AWAY DAYS

A PERSONAL VIEW OF RECENT GAMES

Unbelievable, that was my first thought as I left Haig Ave, nearly a month ago, following our last home game, the defeat by Spennymoor. Firstly I thought it was a highly entertaining game and whilst the result was disappointing the constant criticism of some fans got too much for me. I know we pay our money we can say what we want is what we all say but is the destructive nature of some elements of the crowd on and off the field doing the club any good? I was as frustrated as anyone but the barracking of certain players was not on.  I suffered the wrath of Mrs Urwin for telling one moron to stop *bleep bleep* moaning and support the team but surely that is what we all should be doing, not having a go.  Shouldn’t we all be getting behind the manager and players to show our SUPPORT in the proper way. Remember the away match at BPA, the players responded well to the encouragement we showed that day, maybe that’s what we should be doing more of? Rant Over.

The Spennymoor keeper (was it really Peter Kay?) certainly made one or two of us eat our words at the end of the match. For someone of such bulk he certainly had a stormer and whilst some of his time wasting was disappointing his display between the sticks left a few of us suggesting Dicko should get a few Holland’s Pies down his neck!

It was then off to Harrogate, another new ground (number 124) for me. We had planned an early start but as the egg chasers World Cup Final was on TV and England were in it we decided to watch that first. I’m not a rugby fan particularly (I can’t understand any game were the crowd go into raptures when a player boots the ball into touch), but England in any World Cup Final is good enough for me and what a game. Any win against the Aussies is good but to do it that way was just brilliant. You almost felt sorry for the Aussies?? You must be joking!

As we had a quick wander around Harrogate we saw a group of lads throwing a rugby ball around and imitating the Jonny Wilkinson way of kicking which showed just how the whole thing had captured everyone’s imagination.

As for Harrogate, it saw Carl Baker and Alex Mortimer given their league debuts to become player number 503 and 504 respectively. It was our 55^th league game without a goalless draw. It gave Harrogate their highest league attendance of the season with another healthy away following.  At least other clubs seem to welcome us, the “From The Boardroom” article said “ Southport’s large travelling support will, we hope provide us with our biggest League attendance so far this season” It was the fifth game of the season that had an attendance ending 01 (useless fact number 42 this season) The ground was quite small and it was £7 to get in. The pitch was sloping and heavily rutted. I thought that James Turley who scored two of the goals for Harrogate was the best Unibond player I have seen this season, simply awesome! The programme at £1.50 was great value and contained a lot of good articles.  You can tell I’m doing everything but write about the match.  I left a worried man for two reasons, firstly the worry that we are going to finish outside the top 13 and suffer what in effect would be our second successive relegation, the other that I started taking photo’s of sunsets halfway through the second half!

Next up was a respite from the league with another trip to Altrincham in the FA Trophy. We had played at Alty twice before in the Trophy winning 2-0 in the season we went on to Wembley and drawing 1-1 with a very late Robert Pell goal before going on to win on penalties so our 100% record was on the line….Sadly, a bad dose of “man flu” put paid to me attending this game. I was keen to go but having read that it could possibly be segregated and the weather forecast was dreadful, the last thing I needed was a soaking so no trip for me. Second match missed this season, both 1-0 defeats, and a disappointing result put paid to a trip to Villa Park for another year. Let’s hope by the time Wembley is rebuilt we will be back winning Trophy games. Who wants Villa Park when you’ve had Wembley?! Useless fact number 43 is that we have now played 81 FA Trophy games, the same as the number of FA Cup Ties we have played as a Non-League club. Now I bet you needed to know that!

The attendance of 711 was the second highest of the round bettered only by Weymouth’s 876 v Ashford.  

Our next away game is on Boxing Day at Marine, lets ALL get behind the team for this one and take as big a following as we did to Burscough and SUPPORT the team from the terraces and show the Mariners, who are bound to be up for this game that we do know how to get behind OUR TEAM. Just for once, let the critics be silenced and everyone show solidarity in support. It’s a game I want to win more than any other as I am friendly with Marine’s secretary and there are some Mariners fans in my office who think we are the biggest bunch of whingers on “Merseyside” and who take great delight in seeing “the premier non league club in Merseyside” lose! So please Liam, just for me! Thank-you.