The late decision to travel to Celtic's Conference North Play-off Final against Barrow was rewarded by the lack of traffic on the motorways; a rare instance that resulted in a leisurely 90 minute drive to Burton's Pirelli Stadium.
As new grounds go Burton Albion's might not be the biggest or the best in the country but, pitch apart, it's a great place to watch football. Even though it is almost twice as expensive at £7m, it shows up the Tameside Stadium to be the missed opportunity that it is.
The ease in finding a parking space half an hour before kick-off suggested that the game wasn't to be the sell out some had hoped for and so it proved to be. Of course the decision for a 7:30pm kick-off on a Friday night in South Derbyshire didn't go anyway towards helping to boost the gate but there certainly looked a tad more than the official total of 2,500. While not being anywhere near as well supported as Barrow, the lack of numbers from Stalybridge was also quite surprising.
As for the game itself it wasn't a classic. Aided and abetted by some terribly wayward defending and some notable no shows in terms of performance from their opponents, Barrow did the bare minimum necessary to win the game but they did it well. It was only in the last 20 minutes of the match when a goal down that Stalybridge decided to make a proper fist of the game - hitting the post and having a nailed on penalty turned down by the referee but it was too little too late.
In fact this probably made things worse for the Stalybridge fans in attendance as it showed them what might have been had the team expanded their twenty minute cameo to cover the course of the ninety.
The weirdest thing is though that despite being stood in Stalybridge end, knee deep in black and orange balloons, I remained entirely nonplussed with the events unfolding around me. Usually my neutrality at games not involving Mossley eventually gives way to me preferring one side over the other but for the second time in a week this wasn't the case.
I've been trying to think of the reason as to why I remained completely ambivalent to the events unfolding around but any conclusion so far remains elusive. On the one hand, if Mossley can't have any success then I don't want a club in a neighbouring town to have any either. It's selfish I know but it's football - why labour under the pretence that local rivalry is a charade and we all want each other to go on to bigger and better things?
On the other though I didn't really want Barrow to win either, purely as payback for foisting Neil Briscoe and other reserve team no-hopers on us last season. Well that and self-preservation: the last thing you should do when surrounded by a few hundred football supporters from one club is cheer on the side they're playing.
Anyhow, like I said, the best team on the night won and the solitary goal they scored to do that is included in the video footage below. So commiserate with Stalybridge or take great delight in their defeat - the choice is yours:
Despite having just won promotion to the Conference, more than a few Barrow fans decided a more pressing concern than celebrating with their team was to get as close to the opposing fans as possible and goad them (and with a fair number of Celtic fans attempting to get on the pitch to "discuss" it with them), it seemed a good a time as any to say farewell to live football for the season and start the countdown for the arrival of the first friendly.
Two and bit months if you're interested...
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