An Unwanted Hat-trick

What better to way to spend a night when the temperatures are near zero than to stand outside on an exposed piece of land and pay £6 for the trouble of doing so?

Desperate for a game of football I, and a few other like minded Mossley fans, made our way to the Tameside Stadium in the hope of seeing an entertaining game between the blue half of Ashton and Harrogate Railway. And we got 50% of what we wanted - a game.


There's no question that Curzon deserved their win but they currently look a shadow of the side that was conquering all before them earlier in the season. The absence of Michael Norton may well have contributed to last night's stuttering performance and, in doing so, strengthened the beliefs of those who feel that they're almost a one man team. Whole I don't subscribe to that point of view you can't help but notice the huge hole that's left in the team when he's not playing.

Harrogate were not unlike us (Mossley) in that everything fell apart in the final third of the pitch, and barring one shot from distance the Curzon keeper had one of those 'easy money' nights.

Like I said though Curzon won, with a solitary second half goal, which is good news for Mossley as it stops Railway from putting further distance between themselves and us. If only they could have done it in a more entertaining manner.

Yes, it was another boreathon and the third in the space of seven days for a small group of Mossley supporters after the Stalybridge match last Tuesday and the one at the weekend - a very unwanted hat-trick.. How boring? Well a considerable amount of time during the first half was spent discussing the Wakefield match (naturally), the food outlets on Ashton Moss, Spain, Lord Byron, renaissance art and why no-one appears to sit at one end of Curzon's main stand, to name but a small selection of the topics touched upon.

Why does nobody ever seem to sit in the far right block of the main stand?

In fact the best part of the night was the choice of music being played over the P.A. system before the match and at half-time. Having obviously put a 'one-hit wonders' CD in the machine, the crowd was treated to rarely heard delights such as Dee-Lite, Nena, Toni Basil, Chesney Hawkes, Charles & Eddy and Toto Coelo. Yes, I can honestly say that you haven't watched non-league football until you've seen a team go through their pre-match warm-up routine with puzzled looks on their faces as "I eat cannibals" blares out around the ground.

And while I'm on the subject, if anybody from Curzon is reading this please turn down the volume of your speaker system.

It's that loud (painfully so at times) that even if you shout at the top of your voice, you can't hold a conversation with the person stood next to you. Stood opposite the tunnel you can actually feel the vibrations of the sound as it echos off the back of the stand. It's genuinely unpleasant.

All said and done though, the evening's venture was still better than sitting in a near vegetative state at home watching mind-numbing Monday night television. Just...