with a fantastic volley, they draw level. Their fans go crazy. They have had the lion’s share of the play, seem dominant.

But this is a Walsall team that work for each other. They knuckle down, get the rhythm back and go forwards again an again. Now we have Sawyers putting long balls through the middle, changing the routes. Both teams used the wide channels in the first half. This is different, confuses Bradford.

Almost instinctively Lalkovic is bursting through. Onto a long ball from Sawyers. He takes one touch to take it past the defender and another … to score.

That settles it.

Bradford steam and huff and puff, but we  hold on. Job done.

I have my ticket for the game at Shrewsbury in my pocket and arrangements are made (I just have to try and get rid of the “allotment smells” from my car..

Elsewhere Leicester’s Jamie Vardy sets a new Premiership record, scoring a goal in eleven consecutive games. This one against Man United as Leicester, second in their league hold on to a 1 – 1 draw.

*It does; with both players determined and becoming exhausted there is a final rally and Murray stretches every sinew to get to a ball and lob it perfectly over and beyond Goffin, his opponent. He falls to the clay in disbelief – and possibly relief. History is made. But then, truly sporting credit is given to all the players on both teams as well as their coaches and behind the scenes people.