I arrived at the ground in a state of shock having been told that the IPA I had ordered in Spencers (now Head of Steam) was £6 ! £6 - a - pint, for IPA, in Spencers ! My bafflement was further compounded by the team news - Bellusic back, no suprise but neither Cooper nor Bamba out, was he to play in midfield? No we had 4 centre halves across the back with Taylor doing a Byram. In this state of fugue it was obvious that I would soon be seeing Varney leaping like a salmon and powering a header into the net right in front of me. Luckily it was offside and apart from a good headed pass later on Varney was not to prove a torn in our side. Ipswich started well and we didn't but they did not look very good and their mistake quota was high as they misplaced passes and got it wrong a number of times in a poor first half. We did not do much either but did seem, once again, to be denied a definite penalty when Sharp was pushed over in the box. So the first half came and went - with Millwall losing and Wigan bound to lose at Norwich (sic) a point would be OK in the great scheme of things. The second half was a bit better as we had more control of it with Taylor impressing and Byram more to the fore. Byram got involved in a few tussles with their number 3, on one occasion losing and winning the ball in an individual battle 3 or 4 times. The opening goal came from this private battle as their defender fouled Byram on the corner of the box - 'dont shoot ffs' said my mate as we watched Mowatt bend it round the wall and into the corner of the net! 1 up and just about deserved.My mate did mutter something about us scoring too early and that we would lose 1 2 'Just keep the ball a bit' was the accepted wisdom on the terraces but the players had forgotten how to do that and did not touch the ball between the goal and the equaliser. Earlier on Silvestri had made a top class save and brought comments from those near me as to what a find he has been and what a great shot stopper. The fans curse, since he decided on this occasion to let a soft shot squirm under his body. Think Sprake in 1970 - not a bad comparison both for the shot and non save but also for how bad the pitch seemed to be getting. My mates half joke 2 1 to them suddenly looked on. We are made of a bit sterner stuff nowadays and we woke up and went at them again. A run by Cooke, a nice cut back and Sharp did what he does best - he turned and put it in the net, good finish. Surely that was game over? No in move,following Silvestris error, that had us saying 'betting scandal' Bamba went in to a challenge just inside the box in the corner, with both his hands raised and then complained when the ref gave a penalty when he touched the ball with one of them. Silvestri (or the post or both) however redeemed himself and the penalty was missed. We sent on Morrison for Sharp, presumably to help us keep the ball a bit more and we did indeed manage to run the clock down and get 3 more points that is edging us ever closer to safety.Dave _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email leedslist-unsubscr...@gn.apc.org
John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER
