A disappointment in terms of the result, as we had more than enough chances to be out of sight by half time, but there was some good football on show - apart from the finishing - at times. Two of the most blatant penalties you'll ever see were the main talking points before Stanley, bolstered by some Land Of The Giants subs, nicked their winner.
A train delay meant a change of plans at Leeds and a train full of Blackpool-bound pleasure seekers, meaning I arrived a whole eleven English minutes later than my original arrival time. To be honest, after Tuesday's complete failure - thanks to a broken car and a lack of trains - it was a relief to arrive at all. It was my seventh visit in four years, but the first to town itself - where I discovered that Eric Morecambe had worked in the pit beneath Accrington. M. Woof, farrier, had parked his van near the Canine Club, where the chief topic of conversation was a carrier bag of broken biscuits, and blokes drank pints of mixed. A reet bargain, apparently, from't Food Warehouse. Not as much of a reet bargain as £2.10 a pint, though, which I enjoyed as a 50p bar of Old Jamaica chocolate (two for a pound) was auctioned and achieved 65p.
A swift one in the Castle, where George Formby was the artist of choice on the jukebox, was followed by a visit to the Wham's hospitality suite, Coley's - which was enormous and simply fab. Proper ale, loads of room, friendly locals..what's not to like? If only bigger clubs than Accy (nee offence intended) had the same attitude.
Loads of "alreet marra" exchanges were exchanged as an Accy fan showed me our starting eleven - which I reckon wasn't far off our first choice eleven. After a quick chat with Peter Reid, wearing that dead smart checky blue suit, I took my seat in front of the press "box'. Canny - I could listen to Barnesy's commentary as well as watch the action. Formation and personnel mucking about over with, and in our natty new away kit, we kicked off and attacked the end to my left, away from the potentially wet end.
Patterson
Gooch Wright Ballard Cirkin
Evans (c) Neil
Roberts Pritchard Clarke
Stewart
Patto's shirt was far too similar to Accy for my liking, meaning that I got caught shouting at the wrong player for a while. With Neil spraying some nice passes about, it seemed only a matter of time before we opened the scoring. It looked like we would with ten gone when Stewart galloped through, but he slotted it wide of the goal.
Ten minutes later, Ballard burst out of defence and went on a bit of a Benno run before engineering a one -two, but rolled his effort just the wrong side of the post. Five minutes after that, Roberts fired over the top and we began to wonder if it was to be one of those days. It was a bad miss, and it did turn out to be one of those days.
As half time, and Accy's cavernous bar, approached, Clarke was chopped down/ upended for possibly the most blatant penalty since I shot Wilf Smurtwaite with an air rifle at Snod's Edge. LND duly popped it away and we breathed a sigh of relief.
There were no changes for us for the second half, and it started at a far more sedate pace than the first. We still managed to create chances, but we still managed not to convert them. Pritch had a trademark free kick saved, and both Clarke and Roberts were guilty of missing the target. Just after the hour, Wright dallied on the ball and was dispossessed, so he simply hoofed their bloke ("Trialist", a massive feller) up in the air and they converted the penalty. O9 replaced Gooch twenty minutes in, and ten minutes after that Embo replaced Clarke - but he'd barely had time to get on the pitch before we failed to clear our lines and Adedoyin (7 feet 2 inches) poked the loose ball in. Damn.
It nearly got worse soon after, but Patto did well to get down and save as Accy grew in confidence and pushed us back. We did go close when Embo tried his luck, but Jensen in the home goal was down on it pretty comfortably.
Game over, and a disappointing defeat that once again emphasised our need for another out and out forward to give Stewart a hand. Wheels in motion, Mr Speakman? I hope so.
Man of the Match? Probably Pritchard, as he probed the home defence (oo-err, missus) and generally looked the business. PS 1,050 of the 1,772 in attendance were ours. Well done.
