Droylsden 2 - 1 Mossley

I have to start this report with a confession.

Being the pessimist that I am I went into this game fearing the worst. Not just that we'd lose but lose badly. No, strike that, I thought we'd get annihilated; that Woodbine Willie would be passing round the Lilywhites changing room before they came out on to the pitch.

My reasoning seemed sound. Not only were we facing a team from two divisions above us, and one that had narrowly missed out on a Conference North play-off, we were doing so after, the Rossendale match apart, what had been a poor run of results.

It was a feeling that intensified upon arrival at Boundary Park (the increasingly dilapidated home of Oldham Athletic) and we saw that we weren't just reduced to the bare bones in terms of squad size for the match, but that we were down to the marrow.

Like the fans at Oldham Athletic, the stands are disappearing too.

Ideally for a match, let alone a cup final, any manager would like a large, fit squad to choose his starting eleven from. However, the result of having to cram over half a season's worth of games into the final two months of it meant that injuries, suspensions and ineligibilities had taken their toll, leaving Chris Wilcock with just 13 players to select from - with one of those being his long since retired self. And if only to compound the problems, there were a significant number of that baker's dozen carrying injuries too.

Now can you see why I expected us to be rolled over.

We weren't though. Far from it. In fact if anything it was something a moral victory for the Lilywhites as even though they lost, the side ravaged by all manner of circumstances took the outcome of the match against an expensively assembled side on the fringes of the Conference to the very final whistle.

In the end the only real difference between the two sides was a ten minute spell immediately after the interval. Mossley's season long problems of defending corners and slow starts to second periods combined to haunt them again as Mike Byron rose unmarked on the edge of the six yard box to open the scoring and put the Bloods in front.

James Mann was then called on to make a string of high quality saves as the Blue Square North side built up a head of steam. He was beaten again though a few minutes later with a shot that even keepers playing at an international level would have failed to stop - a ferocious strike from twenty five yards by Neil Sorvel that doubled Droylsden's lead.

It all seemed incredibly harsh on a Mossley side that had gone off at the break having not only matched Droylsden but also having arguably been the better of the two sides as well.

In terms of chances created Mossley were certainly ahead on points. While maybe not enjoying quite as much possession as Droylsden were, the Lilywhites were proving far more effective at turning what they had of it into efforts on goal.

They also found the back of it with the games first shot in anger in the 4th minute. Unfortunately for them though Lee Blackshaw's ball behind the Droylsden defence had found Danny Egan and his celebrations were cut short by the assistant referee's raised flag.

Next to try his luck was Blackshaw himself who fired over the crossbar from the edge of the box while Reece Kelly hit it with an in-swinging corner. Daryl Weston and Chris Hirst tested Craig mawson on more than one occasion and Byron did well to scoop the ball over his own goal to Egan from getting on the end Ben Richardson's cross.

The Bloods on the other hand, while stringing some nice moves together, were struggling to break down the Mossley defence. Only once did they come close to scoring and it took a good save from Mann to stop Matthew Tipton from doing so.

But then came that spell at the start of the second period and just when it looked as though the floodgates were beginning to open, Mossley simply rolled up their metaphorical socks and began to take the game to their opponents once more.

For all the pressure they were exerting though Mawson was having an easy time of it in the Droylsden goal but that changed when Brown's ridiculously inept attempt at mopping up a Mossley attack saw him spoon the ball over his own keeper's head and into the net from the edge of the box. Another moment of quality brought to the masses by the Blue Square Conference North.

As well as halving the arrears the goal gave Mossley another boost and suddenly Mawson was having to do more than mop up the occasional back pass. Michael Fish went close on three occasions to levelling the game, Kelly fired over and Blackshaw found the keepers arms with a low drive.

As the game moved towards to time added on it looked as though Mossley had snatched what would have been a dramatic, yet deserved, late equaliser. Lee Blackshaw's free-kick was met on the back post by Ben Richardson who steered the ball past Mawsonwith his head and into the net. For the second time in the match though the jubilations both on and off the pitch were brought to an abrupt halt by a raised flag.

It turned out to be Mossley's last hurrah too as Droylsden wound the game down and reclaimed the trophy they last won in 2007.


Continuing with the theme of admission, writing this report has felt a lot like fighting a losing battle because no matter how much I type or how long it has taken me, I could never do justice to the efforts of the players and supporters of Mossley AFC during this game.

Okay, looking back on it in the cold light of day it probably wasn't the greatest match there's ever been. It was entertaining though which is all you can ever ask for in a cup final. And the two don't go hand in hand a lot these days.

In fact it was the only thing stopping the night from being the most intense feeling of deja vu I've ever experienced. That was because the last time Mossley reached the final stage of the Manchester Premier Cup it was against Droylsden, at Boundary Park, the pitch was bad, it finished 2-1 to the Bloods and Mossley's goal came courtesy of the boot of an opponent. The only difference nine years on was that the match wasn't akin to having someone rip out your finger nails while being serenaded by Chris De Burgh.

But back to this game and the players and supporters because even though we lost it didn't feel like a defeat. At least not from my position in the stand it didn't anyway. There wasn't the sense of gloom I normally feel when I've watched us lose a more meaningful than usual game but one of absolute and total pride. Yes, pride.

A pride that comes through having watched your side give their absolute all in attempt to win the match, to the point where they're visibly out on their feet. A pride that comes through standing shoulder to shoulder with supporters doing likewise on the sidelines, refusing to let their increasingly sore throats stop them from giving their side that extra push that may have made the difference.

It's the abiding memory I shall take from this game anyway. The commitment, the atmosphere (kudos to the fans of the “club behind the pub” for their part in it), the whole kit and kaboodle really. From the moment the PA announcer welcomed the supporters of 'Drossley' to the game, right through to the echoes of “Come on Mossley” reverberating around Boundary Park as the teams left the field for the final time...

It was an honour and a privilege to have been there shoulder to shoulder with you.

Rossendale United 0 - 3 Mossley

I don't think that with my limited writing skills that I could do justice to this game, as incident packed as it was.

The first half especially which was only a pitch invasion by pandas on pogos away from having almost everything you could want from a football match. Great football, good goals, iffy decisions, penalty saves, angry substitutes, sunny weather, spots of rain and wasps.

Therefore I’m not going to even begin to try and give a run down of everything that happened. Not only is life too short for such a thing, if I did an accurate account of proceedings it’s likely you’d still be reading this report an hour from now and wondering if the final full stop was ever going to come.

Besides, the season’s nearly over and after close to fifty reports I’m feeling de-mob happy and just want to get the last few out of the way as quickly as possible.

My unusually jovial mood is also helped by the fact that after what has been a poor last few weeks, Mossley ensured that they ended the league season on a high note by completing it in the manner in which had begun – by picking up three points in central Lancashire.

The match couldn't have got off to a better start for the Lilywhites either with all three goals coming in the opening eight minutes. In fact it was barely sixty seconds old when the first arrived. Lee Blackshaw beat team mate Mattie Kay at the back post to Reece Kelly's deep cross and fired Mossley in front from close range.

Goal number two arrived five minutes and a host of missed chances later when Danny Egan was given time and space by the home defence to bring Leon Henry's through ball under control and pick his spot; curling an inch perfect effort around Proctor in the United goal.

The Stag's were a fingertip save by James Mann away from halving the deficit in the eighth minute but less than twenty seconds passed before the mountain they had to climb to rescue the game grew even bigger. Mossley broke quickly up field and though Egan hit the post with a shot from the edge of the box, Nathan Neequaye was on hand to tap home the rebound.

Both Mossley and Rossendale had good claims for penalties for hand ball in the first half. This is ours and the only person not to see it unfortunately was the referee. Thankfully though he missed an equally obvious one at the other end of the pitch.

To be truthful a six or seven goal lead by the midway point of the half wouldn't have flattered the visitors, such was their dominance of proceedings. Even so, on any other day the third goal would have effectively ended the game as a contest but with Rossendale needing a win to avoid relegation they began to throw men forward in an effort to salvage their season. And in throwing caution to the wind they began to cause the visitors some problems.

None more so than when Phil Eastwood was sent crashing to the ground as he attempted to take the ball past the Mossley keeper. It wasn't so much a trip or a pull but what they term in American Football as a 'sacking' - one player taken clean out.

To the surprise of many, not least the Rossendale players and supporters, only a yellow card was shown for the offence and not the expected red. The home contingent then had their noses rubbed in the perceived injustice by Mann not only saving the resulting spot kick from Ellis, but pulling off a string of good saves too that enabled his side to enter the break with their three goal lead intact.

Rossendale appear to have a zero tolerance approach to missing penalties too as Ellis was hauled off at the first available opportunity; a decision he took in good grace by smashing one of the Perspex side panels to the dugout - something that’s far more difficult to do than scoring from twelve yards out.

James Mann stops Ellis's spot-kick and the Dale management ready the subs boards.

Despite there being no further additions to the score line, the second half was no less entertaining than the first. With scores elsewhere condemning Rossendale to life in the North West Counties League unless they could overturn Mossley's lead, and the visitors looking to exploit the gaps their opponents were now leaving in defence, chances came and went in a near frenzy of attacking, end to end football.

Both sides did manage to find the net on at least one occasion but the ‘goals’ were chalked off for offside and, in Mossley’s case, a reason that shall remain unbeknownst to all but the referee.

As the final whistle neared though and the spectre of impending demotion loomed large over them, the wind began to fall from United's sails and it was only some poor finishing that stopped Mossley from racking up the score line they'd threatened to reach in the opening moments of the match.

So what did we learn from this match? Well, firstly, that after a few weeks of bad to indifferent Mossley turning out for matches, the good version is still around – the one we spent the first few weeks of the season being mightily impressed with. If it’s this incarnation of the Lilywhites that turns up at Boundary Park on Wednesday night, the Manchester Premier Cup final against Droylsden might not be the foregone conclusion many were expecting.

Fnally, we can end the league season safe in the knowledge that, despite all the criticism it gets, Seel Park isn’t the worst playing surface in this division. However, now Rossendale have been sent down to reacquaint themselves with the delights of the Atherton slopes and Abbey Hey by night, it’s likely to be a title we’re fighting Chorley tooth and claw with for next season.

And that’s that for what has been quite an eventful Unibond First Division North 2008-09 campaign. Well done to Mossley for securing a top ten finish and commiserations to Rossendale for cementing a twenty first placed finish at the death.

Anyway, off to Boundary Park we go...

Durham City 6 - 1 Mossley

Like an unremovable scuff mark on a skirting board this match is one that's probably best glossed over.

Mossley's initial visit to Durham in December was brought to a halt just before half-time when, with the Lilywhites a mere four goals ahead of their previously unbeaten hosts, the referee decided that the icy conditions he'd allowed the match to start in was a danger.

With Mossley fielding a much changed team for this re-match the likelihood of a similar state of affairs existing just before the interval was always going to remote and so it proved.

My non-attendance of this game means there's going to be no actual match report. If you crave one then I recommend you follow this link.

What I can do is condense however is bring you a snapshot of what happened thanks to the accounts of some of those who did go. So, in brief: Despite it being level at one apiece with the break in the game approaching, Mossley were looking the better of the two sides on show. At least that was the case until Durham edged themselves ahead just before the half-time whistle, at which point things started to go down hill in a rapid and calamitous fashion.

Two quickly became three, then four, five and six as the Mossley keeper apparently had a forty five minute spell of the whoopsies - a condition that causes euphoria in opposing and neutral fans and eye rolling amongst the followers of the infected victim.

While leaving Mossley with another 6-1 defeat to their name this season, and their third loss by five goals, it also means that they go in to the last game of the season on a run of just one point from a possible fifteen; a situation that's going to delight Rossendale who need a win to be certain of avoiding relegation.

On the cheery and positive side though Dark Lane has been a relatively good place for us to visit over the course of the last fourteen years - just one defeat in nine visits. Hopefully by this time tomorrow it will be one in ten.

Mossley 1 - 2 Wakefield

The final home game of the season should be something approaching a last hurrah - an opportunity to send the supporters into a football free summer with a happy memory to bide them over till it all begins again in August.

It should but sadly you also get games like this where you hope upon hope that it doesn't put people off coming back again for good. Crowds are low enough as it is at this level of the game without providing potential supporters with a reason to find something else to do on match days in case they should ever witness another game quite as bad as this again.

Actually it wasn't that bad if you were following the fortunes of the away side, but for those who turned up hoping to see the hosts put in nothing more than a decent performance, never mind claim all three points, it was the latest addition to the recent list of wasted afternoons.

Prior to kick-off it had been six years since Mossley had last won their final home game of a season. And throughout the course of this ninety minutes against Wakefield it was a statistic that never looked like changing to anything other than seven.

The corresponding fixture of the 2007/08 campaign - a goal less draw which, coincidentally, was also against Wakefield - was possibly one of the most boring games witnessed at the Lilywhites home ground for many a year. Twelve months on and this game looked like surpassing it in terms of tedium until a goal out of the blue put the visitors ahead in the 36th minute.

Not for the first time in the match a Wakefield attack looked to have run into a dead end but a ferocious effort from Adam Jones, stood well over thirty yards from goal, proved unstoppable as it swerved through the air towards the back of the net.

The crossbar and a subsequent goal line clearance prevented the Yorkshiremen from doubling their lead early in the second period but such was the scarcity of chances Mossley were creating that the one goal from Jones looked like being more than enough.

That was until a goal just after the hour mark, as equally unexpected as Wakefield's opener, pulled the Lilywhites level. Michael Fish blocked an attempted clearance on the edge of the Wakefield penalty area and the ball looped into the path of the inrushing Mattie Kay, who hammered a low shot past Andy Woods on the half-volley.

Over the following few minutes Mossley had their best spell of the game but other than a Danny Egan header that dropped onto the roof of the net, they couldn't turn the pressure into anything significant and the momentum quickly fizzled out.

Just as many were expecting the game to end in a draw however Wakefield produced a second goal out of nothing to edge them back in front. Again it was another howitzer of a shot from distance that did the damage but on this occasion it was Paul Dempsey who launched the ball beyond the reach of Mossley keeper James Mann.

The response from the Lilywhites to going behind was at a point somewhere between negligible and non-existent. There was little in the way of fight to try and salvage something from the game and as a consequence the match petered out into something akin to a lazy kick around in the park; Wakefield playing out the final fifteen minutes of the game with a comfort normally associated with sides who were three or four goals in front, not one.

For the n^th time too many lately no-one associated with Mossley can have any complaints about the result – the side that looked the vaguely more interested, and played the teensy bit better, won.

What’s particularly galling though is that a little under three weeks ago we not only beat Wakefield on their own ground, but we did so convincingly with a scratch side that had been reduced to ten men for over half the allotted ninety minutes.

I know we’ve been up and down lately performance wise but that surely counts as going from one extreme to another. A mini-downward spiral that can be summed up by the fact that for the second home match running the half-time game involving Mossley Juniors under sevens and eights was the football highlight of the afternoon.

Having now taken just one point from the last possible twelve the Lilywhites will hopefully experience an upturn in fortunes and performances in their final two league games in order to end the season on something of a positive note. And in doing so give us a glimmer of hope in the game against what’s now likely to be a full strength Droylsden side in the Manchester Premier Cup.

I could go on but an unwillingness to let my heart overrule my head type something I may regret at a future date means that this review is going to end here (see, boring defeats do have an upside). I hope amongst hope though that there's something I can be positive about in the final week and a bit of the season that’s left.

Newcastle Blue Star 1 - 1 Mossley

Last week I ended the report for the Colwyn Bay game by stating that Mossley modus operandi is to confound expectations. And, lo and behold, if the team don't go and prove just that in the following six days.

After the poor result and performance in the Bank Holiday game at Radcliffe Borough (there's no use pussy footing around – they were), Mossley go to promotion chasing, and big spending, Newcastle Blue Star two days later and come away with a deserved point that could, as reports have suggested, have easily been three.

What reports you say? Well I couldn't make it to the game but one of the few supporters to make the trip up to the North East was TrimmTrab and he's allowed me to reprint his posting on the forum about the match here:

Anyway, the team put on a great performance tonight. We were very very good value for our 1-0 lead and then had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside(?) and typical of our season's luck they went down the other end and equalised.

In the second half, although they hit the bar, I felt we always looked dangerous and had chances to hit them on the break. We could and indeed should have taken all three points. Chris (Wilcock, the manager) came on for the last five minutes.

Reece Kelly never stopped tackling all night, Alex was alert to everything and Hirsty had another excellent game. No one really had a bad game so all in all a good night's work.

All I can add to the above is that the Lilywhites goal was scored by Nathan Neequaye.

The point gathered is one more than many were expecting so it's safe to declare that this was a 'good result'.

Whether it's the start of an improved run of form that will take us into the Manchester Premier Cup final with a bit of confidence remains to be seen, but as always with Mossley it's going to be quite the bumpy journey finding out.

The Green (And Easy Posting) Way

We're constantly being told that we must recycle more.

So with the season nearing an end and almost a telephone directory's worth of people having worn a Lilywhite (or orange) shirt during the course of it, it's in the spirit of making new with old that Mossley80 goes back to a posting made two years ago:

Who says history isn't cyclical?

Radcliffe Borough 1 - 0 Mossley

First we’ll start with the good news.

The win/lose sequence of results has finally come to an end.

The bad news is that in a typical ‘trust Mossley’ fashion they brought that run to a conclusion not with two victories, or even a draw, but two defeats. And while there may really be no other kind, two poor ones at that.

For the third year running the extended Easter weekend of fixtures turned out to be a pointless one for the Lilywhites as the defeat three days earlier to Colwyn Bay was trailed with another, this time to Radcliffe Borough at Stainton Park.

It was a weekend Mossley keeper James Mann will quickly want to forget too as he followed up his error in the Good Friday game which had allowed Bay to take an early lead, with another that was to ultimately hand the home side all three points.

It's an overused cliché at this time of year but there's no other way to describe the match than labelling it a typically dour end of season encounter. The first half was an eminently forgettable affair that Radcliffe probably just about shaded by virtue of getting a couple of shots within ten yards of their intended target.

As you have probably gathered this was not a game for the purists. Come to think if it, or anyone with a passing interest in the noble sport of association football.

The early stages of the second period did nothing to dissuade anyone from the opinion that the match was heading to a wearisome stalemate until a fumble from allowed Borough to edge in front.

It came in the 62nd minute when the keeper failed to hold on to an innocuous looking shot from distance and in doing so spilt into the path of Thomas Brooks; the Radcliffe substitute gleefully sliding the ball into an open net with practically his first touch of the match.

Five minutes later Mossley produced their first shot in anger that was also on target, Chris Hirst forcing a good save out of Phil Priestley with a blistering drive, but apart from a header by Mattie Kay that dropped wide of the post three minutes from time, that was all they could muster in response to the strike from Brooks.

As the game neared its thrilling climax, Alex Mortimer received two yellow cards for dissent within the space of thirty seconds, and with the dismissal went what little there was left of the Lilywhites rapidly diminishing chances of forcing an equaliser.

With four games of the league season left, the end cannot come soon enough for a Mossley side that is looking incredibly weary and slowly starting to crumble on the pitch. Nevertheless, with a cup final against Droylsden to come it’s to be hoped that they do manage to regain a bit of form or the upcoming 90 minutes at Boundary Park could be the longest and bleakest Mossley have seen for quite a while.

I’m not going to lay into Mann for his error as like refereeing, goalkeeping is a thankless task. While an outfield player can get away a series of errors during a game, the person in the number one shirt only has to make one and the game can be lost.

It was though somehow fitting that such a goal settled this game. A good one would have just made a mockery of the ninety minutes that surrounded it.

There’s an argument that a draw would have been a fairer result but there are equally valid ones for both Mossley and Radcliffe deserving the win, although the one for the latter I’ve got to say is significantly more convincing than the one for the former.

I could go on but a) I would only repeating for the most part what I wrote three days ago and b) you’re already bored aren’t you?

Thought so.

Mossley 1 - 3 Colwyn Bay

According to the 1959 film version of Ben Hur, the death of Jesus on the cross was accompanied by a great storm that, amongst many other things, cleansed lepers sheltering in the vicinity of Calvary of their debilitating disease.

Unfortunately the heavy and torrential rain that swept across Seel Park this Good Friday didn't have the same healing qualities and, as a consequence, couldn't stop Mossley from falling apart in grim fashion. That's right, I've started the report with a gag about leprosy - another world first for football and Mossley80.

I say grim but if you were a Colwyn Bay fan or a neutral it was absolutely hilarious as Comic Relief came to Mossley four Friday's too late.

The adage goes that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it and it's a lesson that, not for the first time, Mossley learnt to their cost.

On their way to a 6 – 1 win in the corresponding fixture between the two sides on the North Wales coast back in January, Colwyn Bay had raced into a three goal lead within the first twenty five minutes of the match through a combination of good attacking football and some hysterically awful defending by the visitors; the latter only surpassed in the following half by goals conceded through moments of slapstick even Buster Keaton could never have dreamt up.

The location and weather might have been different but two and a half months on it was exactly the same story.

The only difference was that the match was only five minutes old when the wackiness began. To use some baseball terminology, keeper James Mann took a “swing and and a miss” at Nick Boothby's back pass which allowed Rob Hopley the chance to help the ball over a slowly submerging goal line to give Bay the lead.

Mann more than atoned for his lapse by pulling off a string of good saves to keep Mossley in the game but he could do little to stop the Seagulls from doubling their lead. A slip on the halfway line by Simon Wood gifted the ball to Eddie Jebb who, after making his way unchallenged to the edge of the box, played a sweeping pass across the penalty area that ran perfectly into the path of Hopley who finished clinically from eight yards out.

The third goal arrived a minute later when Tim Brandreth, probably Bay's most dangerous threat at set-pieces, was allowed to head home a corner a completely unmarked (like it is for Manchester City, defending corners appears to be a concept alien to us) and in doing so effectively won the game with just under three quarters of it still left to play.

That's not to say that Mossley didn't have chances of their own in the first forty five minutes. Things might have been different had efforts from Lee Blackshaw and Michael Fish, which sandwiched Hopley's opening goal, not been headed wide of the uprights; opportunities which at the very least should have forced Bay keeper Chris Sanna to sweat to little.


With the contest, bar the the laughing, pointing and eye-rolling, effectively over the second half was for the most part nothing more than a clock watching exercise for all involved.

A series of substitutions eventually saw Mossley regain a bit of fighting spirit and after Leon Henry had shot narrowly over the angle of post and crossbar, a forceful run from another of the replacements was rewarded when Ben Richardson's long range shot took a deflection off a Bay defender that looped it over the under worked Sanna and into the net.

The foundations for a dramatic late comeback however weren't built on and the Lilywhites penultimate home fixture of the season, like far too many since the start of 2009, ended in a demoralising and deserved defeat.


What amazes me though is some Mossley supporters refusal to trust what they're seeing with their own eyes. According to some, because Colwyn Bay went three up with a heavy and generous helping hand from ourselves, they weren't very good. If they weren't very good whereabouts on the scale does that place us?

Yes, we were complicit in our own downfall but Colwyn Bay made mistakes as well - the difference was that they punished us for ours, we let them breathe a sigh of relief. And for all their 'luck' in building up an unassailable lead, there was a certain amount of it that stopped us from being more than only three goals down by the midway stage of the first half when it could have been a whole lot worse.

League tables don't lie, especially at this stage of the season, and in lying third in it Colwyn Bay must be a good side. They're a team we should be aspiring to emulate – not dismissing as fortune riding chancers. And now that's out of my system, onto other rants...

A common phrase uttered on the terraces as the match progressed was “I don't mind losing but...” and it's a but which I've mentioned often on this blog. I realise we have injuries, suspensions, we're building for next season, etc. but it doesn't make performances like this acceptable. Notice I said performances and not results.

Losing is part and parcel of football but they're palatable if you can leave the ground thinking 'at least we gave it a go'. That didn't happen after this game which is what makes the afternoon, if it's possible, all the more disappointing.

If I wanted to keep the religious metaphors going I could say that, in keeping with this particular time of the year, hopefully Mossley will hopefully rise again in a few days time when we face Radcliffe Borough.

I could but I won't as did exactly the same thing twelve months ago in the report for our Good Friday defeat at Bradford Park Avenue and as the few regular readers of this blog will know, I already repeat myself far too often.

Plus we didn't so much rise from the dead back then but start putrefying in a 3-1 defeat at home to Rossendale United on the Bank Holiday Monday.

Still, if our win-lose series of results is going to continue for the foreseeable future we should be leaving Stainton Park in a few days reasonably happy. And I am fully aware that last sentence come back to haunt me.

In all honesty I didn't expect us to win this game. I did think however that we wouldn't have made it quite as easy and as humorous as we did for Colwyn Bay but that's Mossley for you in a nutshell: confounding expectations since 1903.

Mossley 3 - 2 Woodley Sports

On the basis that Mossley's recent sequence of results has alternated between winning and losing, the defeat in the previous game at Garforth should have meant that this would be a welcome victory for the mid-table Lilywhites.

And that's precisely what happened as Mossley kept that up and down run going with a narrow win over local rivals Woodley Sports.

Only five minutes had elapsed when Danny Egan's harrying forced Ben Connett into making an error, a hurried attempt at clearing his lines succeeding only in directing the ball straight to the feet of Nathan Neequaye. From 25 yards out the Mossley forward calmly teed the ball up before striking it low past the keeper to give his side the lead.

Disappointingly it also turned out to be Mossley's last shot of the half. In fact the Lilywhites can consider themselves to have been quite fortunate to have reached the interval with that lead still intact.

As Mossley's passing grew increasingly wild and haphazard the longer the opening period went on, Woodley began to enjoy more and more possession and with it came a long succession of chances. Fortunately most of them were hit directly, and tamely, at Mann but Gavin Salmon and Tom Sellars should have both done better than to drag identical shots wide of the post when in very good positions.

The only real stop James Mann was forced into making was from his opposite number Connett. A wind assisted drop kick looked to have beaten him when a huge bounce took it over his head and towards an empty goal. Some furious back-pedalling and a fingertip save at full-stretch however was enough to divert the ball onto the crossbar from where it bounced to safety.

Happily from a Mossley perspective the second half was a much more even and less one sided affair in terms of goalscoring opportunities, but that still couldn't stop their opponents from drawing level. The best move of the match up to that point, a string of five passes that opened up the Lilywhites defence, ended with Sam Walker controlling the ball with one touch before launching an unstoppable volley from the edge of the area past Mann.

Not to be outdone Mossley then produced a passage play that was more than equal to the build-up for Woodley's goal. The only difference was that the fizzing and acrobatic shot at the end of it from Michael Fish was palmed away by the keeper. Unfortunately for him it wasn't to safety and after picking up the loose ball Reece Kelly played an intelligent and simple pass across the six yard box to fellow substitute Leon Henry who fired Mossley back in front.

The win looked to have been sealed when Lee Blackshaw added a third goal from an acute angle late on in the game after keeping his nerve in a one-on-one with Connett. Mossley don't do things the easy way though and the four minutes of added on time at the end of the match were given a nervous edge when Sam Madeley pulled a goal back for the visitors.

However that fifth goal of the night also turned out to be the final one, ensuring that Mossley claimed the three points on offer as well as ensuring that their form guide continued to read LWLWLW– a pattern they'll desperately be hoping to break against Colwyn Bay.

Will they though? It's a question that I doubt men more learned in all matters football would be able to answer with any conviction.

As well as the results, our performances within matches themselves now seem to cycle through a series of peaks and troughs. And speaking as a lowly terrace dweller, it is hair tearing.

The continual chopping and changing of the starting line-up certainly isn't helping matters, but hopefully, as the we near the Manchester Premier Cup final in three weeks time, those pendulum like swings between admiration and frustration will stay stop and we'll experience more of the former with fewer changes and a more settled side.

As for this game it was a good performance from the Lilywhites. Eventually.

Even though we took the lead early on we were second best for a considerable percentage of the first half. Woodley were the better side but thankfully they were able to introduce the home crowd to a new experience – being genuinely delighted to see Gavin Salmon miss good chances at Seel Park. It certainly made up for those days a few seasons ago when we really did rue them.

I say home crowd but there wasn't really much of one to speak of. With the empty terraces it was like watching a game at Lambeth Grove and it's that which may be the reason for Woodley's “all but score” performance in the first forty five minutes.

There was a huge improvement from us after the break though and with it came the two goals that were just enough for us to win the game. Which when you weigh everything up is all that matters.

So to finish, three points and five goals (none of them too shabby either) adds up to not being a bad ninety minutes work at all. Hopefully there'll be few more too in the seven remaining games.

Thataway In Derbyshire

In case anyone is remotely interested and hasn't seen it elsewhere, posted below are links footage of Glossop's semi-final Vase win over Chalfont St Peters.

At the very least it may spark some moments of nostalgia about what it's like to reach a Wembley final. Of course that only applies to the Mossley supporters reading this and not any Stalybridge, Hyde, Droylsden or Curzon fans*.

Goals in normal and extra-time
Decisive penalties

It's interesting to note that while the local council, through "safety concerns", wanted to impose a limit of 800 people on Seel Park for the match with the Bury lodgers last season, Glossop's not quite so modern home was deemed perfectly okay for 1600 people. And, judging by the video, with no visible stewarding at all.

What a wonderful and contradictory world it is.

* I've left Ashton United out because, well because we quite like them.

Why Officials Should Always Wear Black

In a country where corruption, criminal gangs and football are regular bedfellows, officiating Romanian third division matches can be scary and at times it will show.

Or maybe it was just something he ate...


I don't know about you but I think the dash for the toilet should have happened a bit sooner.

Full credit to him though for waiting until there was a break in play before skedaddling off to deal with his pant splatter .

Garforth Town 3 - 1 Mossley

The hot and cold sequence of results and performances currently being “enjoyed” by Mossley continued at Garforth with another one from the blue topped tap.

Two goal within the first eight minutes basically did all the damage and though we pulled one back from the penalty spot through Clive M&M, reports from those who went say the home side were never really in any danger of having their lead pegged back.

As you may have guessed from the last paragraph, I wasn't at this game. I could have been but I just couldn't be bothered.

I could have jumped on the train and gone but with money not exactly being plentiful at the moment, coupled with not wanting to give what little of it there is to Simon Clifford's ego promotion fund, it was an easy decision to get in some practise for the coming months of football free Saturdays.

There was the idea of filling the football free hours by doing a bit planning for something I've had in mind for a while, but I made the mistake of turning on the TV and, well, that time soon went; gobbled up by episodes of Psych, The Wire and The Inbetweeners.

So if you want a proper report on the game I suggest you click on the following link to Mossleyweb. Barring some exceptional circumstances, normal service will be resumed on here for the Woodley game in midweek.

Finally, congratulations to Glossop North End on reaching the final of the FA Vase in the most tense and nerve shredding way possible. That said, a 122nd minute equaliser and winning the subsequent penalty shoot out is probably the best and most memorable way of doing it.

Curzon Ashton 1 - 0 Durham City

It's amazing how often things that initially seem like good ideas generally aren't. New Coke, the last three Only Fools and Horses specials and my decision to attend the Curzon – Durham game are just some of the examples that bare this out.

On the face of it, a meeting between the Unibond First Division North league leaders and one of the form teams in search of a play-off spot had all the makings of being a great game. In reality it was anything but.

To give you some idea of just how faraway it was from reaching the heights I thought it may attain, I got into the match for free and still felt ripped off!


A dull first half was briefly enlivened by Curzon hitting the crossbar as it drew to a close, but the one highlight of the opening period was Gary Lowe being sent to the stand from touchline; the Curzon manager discovering to his cost just what happens when a referee with a bit of bottle turns up at the Tameside Stadium and refuses to tolerate his usual touchline theatrics.

Shortly after the restart, and out of the blue, Curzon took the lead and with Durham offering nothing at all as an attacking threat it was practically game over. A situation which meant that what time there was left passed interminably. Never before has half an hour felt so much like five years. Apart, of course, from the last time I saw a full episode of My Family.

The match summed up in one picture.

The most interesting thing about the night though was the praise poured out over the p.a. system prior to the match on 'Curzon Youth'; a gang of around fifty kids aged between 11-15 who outwardly seemed to share the same lovable qualities as those other organisations for people in their formative years such as the Young Conservatives and the Hitler Youth.

Ignoring the issue as to whether this “wonderful support” would have been there had they not had free tickets, their presence did raise an interesting paradox.

Over the years Curzon's aged support have lambasted Mossley's for their colourful language but now you have the Ashton club officially lauding a group of school kids for what was almost an unending stream of obscenities. And for a club that prides itself on being family and community orientated, why seemingly actively encourage something that's the opposite of just that?

It was interesting to note as well that their presence made the stand opposite the tunnel, where they were stood, a no-go area for other supporters too. The regulars who normally position themselves there taking up other spots within the ground and it was not hard to see why.

While it's good to see an attempt to attract new and young support to non-league football, I have a feeling that one day, instead of patting themselves on the back for increasing their gates, Curzon may be left to bemoan the monster they've created.

Maybe they'll disappear when the free tickets do but if I was an official at the Tameside Stadium I'd be very wary at inflating their egos.

And before somebody thinks of mentioning it, this piece has nothing to do with the fact that nearly every chant (practically all direct lifts from the Old Trafford songbook) contained something anti-Mossley. If anything it's nice to know that Curzon are obsessed with all things Seel Park while they mean next to nothing to us.

Wakefield 0 - 2 Mossley

I've thought long and hard about a suitable opening to this report but I can't for the life of me think of one. So in lieu of a sparkling first paragraph, just pretend you've read something clever and witty and move on to the next bit.

Following the events of the previous game against Durham, I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to this trip across the Pennines to see the Lilywhites face Wakefield.

The prospect of watching another ninety minute instalment of Mossley's slow limp towards the end of the season wasn't particularly enticing. A sense of duty though meant we arrived at the College Grove ground at 7:15pm and immediately saw something that gave us a clue that the night might be a bit different to what we were expecting.

The vision on arrival was that of an old man in a cardigan and slippers who'd climbed up a large wooden fence to peer through a hole at a women's hockey team in training behind it.

We could have given him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was merely a fan of the game but the speed at which shot off once he'd seen us suggested his attention was focussed more on the aesthetics of the participants than the intricacies of the sport.

And if you think we may be doing him a huge disservice by jumping to such a conclusion and besmirching his character, it's also worth pointing out that he went and 'hid' behind a car on a side street, occasionally peeking his head out from cover as we walked past. The actions of an innocent hockey fan or a lecherous old perv? You decide.

To be fair to the vintage voyeur though, the sight of women running around in short skirts on the adjoining hockey pitch was the only thing worth watching in the opening half hour of the game.

The good old hockey game. Minus ice.

To give you some idea of how interesting the opening third was, I can't remember a single thing about what happened on the pitch. I can on the other hand tell you in detail what the conversation on the terraces was about (or at least I could if I thought discussions of Sapphic love and the sexual mores of one particular family were suitable for a blog open to all ages).

Happily though (if only for level of taste and decency on our section of the terracing) events on the green rectangle came to the fore when the game unexpectedly burst into life in the 32nd minute.

A mazy box to box run by Clive Moyo-Modise ended with the South African under-21 international being tripped just outside the penalty area. The resulting free-kick was fired low towards goal by Danny Dignan and, as the ball passed through a wall of defenders, it took a slight deflection that was enough to wrong foot Wakefield keeper Andy Woods and put Mossley ahead.

And it got even better for them nine, attacking minutes later when the lead was doubled. Again it was another set-piece that was the catalyst for the goal but this time it was Woods himself who did the damage.

Despite being at distance so far from goal that Wakefield only formed a token wall, Dignan struck a powerful effort that had the goalkeeper scrambling across his line before it hammered back off the upright. Moyo-Modise picked up the rebound and though his shot wasn't great, Woods recovered to make a good stop. At least that was how it initially appeared.

However, as the outfield players began to start making their way back up the pitch, the keeper fumbled the save while prone on the ground and during a series of increasingly bizarre contortions pulled in an attempt to reclaim it, he somehow managed to punch the ball into his own net.

It was a moment that could have made him a star on YouTube, but as the league still refuses to embrace something that may generate a bit of publicity for clubs struggling with falling attendances, his potential brush with fame will quickly pass.

The hopes of a perfect half however were dashed in stoppage time when Leon Henry was shown a straight red card for retaliating to a challenge that should have been as equally deserving of a dismissal.

If it hadn't happened right in front of the Wakefield bench its almost certain that Leon would have only received a yellow card at most but the rabid reaction of the Wakefield management probably swayed the referee's judgement.

Not that Mossley can have real complaints about the officials. For the first forty minutes it was almost as if he was an 'awayer' as the visitors got the benefit of the doubt in most of the marginal and not quite so marginal decisions. It did even itself up in the second half as Wakefield picked up a long succession of favourable decisions, but it was nice to finally see again a set officials intent on trying to keep a low profile rather than manoeuvre themselves into being the centre of attention.

Any worries that the flourish of crimson may have had an adverse effect on the visitors were quashed almost immediately after the restart. Despite the patched up nature of Mossley's team (for example, only one of the back four was playing their regular position) and the disadvantage in numbers, the Lilywhites controlled the second period. And that they did so without abandoning the attacking football they'd ended the previous half playing made it all the more impressive.

In fact, with a bit more luck and composure in front of goal the result would have been put beyond doubt long before the final whistle; Dignan, Egan and Kay all going agonisingly close to increasing the home teams misery.

Even when Wakefield began throwing men forward in a desperate attempt to get back into the game, Mossley remained calm and composed and limited the Yorkshire side to just the one real opportunity; one which was bundled over an open net by James Dudgeon with quarter of an hour remaining.

As the final whistle approached Wakefield became more and more desperate in their attempts to score, but once a team starts taking pot shots at goal from forty yards out you know that the game is effectively over.

And soon after it was with Mossley leaving the pitch to a rapturous round of applause from the thirty or so supporters who were now grateful they'd made the trip.

I could single out some real star performances from this game but the effort from the whole team was so good it would seem unfair to do so. To put it simply this was the best display from the Lilywhites in... oh, months. From front to back we were near faultless.

Possibly the only downer on the night was that the game was won with two 'slutchy' goals as far away from the football that surrounded it in terms of quality as it's possible to get. Then again, as long as the ball goes in the net who really cares how it gets there?

After a sequence of admittedly not so glorious results and performances, this was a pleasant, and more than welcome, reminder that the Mossley who impressed many earlier in the season with their style of football is still there.

And finally, like the opening paragraph I can't think of one to close it so if you'd be kind enough to make up your own I'd be very much obliged.

Mossley 1 - 3 Durham City

I'm going to keep this report short, not through circumstance but by choice.

I could put into words exactly how I feel about this game but what would be the point? Any criticism of the official would more than likely see the club punished, even though this blog has nothing to do with Mossley AFC in an official capacity whatsoever, so why run the risk of one person's opinion being taken as a bona fide statement from Seel Park.

Frankly the far better team on the day won and the performance of the official in the middle only serves to take the attention away from this indisputable fact. As bad as he was he wasn't responsible for the sloppy passing, the shoddy marking or any of the other contributory factors to the goals we conceded.

All of which came within eight minutes of madness at the beginning of the first half in an, at times, heated affair with league leaders Durham at Seel Park.

Benefiting from the strong wind blowing against their backs and a catalogue of errors from the home side, strikes from Chris Smith, Matthew Moffat and Steven Richardson raced their side into a three goal lead with the game barely quarter of an hour old. And had Richardson not wasted two other good opportunities it could have conceivably been a lot worse for the Lilywhites.

After that early blitz the home side began to force their way back into the game and by the time they reached the interval they were starting to look the better of the two teams.

The momentum they'd built continued after the break and from the restart they had their opponents on the back foot. The pressure almost paid off immediately too when when Danny Dignan was felled in the area by the Durham keeper, only for the referee to book the Mossley player for diving despite keeper Craig Turns nobly informing the official that he had indeed caught him.

They didn't have to wait long though to pull a goal back and it came when Clive Moyo-Modise struck a low shot through a crowd of players from the edge of the box.

The effect the goal had on Durham was visible but Mossley were unable to capitalise on a steadily growing panic in the visitors back line. Although they were playing the better football, and spending a lot of time in and around the Durham area, they couldn't turn that possession into shots on goal.

City's ventures forward on the other hand, despite being fewer and further between, always looked dangerous and that they didn't add to their lead was down to some good defending and a couple of stunning saves from James Mann.

As the teams trooped off the heavy pitch after a fractious end to the the game, Mossley will have done so wondering about what might have been had it not been for that early lack of composure that ultimately cost them the game.

I've not much more to add really. There is the caveat to Mossley's performance that with injuries and suspensions leaving us with only fourteen players to choose from, it was a scratch side the Lilywhites had to field. And while we had a few purple patches in the game it was never really going to be enough to beat a direct Durham side going for the league title.

Personally I can't wait for this season end.

Mossley's campaign now revolves around one cup match at the end of April, with nine other matches in between, and I've reached the stage now where I'm sick of seeing games spoilt by the officials. This isn't a poor hard done to Mossley thing, I've been a neutral at numerous Curzon, Woodley and Salford games since the turn of the year and seen matches change on the basis of some poor decisions – not marginal ones, down right awful ones.

Of course, officials are human like the rest of us but... oh, what's the use. Nothing will change so why bother arguing the case against.

I said I'd keep it short and there it is.

Mossley 3 - 1 Trafford

Contrary to popular opinion, revenge isn't sweet.

It's a feeling that's incredibly hollow and has a very bitter after taste but that doesn't mean it's not thoroughly enjoyable, as this victory over Trafford will attest to.

A mere seven days after being dumped out of the Unibond President’s Cup by the south Manchester side, Mossley gained a modest amount of payback for that controversial exit at Shawe View by using up a season and a half's worth of luck in at a wet and windy Seel Park.

Actually wet and windy doesn’t even begin to describe the atrocious conditions the match was played under.

After seven days of relatively nice weather, the prospect of a match taking place on a dry Seel Park angered the rain gods and for two hours before kick-off it was as if the ground had been relocated to the foot of Horseshoe Falls at Niagara.

A series of heavy and prolonged downpours that had begun falling in the build-up to kick-off had grown into one non-stop torrent by the time the match finally got under way. Coupled with a driving wind blowing the length of the pitch, it was testament to both sets of players that they were actually able to remain upright on the increasingly slippery surface, let alone attempt to play football when proceedings started.

The consequence of both teams having to expend their energies on battling the elements as well as each other meant that the game passed slowly without incident until it unexpectedly burst into life in the 24th minute. How unexpectedly? Well those of us under the Bus Shelter had already resigned ourselves to watching a goal free game.

During an all too brief lull in the weather, Trafford became the first side to string together a series of passes and in doing so they opened the Mossley defence, presenting Scott Barlow with the opportunity to put his side in front from very close range.

If luck had been notable for its absence in their meeting with Trafford a week earlier, it certainly came to the Lilywhites assistance in this game. Their first stroke of good fortune came nine minutes after the visitors had taken the lead when Clive Moyo-Modise's 20 yard shot took a deflection off the outstretched leg of a defender and beyond the reach of keeper Tom Read to draw Mossley level.

It got even better for the home side four minutes before the interval when another ricochet ensured that they'd begin the second half holding the advantage. This time it was Daryl Weston who benefited from his shot being deviated from its initial path by an attempted block – the ball looping high over an exasperated looking Read and into the net.

If it hadn't been for Read's alertness the half-time oranges would have tasted even better for the Lilywhites as it was only the Trafford keepers reactions that stopped Danny Dignan adding a third to the home sides total.

Unsurprisingly given that they were now playing into a wind that had picked up even more strength during the break, Mossley spent most of the second period desperately trying to break out of their own half. On the positive side however, the mass bank of white shirts facing the visitors made it incredibly tough for Trafford to get a sighting of James Mann's goal

On the few occasions they did find a chink in the armour though, luck came to the Lilywhites aid once again. Shaun Whitehead saw not one but two shots that looked certain goals crash off the cross bar and to safety, while substitute Chris Mackay could only watch in disbelief as his net bound free-kick late in the match deflected off the back of Mattie Kay and onto the upright.

As Trafford piled men forward in search of an equaliser they became increasingly susceptible a breakaway goal and that's precisely what happened a minute into injury time; Alex Mortimer and Dave Brooke combining to present Chris Hirst with ball on the edge of the visitors box, from where the loanee from Macclesfield Town struck a low shot that bounced under Read and into the bottom corner of the net.

It might not have been the prettiest of victories, or the greatest of games, but that doesn't make the win any less welcome - especially as it ends a run of five games without a win.

All credit to the players from both sides too for managing to put in some decent performances in despite the awful conditions and provide some entertainment – far more than we had any right to expect.

Even though we're only a few days off the end of March we've, amazingly, still got one quarter of the league programme left to play and this result will hopefully be one that puts us in good stead for those final ten games. With thirty points still left to play for, who knows what might happen between now and that final game at Rossendale. Reaching the play-offs may seem highly unlikely but stranger things have happened. I mean, who'd have thought Seel Park would ever have a television gantry?

And if the luck we had in this match continues I wouldn't rule out the league title just yet! Okay, that may be going a bit too far.

A final word about the attendance though – 99. Yes 99, and that included the three incredibly humourless people who made the incredibly long trek from, er... the other side of Manchester. Where the hell was everyone else?

Lancaster City 0 - 0 Mossley

And according to the few comments about the game that exist from both sets of supporters, zero was also as high as the game got on the entertainment scale.

Nevertheless, as dull and forgettable as the game apparently appeared to be, the result brings to an end Mossley's sparkling run of four straight defeats which meant the whole thing wasn't a complete waste of time. Whether those who actually made the lengthy trip up to "the hanging town" hold the same opinion isn't for me to pass comment.

It's not as though having missed this match (or rather not having the slightest inclination to attend it this particular weekend) I got off lightly either.

In order to fill what would have otherwise been a blank afternoon, I went to watch Curzon Ashton play Ossett. And with the power of hindsight I wish I'd left the afternoon blank.

To give the game its due though the first half was relatively interesting as Ossett played the hosts off the park for forty five minutes. Unfortunately for the them the opening period went on a touch longer and Hasim Deen headed Curzon into an undeserved lead in injury time. The second half had barely started either when the home side doubled their lead and killed the game off.

What followed was three quarters of an hour of tedium in rapidly cooling conditions; the ambient temperature dropping from tepid to freezing in that special and frighteningly fast way it does on Ashton Moss.

To give you some idea of how bad an uninteresting the game became, midway through the second half one of the Curzon centre halves sidled over the touchline towards where we stood and asked us why we weren't watching Mossley that afternoon.

This slowly turned into a lengthy discussion about travelling distances, the Lilywhites poor run of form and how fortunate Curzon had been not to be behind at half-time, all while the ball was in play less than half the length of the pitch away.

Yes, that's how bad things had got - the players were striking up conversations with spectators for something to do.

What other little entertainment there was mainly involved counting the crowd (which didn't take long) and listing the various other better things we could have been doing that afternoon. And, oh, was it a long, long, long list...

Catching Up On Other Stuff

Now that for the first time in a few weeks I've been able to go a couple of days without having to find new and amusing ways of describing another defeat (damn you fixture pile up!), I've been able to catch up on something that ideally should have been on the site a few weeks back.

So, better late than never, here are some of the highlights from Mossley's Manchester Premier Cup semi-final win over New Mills.

Relive the thrills and spills! See some of the awful challenges New Mills put in (see how close Lee Blackshaw came to picking up a serious injury at 2:30 into the video)! Hear the phrase “Get him off!” said three times in four seconds! Watch the incredibly shaky footage of Mossley's post match celebrations! Wonder how on earth it took me two weeks to put the whole thing together.

Without further ado:

Trafford 2 - 1 Mossley

There's a train of thought in some medical circles that the brain has only a finite amount of space to store happy or pleasurable memories; that there comes a point when new ones will see older ones banished from the mind and consigned to being forgotten.

If this is indeed the case, the supporters who made the short trek to Shawe View went to sleep last night safe in the knowledge that there was no chance of any long cherished memories having been banished to the ether by the time they woke up this morning.

Continuing along the path travelled since the interval at Ossett Albion a week earlier, the Lilywhites latest outing produced another performance that lacked the spark and verve we know they're capable of. And with its omission they allowed an equally lacklustre and soporific Trafford side to take the honours and claim a place in the President's Cup final.

To say the game was disappointing (in the most part) would be something of an understatement. To say that it was somewhat controversial too wouldn't be.

The contentious moment, or rather the most pivotal one of many, came sixteen minutes into what was otherwise an eminently forgettable first half.

After Scott Barlow had used his considerable pace to take him clear of the visitors defence, he was met head on by James Mann just inside the penalty area. The Lilywhites keeper went to ground and knocked the ball out of Barlow's path and to apparent safety before both players collided with one another.

To the Mossley players undisguised amazement however the referee brought the game to a halt and pointed to the penalty spot. Even though during the resulting protestations the official allegedly admitted that Mann had reached the ball first, his decision to award the foul and show a yellow card was based entirely on the keepers momentum; or rather his inability to do what no-one else has evade done and evade one of Newton's Laws of Motion.

It was a gift for Trafford, one of many on the night from the officials, and one Andy Lundy accepted by converting the spot-kick.

That's not to say that the ludicrous decisions were all one way. The game was just a couple of minutes old when Nick Boothby somehow escaped being shown a yellow card for really poor challenge from behind but the pièce de résistance came in the second half.

Right back Christian Cooke got into a muddle with the ball at his feet and was ultimately robbed of it by a Trafford player. As the Traffordian set off on his now clear path to goal, the assistant referee for some inexplicable reason flagged for offside. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful he did as a resulting goal from the move would have been the final nail in Mossley's wooden overcoat, but how can you trust that other decisions are correct when ones like this are so wrong?

That said it was one of the few points of note in what was turning out to be an equally incident free second half; one slowly crawling towards its conclusion with only the occasional other head scratching decision from an official to break the monotony. With over an hour gone it looked increasingly like the one meaningful shot that had taken place in the entire game would win this Unibond President's Cup semi-final.

That changed with twenty minutes to go when a series of Mossley substitutions finally injected some much needed fire into the Lilywhites bellies and, for the first time in the match, one of the two sides began to enjoy a sustained spell of pressure. Substitute David Brooke was the first visiting player to go close, glancing a header narrowly wide of the right hand post, before Alex Mortimer and Chris Hirst brought the first saves of the evening out of Trafford keeper Andy Read.

Despite getting a hand to the ball though, Read was unable to stop Lee Blackshaw's 80th minute effort from nestling in the bottom corner of the net after the winger had cut into the penalty area from the left. At this point of the match, with Mossley in the ascendency, it looked like there was only going to be one winner.

Football's fickle finger fate however had other ideas.

You see the joy at drawing level lasted barely thirty seconds. A hoofed clearance from deep within the Trafford half caught Mossley's back line cold/asleep/still in a celebratory mood (the choice is yours) and Barlow had all the time he needed to slot the ball past Mann for his and his sides second goal of the match.

It was the metaphorical kick in the teeth for the Lilywhites but to their credit they pushed hard over what little remained of the game for an equaliser that would take the tie to extra-time. The closest they got was when Nathan Neequaye smashed a close range shot into Read's face and without that second goal, Mossley bowed out of the President's Cup at the final whistle.

Unlike most other semi-finals were there always appears to be a great wailing or gnashing of teeth from the supporters of the defeated teams, there was none from the travelling fans last night. There was some disappointment and, yes, even a touch of anger at the officials, but the most overwhelming feeling you got as the way was made home was one of frustration; the kind that comes when you know that a side can play well and just... well, just isn't.

We flitted in and out of spells of good football last night, much as we have done for a while, and until we can start stretching those moments into longer periods of time we'll continue to struggle.

The one big positive out this match is that we finally got round to producing some telling crosses again. In fact there were probably more decent crosses in the space of last night's game than there has been for weeks. The problem was that every single one was an easy catch for the keeper - the only pressure on him he had was the tightness of the shirt around his jiggling moobs.

The biggest killer about this game though was that Trafford weren't all that brilliant either. Barring the two goals they only had one other real chance but that's football – Trafford took theirs, we stood watching ours fly into the hands of the keeper.

With the run of defeats now stretching to four games, let's hope we can can start picking up points before a slump becomes a slide and, maybe along the way, push some old memories into the cerebrums waste bin.

Mossley 0 - 1 Chorley

As many people have said since the phrase was first uttered, “you can't polish a t*rd”, so I'm not even going to try and bother to add a shine to the huge, nut-filled, steaming curler that this game was.

However, if you would like to read a report that made this particular ninety minutes seem like a “must see” game of football I suggest you read the report on the Chorley forum. The match witnessed in it was infinitely better than the one most of us had paid to see - one in which two poor teams appeared to be competing as to who could send the crowd to sleep first. If only they'd succeeded...


While Mossley's prospects of attaining a place in the top five may not be mathematically over just yet, this defeat, their third in five days, realistically brings to and end their slowly dwindling hopes of claiming a play-off spot. And it did so in a disappointing fashion.

The strong and bitterly cold wind blowing across Seel Park meant that conditions were hardly conducive to passes above head height but that's precisely what happened; both sides in the main resorting to pinging the ball through the swirling air.

As a consequence it spent more time flying out of the ground than launching any meaningful attacks and, unsurprisingly, it was the ball boys who ended up seeing more action than either of the goalkeepers over the course of the first half.

It meant chances were at a premium and only on three occasions did the game threaten to burst into a modicum of life in the opening forty five minutes.

The first moment arrived with the game barely two minutes old and fell the way of the visitors. A lack of communication between Mossley's two centre halves allowed Adam Farrell to advance on James Mann's goal but his attempt to lob the keeper ended disastrously with the ball bouncing a yard wide of the gaping goal. The two other opportunities fell the way of the Lilywhites with Danny's Toranczak and Egan both glancing headers narrowly wide of the uprights.

As well as few shots from distance that didn't go anywhere close to troubling the score sheet that was as good as it got before the break and to be honest, there wasn't much improvement after it.

What little there was though was down to the visitors beginning to show a touch more invention as an attacking force and their improved efforts were rewarded with a penalty eight minutes after the restart. As good as Chris Ward's spot kick was though, it wasn't as good as the save from James Mann that met it and kept the match at stalemate.

James Mann makes the penalty save.

Chorley continued to press forward but the lack of any kind of end product to their attacks meant that what few chances presented themselves were wasted. No greater evidence of this came when with two minutes of the match left, Sharrock was put clean through on goal but, with his moment of glory in front of him, all he could do was spoon an incredibly weak effort into Mann's arms.

A minute into injury time though his blushes were spared when some lackadaisical marking allowed James Mullineux to rise unchallenged at a corner and head home a winner for the Magpies. A victory that despite the poor quality of the game no one from Mossley could begrudge them.



It stands without reason that the fatigue of having to play five games in ten days had taken some toll on Mossley but it can't fully excuse what was, all told, a poor performance in which ideas were sorely lacking.

And just to show that I'm not completely self-unaware, it's something that can equally be applied to this match report too. There's no way I can get nearly a thousand words out of it like the previously mentioned report on the Magpies forum (for which the writer deserves a medal) which is why I'm finishing it... now!

Skelmersdale United 4 - 2 Mossley

If I wasn't churning these match reports out on something approaching automatic pilot after the splurge of games we've had, what follows this opening sentence might have been a touch more vitriolic.

And there was an awful lot to raise the ire too: Mossley's performance; another game presided over by the latest in a seemingly never ending list of buffoons; the sheer annoyance and irritation of the Skelmersdale chairman's sub-village disco dj-ing; the man in the middle; the “If I was chocolate I'd eat myself” arrogance of some of the home supporters; the main match official; the crap signage on the towns roundabouts; the Skem fan who'd parked his car in front of one of the paths into the ground... the list is nearly endless. And did I mention the referee?

In fact it's quite possible that through the above I could have rediscovered the zest for a lengthy diatribe. The bitterly sarcastic railing at all and sundry that's not been seen since Mossley80's golden years. Not that its really had any golden years...

Thankfully though I've calmed down a bit as I've grown older (and studied the laws on libel and slander) so there'll be no spleen venting in this report. That's not to say though that there isn't an alternative draft sitting in my hard drive full of the kind of spit and venom you'd normally only reserve for people who use the heads of puppies to bang nails into the eyes of kittens.

Though Mossley went ahead in the third minute, it was, even at that early stage of the game, completely against the run of play; Skelmersdale having wasted two glorious chances to open the scoring not long after the match had kicked off.

Take the lead we did though and it was all thanks to a moment of high comedy. Centre half White made a complete hash of dealing with Reece Kelly's lofted forward pass; an error compounded further by the keepers hysterical attempt to rectify the situation by starfish jumping over the ball, giving Chris Hirst the opportunity to stroke the it into an empty net.



And frankly that was about it from Mossley as an attacking force in the opening half. They had a couple of corners but nothing else you could claim was even a fraction of a chance.

The goal the Lilywhites were defending began to lead a charmed life and the only surprise when Skelmersdale eventually put themselves in front was that it had taken them so long to do it. Goals in the 24th and 37th minutes from Towey and Robinson respectively edging them ahead. And both coming as the result of some less than spectacular defending. It could have been worse too and the 2 – 1 scoreline at the interval did flatter Mossley somewhat.

What was to transpire in the second half might have been different had the referee shown any kind of bottle and sent Neil Robinson off for an horrendous two footed lunge on Chris Middleton just before the break. The loud crack that accompanied it had some of us fearing the worst but there were more than one or two audible sighs of relief as Middleton quickly got to to his feet.

It was as clear a red card offence as you're ever likely to see (even the non-egotistical section of the Skem support admitted he should have been sent off) but as well as not flashing that colour at an unrepentant Robinson, the referee didn't show him what would have been his second yellow card of the match either- his first one having been awarded for dissent.

So there you have it, proof once and for all that calling a referee a tosser is a far more serious offence than someone coming close to having their leg broken. Isn't it wonderful that the football authorities and match officials have their priorities in order?

Maybe if Middleton had rolled around on the ground, screaming in agony as was the wont of Skem's players in this fixture and the one at our place whenever they got fouled, fouled someone or lost the ball, the offender may have got the punishment he deserved but no. Mossley were punished for one man's honesty and another man's failure to apply the rules he's supposed to have learnt.

It was a sequence of events that not only annoyed the travelling supporters but Mossley manger Chris Willcock too, and his forthright views on what he thought of the referees judgement earned him a seat in the stand for the rest of the game.

He was joined on the sidelines not long after the restart by Daryl Weston, who received his second yellow card of the game in the panic and chaos that followed Andy Robertson's ill advised sojourn outside his area to try and collect a through ball.

Despite having an extra man though Skelmersdale were struggling to make their advantage count. However, just as it was beginning to look as if they were running out of steam, an ambitious shot that was heading into touch took an enormous deflection off of Nick Boothby and sailed over Robertson's head and into the net.

The deficit Mossley faced was back to one almost immediately when Hirst tapped home his second goal of the game following another Laurel Hardy moment from White and the keeper. It was to be the visitors last hurrah though.

A goal mouth scramble ten minutes from time ended with Chris Almond adding a fourth goal to Skelmersdale's collection and that the proverbial floodgates didn't open after it was down to a mixture of good goalkeeping, luck and the type of finishing that's likely to stop Skem's promotion push in its tracks now their star striker has left.

Whether it was fatigue finally starting to kick in or not, Mossley were poor in this game. Other considerations can be taken into account such as the officials, etc. but we simply didn't deserve to win. Or even draw. To be honest, that we weren't on the receiving end of a cricket score is one of the few positives to be taken from the night.

Mathematically, with a potential 39 points still to play for, we're not out of the hunt for a play-off spot yet but the last two defeats certainly haven't helped our cause any. And with some tough games coming up very shortly it's imperative that, if we do harbour ambitions of challenging for a top five place, we beat Chorley in the next game.

If we don't? Well a cup final (or possibly two) isn't too bad a consolation.

Ossett Albion 3 - 0 Mossley

You didn't have to be a half-competent statistician to have worked out that the likelihood of this match reaching the same heights as the previous one between the two sides, a mere three days earlier, was going to be slim.

While lightning does tend to strike twice in nature, it doesn't tend to in football and so it proved as the Yorkshire side gained swift revenge for their defeat at Seel Park last Saturday.

That's not to say it couldn't have matched the previous weekends goal bonanza. In fact it almost certainly would have done had Mossley managed to convert just a handful of the seemingly never ending series of chances they created in the first half. To say that the Lilywhites were the better side by considerable some distance would be giving Ossett far too much credit for their contribution to proceedings.

From the very first minute to the forty fifth, Mossley looked dangerous every time the ball entered Albion's half of the pitch. Unfortunately however their inability to apply the finishing touches to some, at times excellent, sweeping moves across the park meant that Ossett's keeper, Lee Ashforth, spent more time sighing with relief than having to catch his breath through being over exerted.

The prickliest thorn in Ossett's side was Chris Hirst who was the architect of the majority of Mossley's best chances, but along with Danny Toronczak, Lee Blackshaw and many, many others on the night, he was also guilty of failing to put away chances that ought to have finished the game as a contest by the break.

And I'm not talking about just one or two good chances – it was more like eight or nine and it's a total that would be well into double figures if you lumped in the half chances and penalty appeals too.

Even so, for all their good play, and as if to prove how cruel football can be at times, it was Mossley that went in at the interval a goal behind. A mistimed interception on the halfway line in the 18th minute had given Gareth Hamlet the opportunity to run unchallenged towards Andy Robertson's goal and fire his side into the lead; Ossett's solitary shot of the half.

Sadly the Mossley side that left the pitch unlucky to be losing at the interval didn't reappear for the second half. Everything good about their play in the opening period wasn't in evidence after the restart and the game slowly began to drift away from them; ultimately disappearing when Riordan prodded in from close range after the visitors marking had gone awry at a free-kick

There was a “what if?” moment with twenty minutes to go when Lee Blackshaw's one-on-one with the goalkeeper was cut short by a unique interpretation of the offside law by the linesman. Had the Lilywhites winger been allowed to carry on and net his third goal in three games it might well have laid the foundations for an unlikely comeback.

Hypothetical situations don't win games though – goals do and Ossett's third on the night from Thornton (and another ode to the perils of slack marking) ensured that they'd be collecting the three points on offer and with them, bringing to an end the six game unbeaten run of Mossley.

The strange thing is that despite fielding a near identical side, Albion were much worse than they had been at the weekend. The only visible difference about them was the adoption of an 'if it moves, kick it policy' which does them no credit at all. But then when the man in the middle is prepared to turn a blind eye to some less than fair play (surely he couldn't not have seen what was going on at times off the ball) I suppose it follows that you'll try to use it your advantage.

As I keep saying on here, almost mantra like, officials come in for some undue flack at times and are an easy scapegoat to blame a teams failings on. Since Christmas though we haven't half had some right stinkers taking charge of our matches.

First and foremost let me say that the men in black didn't cost us this game but they might at least have made things a bit easier for us had they clamped down on Albion's ridiculously over physical, and highly dangerous, approach to the game. Some of the challenges were appalling yet the senior official only appeared to give things if it was accompanied by a scream, something Ossett proved extremely adept at as every missed tackle was followed by a player falling to the floor in mock agony; the type of poor gamesmanship we're unfortunately going to have to face again on Thursday at Skelmersdale.

Not only that but the interpretation of the rules was bizarre. I've already mentioned the “nowhere near” offside decision but also worthy of being noted for posterity are such gems as: Chris Hirst being forced to leave the pitch after being fouled despite not having received any treatment whatsoever; the game being held up for over a minute while Ossett's captain was allowed to tie his bootlace; decisions being given that the officials plainly couldn't see unless evolution had given them eyes in the back of their head; and, like the unnamed songs on an advert for a K-Tel music compilation, there are many, many more.

As I said though this shouldn't deflect from the fact that this was a game Mossley should have won and it's through there own failings that they didn't. Maybe the run of games is catching up. Maybe the rotation system used was one rotation too many. Maybe a few more shots actually on target wouldn't go amiss. Or maybe we just can't play well in depressing surroundings and there's nothing grimmer than Ossett by moonlight. Except maybe Warrington at night and Chorley at any time of the day and year.

Whatever it was, as all reports are contractually obliged to state after matches like this one, we'll play a damn sight worse this season and end up with three points.

It's a result though that while not ending our play-off ambitions, is at the very least a spanner in the works in the attempt to get there. It's almost certain now that the results of the next two games will determine as to whether or not the cups will be the sole focus for us in the last seven to eight weeks of the season. And so what if that turns out to be the case - it's still more than what many of us were expecting to achieve when we embarked on this journey seven months ago.

So no happy endings to our double header with Albion then. We didn't even come close to winning the 'side of meat' (?) available as top prize in the raffle. And there wasn't much to laugh about either unless you espied the surprising number of Mossley supporters who had to touch Ossett's mini-tractor and roller after being drawn Siren like towards it.

Still, what does it matter when there's a trip to glamorous Skelmersdale on the horizon and the fun and games that ninety minutes against a Tommy Lawson side entail? I'm going to start the 'poor gamesmanship' and 'unsporting behaviour' paragraph for the next report now to save a bit of time...

Mossley 5 - 3 Ossett Albion

A weather beaten Seel Park pitch played host to an extraordinary afternoon of football as two rivals for a play-off spot shared eight goals between them in a topsy-turvy game that Mossley ultimately managed to emerge victorious from.

Containing a raft of changes form the side that had beaten New Mills in the Manchester Premier Cup semi-final less than 48 hours earlier, many of them necessitated by injuries picked up through the Derbyshire sides, frankly awful, approach to the game, Mossley started the game with a relatively unfamiliar looking line up.

Not that it stopped them taking the lead in the ninth minute; Reece Kelly notching his first goal for the club with a deft lob over Albion keeper Ashforth from the edge of the box. It was an advantage that didn't last long though.

In fact, by the half hour mark of the game Mossley were behind. A defensive mix-up allowed Dave Syers to steal through a crowd of players and poke the ball past Robertson to draw Albion level but his second of the game, and the goal that put his side in front, was the result of the best move of the match up to that point. Picking up Gareth Hamlet's clever back flick on the edge of the box Syers unleashed an unstoppable volley that flew beyond the dive of Robertson and into the roof of the net.

With half-time looming on the horizon though, Lee Blackshaw sprung Albion's offside trap (I say sprung, he was actually about three to four yards offside) to meet Chris Hirst's through ball and slotted his shot past a motionless Ashforth to ensure that the both sides would be starting the second period on level terms.


And that second period was only four minutes old when Mossley edged themselves in front once more. Again it was another defence splitting pass from Hirst that did the damage and though keeper Ashforth got to the ball first, his attempted clearance was charged down by substitute Nathan Neequaye and the ball rebounded off the Mossley debutant and into the net – his first touch of the ball in a Lilywhites shirt.

Once again though the lead didn't last long, full back Joe Thornton adding Ossett's third from the penalty spot, but their joy at restoring parity to the score line lasted barely a minute.

And it's fair to say that the goal that put Mossley back in front for the third time in the match had a large stroke of fortuity about it. Simon Wood's deep cross from the right wing got caught by the strong wind blowing across the ground and sailed over the head of Albion's frantically backtracking (and diminutive) goalkeeper before dropping into the net.

Woody takes the congratulations of his team mates after scoring the fourth goal.

The old adage goes save the best till last and that's exactly what Mossley did – their fifth and final goal of the afternoon coming as a result of their best move of the game. A one-two between Neequaye and Mattie Kay on the halfway line ended with the former picking up the latter's inch perfect looped pass and advancing on goal, before unselfishly squaring the ball to Danny Toronczak who calmly notched his first goal on his return to the club.

Toronczak nets Mossley's fifth and the eighth goal of the afteroon.

The fifth goal also had the effect of finally killing off Ossett as an attacking force and over the remaining twenty minutes the match the Lilywhites had enough chances, which included a penalty miss in injury time, to make the difference on the score sheet even greater.

It's a win that however that extends Mossley unbeaten run to six matches and, more importantly, keeps them in touch with the pack of teams chasing an end of season position in the top five.

It seems silly to say this after a match containing eight goals but it wasn't one of the best games of football there's ever been. Outside of the goals there was very little to write about (thankfully so considering how much space describing the scoring sequence has taken up) but if the trade-off for that is three points and eight goals, I'm not going to complain too much. And I dare say anyone else will either.


And if, as we near the end of this post, you're wondering why what's above doesn't seem that much different to the 'official' match report it's because it isn't.

Because I'm such a slow writer and it takes me a frighteningly lengthy amount of time to do these reports, I'm having to make a compromise in order to get them done as the games come thick and fast.

One or two things may be worded differently, with the odd extra paragraph and lame joke inserted here and there, but from now until the end of the season the chances are that the reports on here may only contain some blink and you'll miss them differences.

It's something I'm going to desperately try and avoid but I thought I'd better give you fair warning in case the best laid plans of a blogger/match reporter don't quite work out.

Mossley 2 - 1 New Mills

A punishing sequence of five games in ten days began for the Lilywhites with them booking a place in their first cup final for six years with a, too literally at times, hard fought victory over NWCL high fliers New Mills.

It couldn't have got off to a better start for the home team either as with just a minute of the match having elapsed, they took the lead. A wonderful piece of close control by Clive Moyo-Modise on the halfway line gave Craig Buckley the opportunity to drop an inch perfect pass over the New Mills defence and into the path of Danny Dignan. Taking one touch to control the ball on his chest as he entered the penalty area, the former Miller stroked the ball past ex-Lilywhite goalkeeper Liam Higginbotham with his second to give his side a dream opening to a semi-final.

Thirteen minutes later things got even better for the Lilywhites as they strengthened their control on the game by doubling their lead. This time it was Lee Blackshaw who found the net, shooting in powerfully from close range after the visitors had twice failed to clear their lines following a free-kick.

And to show that karma's now operating at broadband speed, the opening fell to Blackshaw through Danny Jackson's hysterically inept attempt at a scissor kick clearance; the Miller in question having initially given away the set piece with a cynical challenge on Michael Fish.

Sadly he didn't finish there as an off-the-ball challenge a few minutes later finally put Fish out of the game but sadly not himself. The referee unbelievably choosing to issue him with a final warning rather than the second yellow and red card he deserved.

Also fortunate not to be trudging up the tunnel to the sound of boos was Gary Kharas who got away with a yellow card after punching Gary Buckley in the face right in front of the referee.

As the Mossley Eye said as we looked on incredulously, the referee seemingly had no intention of producing a red card on the night, no matter what happened. A theory that was given weight in the second half after only yellow was shown for an awful tackle from behind by Matty Bunting that put Dignan perilously close to following Fish out of the game with an injury.

Like I said earlier though, karma's getting much quicker these days and Bunting spent last few minutes of the game hobbling round the pitch after twisting his ankle.

I seem to be writing this about a lot of teams this season but New Mills have some very good players so why the feel need to compliment them with a style that, at times, bordered on sheer recklessness is beyond me. To pinch another comment said on the night, they were like Willenhall but without the elan.

If you don't agree with me about the recklessness then I point you to the attempted “tackle” from Meakin in the first half that had Lee Blackshaw not managed to evade, would almost have certainly seen him in the back of an ambulance and on the way to hospital.

Don't believe me? Then I offer you the following still taken from some of the video footage I took. How can players be allowed to get away with things like this on a pitch? Does someone actually have to get seriously injured before action is taken?

Unbelievably it looks worse in motion. And before someone tries to defend it this way, how can a challenge like this be taken out of context?

Anyway, rant over and back to the game.

Over the course of the next twenty minutes Mossley threatened to run riot as chance after chance presented itself for them to wrap up the game before the interval was even on the horizon. That they didn't was down to a combination of some poor finishing and some incredibly narrow near misses; both of which meant that their opponents were still only a goal away from getting back into the game, which they did in the 38th minute.

A spell of pressure which began with Andy Robertson having to make a near point blank save from Matt Smith and New Mills hitting a post from the resultant corner, ended with Carlos Meakin halving the arrears with a low shot past the Mossley keeper.

If it caused the home side to wobble it didn't show and they ended the half back on top and missing chances which if they'd lost the game, they almost certainly would have looked back on and rued.

The early moments of the second period saw Meakin and Moyo-Modise wasting good opportunities to add to the scoreline for their respective teams before the game became a midfield battle; both sides effectively cancelling one another in a high tempo war of attrition. As the pace of the game and the heaviness of the pitch began to take its toll on the players though, more space started to open up and with it chances began to reappear once again.

Mossley's best opportunity to seal the win came when Chris Hirst initiated a two-on-one break, but some over elaboration on the edge of the box gave the Millers time to reinforce their defence and when the shot finally did arrive, it flew harmlessly wide.

The closest the Derbyshire side went to extending the game by another thirty minutes was in injury time. A series of increasingly troubling corners looked to have ended with Meakin heading New Mills level, but somehow Roberton managed to knock the ball away to safety with his legs and keep the Lilywhites lead intact.

The victory means that Mossley now face in the final the opponents they met in their last appearance at the same stage of the competition nine years ago, neighbours Droylsden and at the same venue, Oldham Athletics's Boundary Park.

This time though there'll hopefully be a much better outcome for the Lilywhites and if not (and for the sake of all of us) an infinitely more entertaining game.

I'm going to dispense with my usual inane overview of the game in order to congratulate Mossley - the players, the manager and the backroom staff on taking Mossley to their first cup final since the 2003 NWCL League Cup triumph over Clithroe.

The MPC may not be the greatest competition in the world but there's a not a trophy in any sport that isn't worth winning, including this one.

It also means the players are going to finish this season with at least one medal to show for their efforts. Let's hope that it's one that has 'winners' engraved on it when they're presented next month.

Hmmm... Boundary Park in April, I'd better not pack the thermal underwear away just yet.

Because of the number of games coming up and the lack of time to do anything in, the video highlights from this match will be posted on the internet at a time still to be determined. Unfortunately I can't be more specific than that because frankly, I'm currently more preoccupied with wondering if I can manage to do five reports in ten days without hesitation, repetition or deviation.

One down, four more to worry about.