Lincoln Moorlands Railway 1 - 1 Mossley

To go or not to go: that is the question that now arises for me in regards to the replay that resulted from Mossley’s recent excursion to Lincolnshire in the FA Cup.

The hesitancy in deciding whether or not to lumber Seel Park with my presence for the re-match stems on this occasion though from a sense of selflessness rather than the other reasons which has seen me miss or come close to not attending games since April.

You see, I think that I may be some kind of a jinx. I’ve seen five of the six home games Mossley have played so far this season and witnessed them win only once. And even in that solitary (and slightly fortuitous) victory against Garforth, the performances on the pitch have left something to be desired; there has been very little to be effusive about. However, in that one home match I didn’t attend not only did Mossley win (an FA Cup match too), they did so by a margin of more than one goal and put in what was apparently a good performance to boot.

So you can see my quandary. Do I go and run the risk of putting the kiss of death on proceedings or do I stay at home for the greater good? Decisions, decisions, decisons.

It’s a choice I wouldn’t be forced to make though if Mossley could put away their chances as the report on the Lincoln game, along with numerous comments elsewhere, suggests that it was the latest instalment of the Lilywhites ‘Cow’s Bum and Banjo’ show. On the plus side (and it’s a major plus) we didn’t lose and we appeared to have at least made our opponents keeper work up a bit of a sweat – something I sadly haven’t seen at Seel Park on anything other than warm days this season.

Should we win the replay (and that’s nowhere close to being a foregone conclusion by any stretch of the imagination – it is Mossley we’re talking about after all) we’ll be welcoming Darlington to Seel Park for the 4th Qualifying Round; a team who it’s fair to say haven’t had the best of times recently.

We’ve played Darlington once before and that was in the First Round Proper of the same competition 27 long, long, “good grief do I feel old” years ago when we lost a five goal thriller to the Quakers at Feethams. That is to say they scored five goals and were rather thrilled about it.

And such is the weird way that peculiar coincidences are thrown up, after not playing Darlington for almost three decades we’ll be facing them twice in the space of five days should Lincoln allow us to overcome them; three times if the fixture goes to a replay because the youth team are due to take on the Yorkshire side’s youngsters in the FA Youth Cup on the following Wednesday.

Alas, it all depends on which Mossley turns up for the replay on Tuesday against Lincoln: the ‘good’ Mossley or the ‘bad’ Mossley. The only thing we know for certain is that with our current lights it’s going to be hard to tell.