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STANDING ORDER FOR GOALDEN LOTTERY
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AWAY DAY TO CRAWLEY After a few weeks of home games and easy to get to away matches it was back to the long trips again with a 6.30am alarm call ready for the trip to Crawley. A lovely 520 mile round trip ahead and 10 hours in the car. We actually had a very pleasant journey down in glorious sunshine all the way. Hearing the reports of rain and hail back in Southport for most of the morning made it all the better, we never saw a drop of rain all day. It was a fairly easy run M6, M1, M25, M23 and you are there in 5 hours. We arrived at the ground at 1.15 pursued into the car park by the owner of Crawley Town in his bright orange Lamborghini and he certainly wasn't observing the appropriate speed limits. Not being a car person it meant nothing to me but I was reliably informed it was a very expensive model. A quick visit to the Club Shop and Mark was in his element as there were a number of programmes for sale from our last Football League season which he was missing so he had a field day buying them up. We had a quick walk to try and find somewhere for lunch but couldn't so it was the delights of football ground catering for us instead. It was a very impressive stadium and ground number 146 for me, the gate of 2055 was made up of, at a rough count 67, Sandgrounders boosted by the usual Southern Exiles. As soon as they announced the gate I knew we were doomed, over 2000 and a Southport win don't go together. The last league win we had in a gate of over 2000 was at Yeovil in the 2000/01 season. Our full NL record in 2000 plus gates now reads Won 12 Drawn 18 Lost 43. Entry was £11 with an average programme costing £2. I managed to get a few photos of the ground before the light faded but not much in the way of Southport action as quite honestly there wasn't that much to write home about. It was not segregated so we were able to change ends at the start of the first half and on walking round I couldn't believe the number of young kids there were walking the other way, there were hundreds of them! The least said about the first half the better, what a shocker, take the Altrincham game and double it. There was a lot of frustration from the travelling faithful and a few lively debates ensued. I couldn't fully see why Chris Lane was sent off, it was at the far end of the pitch, and there are differing views depending on your view of Chris himself. It was disappointing though and whatever happened, he should have known better, the crowd were baying for every foul to be shown a yellow card and a very weak referee duly obliged the home crowd. The Crawley players were going down faster than Sunderland. (edited from my comment at the game-sorry daughter) To end up with 5 yellows and a red was a touch excessive. I had to laugh mid way through the second half when a Crawley player did a pass back to the keeper which he picked up. The referee wasn't even watching the game and responded to the calls from the Southport fans by waving his arms about deliriously. I think though he then realised there were some Southport fans in the ground and we managed to get a couple of free kicks our way! Having said that we deserved what we got, nothing. The second half was a bit better but we only had a couple of half chances and the header from Lynchy that hit the bar was more of a pull back than an attempt on goal. David Brooks came on in the 3rd minute of added time to replace Matty McGinn who suffered an odd looking injury in that no-one knew what had happened. David becomes our 523rd player, it counts even though it was only for a matter of seconds. The one thing that gives me faith is the battling and effort that the players showed throughout but will it be enough? It made for a very long journey back up North but at least we stuck to route and were back at Haig Ave for 9.45 after a quick stop en route. Coming in, tired and fed up and reading the crap that people who hadn't been to the game had posted on Port Chat is not the best thing to do and got the blood boiling a bit but I should know better than to read it in the first place! I fear the worst at Woking on Tuesday in the cup replay, they will be smarting after a 4-0 drubbing, it will be interesting to see how we respond. |
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