AWAY DAYS

(An Early Start For Droylsden)

It’s great isn’t it that hundreds of teams have to reschedule their fixtures to accommodate one game, surely it would be better to play the England game at 7.30? Those that didn’t reschedule, Lancaster and Stafford suffered their lowest gates of the season and generally gates were down for those having to kick off early or play on the Friday night.

What a game it was though!

I have to admit that I took a dislike to Droylsden last season with their antics at both the home game, remember the histrionics of the player who was sent off, and very definitely the away game. To see the manager/chairman/groundsman and whatever else he is making two fingered gestures towards the Southport fans last season when they scored a late winner was very unnecessary.

The usual warm greeting was on hand on entering the ground with one of the heavies on the clubhouse door eyeing us with suspicion, I only had a Southport shirt and scarf no bottles, bricks or flares!

At 12.55 there could only have been 50 people in the ground and virtually every one a Southport fan. By 1.05 there looked like 250 of which 150 were travelling supporters. The gate was given as 347 which looked very generous.

It cost what is the norm now £8 to get in and the programme was very good value at £1 with plenty of reading material. The pitch was very bumpy.

The first half was a bit slow but I felt we were the better side and to be 1-0 down at half time was a bit unlucky.

To say the lads came out fired up in the second half was an understatement and you just felt a goal would come. After 30 more minutes of spoiling, time wasting tactics by Droylsden I started to think it wasn’t going to be our day. Enter the super sub. I was quite amazed at the reaction to the substitution by some of our fans who let it be known they weren’t too happy, perhaps they could go to all our games as it certainly fired everyone up. It was an inspired substitution indeed, well done Liam. What a free kick it was and it was our first goal from outside the box this season. It looked like a 1-1 draw would be it but Leady again tormented the full back who crudely brought him down but escaped a booking. I thought for a minute the referee wasn’t going to give the most blatant of penalties you could see but thankfully the linesman put his flag across his chest and Mr Supercool stroked it away. More excellent work by Leady created a third coolly finished by Steve Daly who had worked tirelessly all game and fully deserved his goal.

There was a further twist in the game when Droylsden were awarded a penalty a few seconds from the end of the 3 added minutes but Dicko made a superb save to ensure we had no late jitters.

The fans celebrated the victory long and loud, a victory that was best described by a fan on the way out as “sweet”

As for the streaker (who else thought he looked like Brett Harris), I have never seen my wife get her camera out as quickly in all her life but why she had to take so many shots I just don’t understand. What you have to ask is why would someone want to do a streak in front of 250 people, oops sorry, 347, when 65,000 were just down the road at Old Trafford.

A great game, certainly my top one so far this season and to be honest I wasn’t that bothered about the England match by the time I got home, just in time for the second half, the euphoria of our win was enough for me to live on for a few hours.