Bradford (P.A.) 4 - 1 Mossley

What an interesting night last Friday turned out to be.

And now that I've finally managed to thaw out, I can tell you about it.

Howling winds, sub-zero temperatures, near decapitation by a garden bin lid that had blown over the Horsfall Stadium's perimeter fence, snow, heavy snow and then a blizzard. All before the piece de resistance: being held up on the motorway for fifteen minutes at Hartshead services by a trailer that had shed its load of (and I kid you not) hot tubs over two lanes.

Oh yes, and in the middle of it all was a practice match for Bradford Park Avenue in front of the smallest 400+ crowd you've ever seen.

Not the greatest photo in the world (certainly not as good as this one by Smiffy) but it does give you a small indication of what the weather was like as the game neared its end

Good Friday turned out to be anything but for Mossley as their latest trip to Bradford ended like their first at the beginning of the month - with a three goal margin of defeat. And not for the first time this season I find myself having to write that it could have been a whole lot worse.

Getting any kind of positive result against promotion chasing Avenue was always going to be a tough task for Mossley but it was one made all the more difficult in the 15th minute when Michael Fish was shown a straight red card for an extremely rash challenge near the halfway line.

It was definitely a case of from 'hero to villain' for the Mossley number seven as he had given his side a shock lead in the fourth minute of the match. Despite the chilling, gale force winds blowing across the pitch, Danny Ryan delivered a perfectly weighted free-kick from the left into the Bradford box that Fish stooped to head home past a surprisingly static goalkeeper.

Michael Fish puts Mossley in front and gives the small band of travelling supporters two minutes worth of bragging rights over their hosts:


The advantage was to last barely two minutes though before Tristram Whitman drew the hosts level and from that point it was the home side that controlled the remainder of the game. Especially after the visitors had had their numbers reduced.

Ashley Connor produced a series of fine saves to keep the Lilywhites in the match, including one tremendous point blank stop to deny Gedman, but just when it looked like the visitors might make it to half-time without conceding another goal Bradford put themselves in front. And once again it Whitman that did the damage.

Picking up Gedman's intelligent flick on, the Bradford forward evaded the challenge of Mossley's last man Leon Henry and from the corner of the box he looped the ball over Connor and into the net.

The visitors feint to near non-existent hopes of rescuing the game were extinguished immediately after the interval. After failing three times to deal with a corner, Gedman bundled the ball over the line and when Williams added a fourth in the 67th minute from a free-kick, the only question remaining was not if Bradford would win but by how many.

A first for Mossley80 – video of an opponents goal. Normally I wouldn't upload it but because its a) a good one and b) I have little else to break up the text with, here it is:


Thankfully for Mossley one of the few bright spots for the Lancashire side on a dismal evening was that Bradford's fourth turned out to be their last, though they did go close numerous times to making the score line a more embarrassing one. And when the few flakes of snow that were falling at the start of the second period turned into a blizzard with ten minutes of the match left, the tie was effectively over as a game of football.

The phrase 'practice match' that I used somewhere near the beginning is probably a bit unfair but despite going ahead very early on, Mossley never really looked like they'd take anything from the game. The sending off didn't help us one bit (and it was a sending off) but its hard to argue that the scoreline would have been any different had Fish not received his marching orders. Even in the time between us going ahead and the red card it was one way traffic.

One thing for certain is that there wasn't the 'galvanising effect' that you often see with teams that have a player dismissed while playing us – where it somehow becomes harder to beat 10 men than 11. There were some good performances, some not so good and some looked lost ploughing a lone furrow with little support.

Unless you can keep the opposition out you need to score goals to win points and finding the back of the net is something Mossley rarely looked like doing. Once again the 'ten men' caveat can be used but if it wasn't for a very long range effort in the second half by Danny Ryan that bounced into the Bradford keeper's hands, Mossley's shots to goals ratio would have been 1:1.

The end result for Mossley is not only another defeat (their twentieth in the league in this campaign) but the fourteenth in which they've lost by conceding three or more goals.


With a final position in mid-table now looking somewhat ambitious, it's important that Mossley start to string a sequence of positive results together if they're not to end the season on the dampest of squibs.

And if Jesus could rise from the dead in three days, I'm sure that Mossley can manage it in four in order to get back to winning (or even drawing) ways Rossendale at Seel Park on Bank Holiday Monday.