A Night At Blower Fold

Do you see what I did there by cleverly combining the name of Stalybridge Celtic's ground and the fact it was very windy? I'll readily admit that it isn't the greatest pun there's ever been but it's the only attempt at humour you're going to get in this little piece.

You see it's because I'm still bored: monumentally so after watching our aforementioned neighbours take on Alfreton Town in a Blue Square North game last night.

The 3 - 1 scoreline in the home sides favour might suggest that an exciting game took place but believe me when I tell you it didn't. What it was in fact was a one sided game were that one side didn't really have to do much. Bridge took the lead not long after kick-off through Steve Torpey after a mazy dribble took him through some spectacularly slack defending, and just before half-time they added second when Ashley Wynn hit a nice volley from just inside the Alfreton box.

The second half was similar with Torpey adding a supremely well taken third almost immediately after the restart (lobbing the town keeper from a good 45 yards out) while the visitors wrapped up the scoring with not much of the match left to play.

In between not a lot else happened. Alfreton looked like a side going through the motions, which is no real surprise considering their manager tried to walk out on them a couple of weeks ago to join Bradford Park Avenue, and Stalybridge's attempts at running up a cricket score were continually being hampered by a strike force performing that old music hall act of trying (and failing) to hit a cow's bum with a banjo.

Celtic even gave Alfreton a chance three quarters of the way through by replacing half of their forward line with someone who wasn't much better and sticking former Clitheroe full-back Simon Garner in the centre of what was their dominant midfield. I've actually never seen him play in central midfield before and, to be fair, I didn't seem him play there last night either. And unless his role was to keep giving the ball away I don't think anyone will see him play there again either.

I'm sure that if I was a Blues fan I'd have found the game to better than it actually was but as a neutral, it was a match that left you looking at your watch in the hope that it was finishing soon. Or at least it would have if it wasn't too cold to keep taking my gloves off and rolling up my sleeve.

So to boil things down:

Entrance fee - extortionate.
Match - mostly dull with the occasional highlight.
Stalybridge Celtic - OK.
Stalybridge Celtic midfield - very, very good.
Alfreton - poor.
Are you sure - yep, 'felt sorry for their small band of travelling supporters' poor.
Officials - contrary to the Celtic fan sitting in front of us in a continual state of apoplexy, they were good.
Steward clearing footballs off the roof of the stand in gale force winds during the interval - absolutely mad!