Harriers 0 Burton Albion 1
Date: 30-12-05
Venue: Aggborough
att: 1749
away fans: 160
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Dreadful, dreadful rubbish
In two days time the transfer window opens once more and with a bit of luck some unsuspecting club, preferably Hereford, can sign every one of our squad. After that tripe tonight it's obvious they don't want to play for us, the shirt or Martin O'Connor anymore and they are now all surplus to requirements.
We had high hopes of getting something from this game after some dedicated fans gave up their time to clear away water from the surface of the pitch earlier today rather than seeing the game called off. Our heroes re-paid them by serving up a lethargic display of football that can only be worthy of a place in the Conference North.
There was very little for the Harriers supporter to get excited about in a first half littered with poor passing, balls hoofed over the stands and a midfield that hadn't got any fresh ideas to get us back into the game. The referee and his assistants weren't helping much either by giving every petty decision Burton's way.
Andy Ducros, a former Harrier, looked quite useful for Albion and he seemed to have shaken off that debilitating viral condition that he had during his time at Aggborough. No, he didn't look lazy anymore.
Another player for them that stood out was Keith Gilroy. Then again he would look good considering the amount of space and freedom he was being given by Patrick Flynn.
Considering that we were playing crap we did at least get the ball in the net just before half time with what looked like a perfectly good goal. Christie was dawdling back as usual as the Burton keeper took a goal kick. The ball struck Christie's back and Christie turned quickly to slot it past the dumbfounded keeper.
Why the ref dis-allowed it was a mystery. Christie didn't stop Deeney taking the kick, that was his choice, and he couldn't be blamed if the kick was so bad that it hit him on the back. For the ref to penalise Christie and award Burton a free kick was ludicrous.
Also ridiculous was the faffing about when the corner flag broke and the ref just stood watching his flagman and Gilroy messing about for, what must have been at least, three minutes without adding on any extra stoppage time at the end of the first period.
HT: 0 - 0
The second half was an even worse spectacle for the fans. If MO'C had said anything in the dressing room about the inept first half display it must have been totally forgotten by the time they re-took the field.
Daniel Lewis turned in his worst performance for us since taking over from John Danby and made error after error in his handling of the ball and his wayward goal kicks. Usually as solid as a rock he looked very poor tonight and Danby must be hopeful of a re-call to the side if that form continues into the next game.
The ultimate error came on sixty five minutes when Johnny Mullins passed the ball to him on the edge of the area. Lewis let the ball skim off his foot across the goal, tried to catch up with it and pushed it out to the waiting Gilroy who sent the ball into the net for one of the more freaky goals of recent times.
The gaffer made a few changes after that by bringing on first Simon Heslop for Russ Penn and then soon after replaced Lee Thompson with Taiwo Atieno for what could be his last appearance for us now that his six month loan spell from Walsall is up tomorrow.
Nothing changed. We were still poor and apart from a definite penalty claim turned down we offered nothing at all to try and rescue at least a point.
We're stuck with the majority of this lot and with no prospect of any new people coming in during the transfer window and with Atieno, Christie and Jackson all possibly leaving there seems no improvement in sight for us.
A happy 2006 to us all.
FT: 0 - 1
Can I think about this?
