Mossley 0 - 0 Prescot Cables

In football you win some and you lose some. Matches where you don’t do either tend to be draws and the fixture against Prescot Cables was one of those occasions.

Now I’ll happily admit that the above paragraph is hardly the most scintillating opening to a match report ever written (and somewhat redundant given that the heading is also the score line) but its use to describe what was hardly the most scintillating of football matches seems somehow appropriate.

There’s an old saying that goes along the line of you can tell how good something is by how quickly time seems to fly – tempus fugit when you’re having fun - but the first half last Saturday it felt like it was going backwards.

A brief moment of excitement. Last Saturday.

It seems churlish to complain about the lack of ‘excitement’ after having half a lifetime’s (or rather halving a lifetime’s) worth in the final ten minutes at Leek the previous Saturday, but once again it was another home match where there was very little happening on the pitch for the crowd to get behind., especially in the opening period.

The travelling Cables supporters were marginally better served for the first forty-five minutes with the visitors continually pouncing on every misplaced pass Mossley made (of which there were many), only to be let down by some ridiculously bad finishing.

A real tableau of despair. It’s heads in hands time for the visitors as Price, with only Trueman to beat, gets cocky and tries to knock the ball in with the outside of his left foot; a decision that’s not particularly clever one when you’re stood almost at right angles to the target!

Though Mossley were struggling to make any sort of mark on the game they almost snatched the lead twice in the closing stages of the half. First of all David Eyres went close to punishing Prescot keeper McMahon’s poor up field clearance by looping the ball just the wrong side of the post from thirty-five yards. Then with virtually the last kick before the interval McMahon redeemed himself for his earlier error by saving a close range effort from Joe Shaw.

Label me as “not a proper supporter” if you want but for the majority of that first forty five minutes I felt a certain detachment from proceedings. Other than the two late chances there was little on display that drew you into the game and if you didn’t know better it would have looked for all the world like it was a friendly or mid-table end of season match. Thankfully things improved enough in the second half to give the vocal cords a bit of a work out.

Prescot Cables bid to make the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest number of gilt edged chances screwed wide for a goal kick continues unabated.

You’ve all probably seen a film or TV programme where due to the accidental use of some mystical maguffin, a curse or, if it’s Star Trek, an anomaly, the characters personalities swap bodies with dramatic and/or hilarious consequences. And whilst watching these events play out you’ve know doubt commented on how preposterous and nonsensical it all is but apparently it really does happen. Goodness knows what artefact was rubbed or magical incantation uttered during the fifteen minute break but the teams that emerged for the restart certainly weren’t the ones that left the pitch at a quarter to four.

The second half was a complete reversal. Suddenly Mossley were the side in the ascendancy, constantly pressing forward and creating chances whilst Prescot were struggling to string two passes together. Unfortunately the ‘swap’ didn’t end there as the Lilywhites displayed exactly the same acumen in front of goal that their guests had shown in the first half whilst Prescot twice went close to wrapping up the points in the final moments of the game.

At this point I should go in to detail about Melford Knight’s disallowed goal, Danny Trueman’s low save from Karl Connolly and the ex-Wrexham man’s last minute free-kick which flew narrowly wide but I think that sums everything up well enough.

Gooooaaaaa… oh, no it isn’t.

I’m sure that there are some people who’d have gladly accepted a point if it was offered to them before a ball was kicked. However the reality is that it’s another game where an attainable three points has once again slipped between our fingers through our inability to play for ninety minutes or unduly worry the opposition keeper outside of dead ball situations. Whilst not dragging us out of the mire we currently find ourselves in, the solitary point won does at least chip a little bit more away from the gap between us and Kendal even if it has allowed Leek to claw back the gap we opened up last week.


However the most pressing concern has got to be where our next goal is going to come from. With the expected departure of Peter Wright and Alex Taylor with us for only two more games at the very least it looks like a huge and unfair burden is about to be dropped onto the shoulders of Steve Burke. He’s going to need some help and I’m sure that I’m not the only supporter who’s keeping their fingers and toes crossed that a goal scorer or two will be making their debuts in a white shirt before too long.

Still, it was good to see that no matter how much has changed in the four years since we last met, it was the Prescot Cables that we know and love – the one that has the innate ability to make every tackle they lose out fairly in seem like they're a victim of the most horrendous foul ever committed on a football pitch. Honestly, there are people having their genitals wired up to the mains in Guantanamo Bay who make less noise than a Cables player who’s just had the ball stolen off his toe.


Anyway, focus now turns towards next Saturday’s visit of Radcliffe Borough where a home win will see us leapfrog our North Manchester rivals. All in all it should be a more edge of the seat encounter than this one.