Wakefield 3 - 2 Mossley

The second half to Mossley's 2010/11 league campaign got off to the same start as the first half did way back in those dim and distant days of last August; a more innocent time when life seemed simpler and the temperature was roughly one degree warmer than it is now.

Defeat this time though came not at the hands of Bamber Bridge, or within the familiar confines of Seel Park, but across the Pennines in that strange land known as Yorkshire. Wakefield to be more exact: the home of a maximum security prison, a sizeable proportion of Britain's rhubarb supply and Wakefield F.C..

Things didn't start well for the Lilywhites with the visitors shipping three goals within the opening 30 minutes and while there was an improvement in the hour of the match that was left, it wasn't enough to rescue the game. It wasn't only the game Mossley lost either as defender Aaron Chalmers picked up an injury serious enough to necessitate a trip to the nearby hospital (a journey a Wakefield player had made not much earlier) and one which could see him miss a sizeable chunk of what's left of the season.

If I'd gone to College Grove I'd have been able to offer a few more details of what happened during the game (and should you want those blanks filled then I suggest going here or here) but I was a lot closer to home watching one Mossley side end the night as winners.

Mossley Reserves 2 - 0 AFC Fylde Reserves

And a thoroughly deserved victory it was too for the second string/youth team... when it belatedly got under way.

Why belatedly? Well see if you can spot the reason for yourself with the following picture that was taken at the scheduled kick-off time:


That's right - it's another chapter in the ongoing saga of Mossley's floodlights.
Following what seemed to be a bit of trouble getting them working during the first half of the Harrogate game a few days earlier, it took a good while longer to get all the floodlights up and running for this one.

Both sides did their warm-up under three lights and then two before a complete descent into darkness mere minutes before the match was due to start. 7:45pm came and went before there was a brief flicker and part of the pitch became illuminated...


...and be followed a short while later by the lights on the opposite side of the pitch finally stirring into action. By the time all six had got up to full beam it was 8 o'clock and the game could finally get started.

The visitors were the more impressive team during the initial exchanges - a couple of shots from distance flying narrowly wide of the Lilywhites goal - but the moment Mossley got to grips with game the home side never once looked like losing. In fact the only surprising thing on the night was that it took them until the 10th minutes of the second half to finally find the back of the net.

It was a goal worth waiting for though. Jordan Cuff cut in from the right wing and from 25 yards out let fly with an angled shot that looped over the goalkeeper dipped just under the crossbar; one of those rare efforts that you knew was going in the second it left his boot.

The result sealing second goal arrived quarter of an hour later and courtesy of the clubs England Schools Under 18 squad member, Fabio Abreu. Compared to the opening strike this one was merely a tap in but the move building up to it was impressive enough in itself.

There should have been more goals as Fylde slowly fell apart but there won't be too many amongst the smattering of people in attendance who'll be disappointed with what they saw. Actually I haven't seen many games with better, flowing football than this one at Seel Park this year and, considering it was free to watch, with a better value/money ratio too.

Mossley 3 - 0 Harrogate Railway Athletic

With the match against Warrington seven days earlier still fresh in my memory - or to be more exact given the abject nature of what transpired during it: keeping me awake at night, terrified of going to sleep in case the nightmares return (the looks of horror and cries of agony as the referee signalled a misery prolonging four minutes of injury time will probably haunt me for years to come) - it wasn't without a certain amount of trepidation that I set foot again inside Seel Park.

Thankfully however that apprehension turned out to be unwarranted as this proved to be a thoroughly more pleasant use of a Saturday afternoon in winter.

Supporters were still making their way to their favoured spots on the terraces when the first chance of the game presented itself. With barely thirty seconds on the clock Harrogate keeper Craig Parry was forced into a scrambling save to turn a low shot from Michael Oates behind for a corner. By the time Parry was called into action again though Mossley should really have been at least one goal up, possibly two.

The possible part of that equation comes from Harrogate’s first attack. Jon Maloney robbed Mossley captain Graham Kay of possession on the edge of the penalty area and while he didn’t have that much time to pick his spot as Peter Collinge charged off his line to narrow the options available to him, he should have done better than to curl an effort past the wrong side of the post. If that was a half chance then what followed on their second attack was as gilt edged as they come.

An inch perfect cross to Andrew Jackson, unmarked and stood in front of an open goal (well it wouldn’t be a proper Mossley match if this didn’t happen, would it?), was inexplicably sent careering wide of the target by the Harrogate winger. I’m not sure how he managed to miss, and I don’t think he does either, but there was a mass exhalation of relief - plus a fair amount of sniggering - to be heard from the stands as he lay on the floor with his head in his hands.

The miss appeared to kick the Lilywhites out of their post-first minute lethargy and they responded with a few chances of their own that came close to breaking the deadlock. The best ones fell to Kristian Dennis who was twice put clean through on goal and denied on both occasions by some hesitant finishing and some brave goalkeeping by Parry; the bravery not coming from the danger he put himself into in order to make the save but from his decision to wear a luminous yellow shirt that was, at best, a size too small. Not the most flattering of looks for a semi-professional footballer.

Play then swung from end-to-end until the final fifteen minutes of the half when it became more and more confined to the end Harrogate were defending. I could at this point spend the next hour or two describing the chances that fell Mossley’s way during this passage of play but it’s easier to let you watch them for yourself. I know it’s lazy but if a picture paints a thousand words just think how long this report would be without the video!


Also included in the above footage (along with a very brief cameo by one of the assistant referees) are the goals Mossley eventually ended up scoring.

The first goal turned out to be the last act of the opening period and another to add to the already lengthy list of goals Mossley have scored from outside the box this season. Harrogate failed to clear a corner properly and after Matty Kay looped the ball into the net from the edge of the ‘D’. The second came after the Lilywhites had weathered their now customary post half-time sluggishness; Kristian Dennis finally coming out on top in a one-on-one battle with Parry after Mike Fish had opened up the visitors defence for him with a smart pass.

Chances continued to come and go at both ends of the pitch before the home side finally put the result to bed with the final whistle looming. Like the second goal, the third came through a nice piece of play around the Harrogate box and finished with Matty Kay stepping inside a challenge from a defender and curling a shot beyond the dive of Parry.

It would be nice to say that this moment was the end to the day’s events but this being Mossley there’s always a cloud to accompany every silver lining. The cloud in this case was Ben Richardson receiving his second yellow card of the game for debating his first yellow card - given a few minutes earlier for timewasting – with the referee.

Despite the numerical disadvantage the home side went close to adding a fourth goal during the lengthy amount of time added on after the ninetieth minute, most of it due in part to the thankfully not as bad as it first seemed collision between the concrete pitch surround and the back of Harrogate centre half Wayne Harratt’s head. His replacement must have undergone a similar experience at some point too as a bump on the noggin can be the only reason for his on-field reference to a side from the outskirts of north east Manchester as being scousers.

Besides signalling the end of the match, the last sound to emerge from the referee’s whistle also marked the halfway point of Mossley’s league campaign: twenty two games played with another twenty two more to come in the next thirteen weeks. Although that may rise to twenty four in fourteen weeks should Mossley reach the play-offs and have a successful campaign – a situation that doesn’t sound quite as far-fetched as it once did now that the Lilywhites sit five points off a top side position.

There’s no point in getting carried away with what might be just yet however. As tantalisingly close to a play-off spot as the club is, a heck of a lot can happen between now and the end of April to de-rail everything. Actually there are enough games left to be played for a heck of a lot to happen three or four times over and this being Mossley it’s hardly likely that it’ll be the ‘good times’ which will be stuck on repeat. We live to be pleasantly surprised though.

Trafford 1 - 4 Mossley

When a football club is over a hundred years old you find that there aren't many situations that present themselves which require the use of a sentence that includes the phrase 'for the first time ever.'

By this stage of a club's lifespan new experiences are usually limited to cup finals, promotions, relegations and going a full twelve months without the sudden discovery of financial black hole which threatens to drag it into oblivion. This week however Mossley managed a first that occupies the middle ground between success and outright failure: a league game victory at Trafford's Shawe View ground. I know it doesn't have the same glow as a trophy win or the rubbernecking appeal of a club blinking out of existence but you have to take time out once in a while to appreciate these smaller moments of history too.

Details of how this Mossley side (2011 vintage) finally laid the ghost of so many win-free years to rest can be found elsewhere. If you prefer just a précis though Oates, Dennis, Egan and Fish (the club's four forwards and not a firm of solicitors) all scored one goal each while Trafford offered very little in return - their goal coming when an attempted clearance ricocheted off ex-Lilywhite Joe Shaw and into the net.

The added bonus of returning victorious from the little corner of Flixton that Trafford inhabit are the three points that put Mossley into a top ten position in the league for the first time this season: a first that is in some ways equally as impressive considering that not so long ago the prospect of a relegation battle looked a very real possibility.

This being football though, and more specifically Mossley, it's still too early to totally discount the possibility of spending April in a dogfight at the foot of the table. After all it wouldn't be the first time.

Mossley 1 - 1 Warrington Town

If what follows this paragraph seems dull, lacking points of interest, causes your eyelids to feel heavy and/or appears to be interminable, I will have for the first time successfully captured the true essence of a match that the report is pertaining to.

If you wanted to go the whole hog and have the full Mossley vs Warrington experience then I suggest reading what comes next standing fully clothed in a running shower while one person (having taken sensible precautions to avoid either of you getting electrocuted) blasts a hairdryer in your face. Actually that seems infinitely more fun than what the 156 hardy (or mad - the words are interchangeable in this instance) souls stood on the wind and rain swept terraces of Seel Park at the weekend had.

Things didn't get off to a great start for Mossley as it was the visitors who were the side to find the back of the net first and no-one would argue that it wasn’t deserved on the balance of play; Warrington having dominated all of the sixty seconds of the game that had elapsed since it kicked off. They’d already spurned one golden opportunity to put themselves in front before a cross from the right was met by former Mossley forward Gavin Salmon and he did something he had an awful lot of trouble doing at Seel Park while wearing a white shirt: score.

Why an opposing centre forward was stood unmarked on the edge of the six yard box wouldn’t be too pressing a question if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s becoming one of the motifs of the season. If I had the time (or to be more accurate, if I could be bothered) I’d go back through the reports I’ve written this season and count the number of times we’ve conceded a goal through an opposing player loitering around in the goalmouth on his lonesome. I do know it’s enough times to consider assigning a sentence describing such an incident its own keyboard short cut on my laptop.

Despite there still being the best part of another hour and half of the match to go Warrington seemed to decide that scoring once was more than enough attacking effort exerted for the day and proceeded to defend their lead. Just how determined they were to head back home with a victory obtained through solitary goal was made evident when – and this is not an exaggeration or a little white lie for comedic effect (as if this blog does funnies!) – Town’s snood adorned keeper received his final warning from the referee for time wasting in only the fifth minute of the match.

It meant the onus was on the home team to break down the extremely well organised Town defence and the way the Lilywhites have been playing recently it should have been a challenge they were more than capable of rising to. Unfortunately it turned out that it was the Mossley side from the opening months of the season that was on show instead: the one lacking spark, creativity and, most importantly of all, width. Every attacking move was funnelled down the centre of the pitch and broken up with ease by the wall of red shirts it constantly running into. On the few occasions the ball wasn’t being worked laboriously down the middle it was flying above every body’s heads and into the arms of the keeper – the folly of trying to play the long ball when you’ve got a gale force wind at your back.


In the 27th minute however there was a brief flicker of inspiration during a Mossley attack. A pass went ‘outside’ rather than ‘inside’ and led to a cross from the left that was met by the head of Chris Rowney and directed into the net via the right hand upright. An effective yet simple passage of play that should have set a precedent for the Lilywhites approach to the remainder of the game. It should have but it didn’t. It proved to be an aberration as despite the success in doing something a bit different the home side returned to ploughing a furrow between the centre spot and the ‘D’ on the edge of the Town; a ploy which resulted in Mossley not having another shot either on or off target for the remainder of the game. In fact you’d be hard pressed to call any of their further adventures into the Warrington half of the pitch attacks.

That’s not to say the visitors were doing any better. Forced out of their defensive posture by the need to find another goal to retake the lead, they struggled to find their first minute form. That said they should have retaken the lead just before the interval when Chris Gahgan was put through on goal but the left winger chipped the ball over both Peter Collinge and the crossbar when finding the back of the net looked a whole lot easier. This turned out to be their last effort aimed towards the Mossley goal so you can imagine what the second half was like with neither side mustering up a shot in anger or even mild vexation.

Actually don’t imagine it because not even a collective of the most pessimistic and gloomiest of minds could conceive a period of football as bad as the one that passed for the second half of this match. It was atrocious and grimmer than the wind and rain filled skies it was being played under. The tedium induced daze the supporters were in broken only by the occasional moment of self-awareness when the realisation of better things they could be doing with forty five minutes of their short lives slowly dawned.

If the second half had one highlight (other than the whistle that mercifully signalled its end) then it was this:
Smiffy gets a four legged apprentice.
To give the visitors some credit they did provide the lion’s share of what little football there was in the second period; a couple of dangerous crosses and two moments when a shot at goal instead of an extra pass would have been more beneficial to their cause, but apart from that there was little to dissuade anyone watching that both sides had subconsciously decided to settle for a point: Mossley happy for a draw against a very good side and Warrington equally pleased with a non-negative result at what was until the midweek games one of the form teams in the division. It’s just a pity they couldn’t agree on the result at half-time, informed the crowd and let us go home early in the knowledge that we weren’t going to miss anything.

Match fixing may be wrong on many levels but being able to agree on an result so the supporters can go home early and dry their wet pants (because of the wind and rain!) is one aspect to it that's cruelly overlooked by the do-gooders.

Chorley 2 - 1 Mossley

It was going to happen sooner or later but Mossley's unbeaten streak turned into a losing run, albeit a run that currently stands as one game, at (deep breath) The Chorley Nissan Victory Park Stadium.

For someone who didn't go, what went on during the match besides the number of goals scored is hard to fathom out due to the acute disparity of opinions between both fan bases. The official Mossley match report and comments from attendees on the club forum insinuate that Mossley were paragons of the beautiful game; misunderstood angels denied a point through shadowy machinations.

The Chorley take on proceedings though tells a tale of the extreme opposite, one which makes the Lilywhites out to be unpunished thugs and the kind of team that no-one wants to see the club they support labelled as.

The truth about what actually happened - as is often the case when there are two differing points of rose tinted views - probably lies somewhere in between. There are however two indisputable facts. The first is that Mossley lost to a penalty awarded to their hosts in the 94th minute of the match and the second is that given the animosity which has sprung up, the return fixture at Seel Park in March is going to be very interesting to say the least.

Radcliffe Borough 0 - 4 Mossley

Here we are, eight days and three games into 2011 and Mossley are still yet to drop a point.

It may be a statistic that possibly won’t have a shelf life beyond the impending midweek trip to title chasing Chorley but it’s impressive all the same considering it’s not something the Lilywhites have a habit of doing at the start of a new calendar year. 2005 being the last time in case you were wondering, which you probably weren’t.

After confining their goal scoring in the previous game against Clitheroe to the first half, the Lilywhites had a bit of change and ran in all four goals scored in this match during the second period. Michael Fish opened the day’s account with a penalty, Matty Kay added a second and in the final minute both Danny Egan (for once shaking off the ‘unlucky’ tag that usually prefixes his name during matches) and Kristian Dennis grabbed a goal apiece; the latter with another strike from long range which is fast becoming his trademark. So much so that his goals against Clitheroe from around the penalty spot are looking like his equivalent of a tap in.

As you’ve probably guessed by now I wasn’t at the match so if you wish to read a fuller account of what went on at Stainton Park on Saturday then I suggest clicking here or here if you want a view from the other side. If you don’t then you could always click somewhere else. Here’s as good a place as any.

Mossley 3 - 2 Clitheroe

If for some reason you’d chosen this first home match of 2011 to introduce either yourself or someone you know to watching Mossley then you couldn’t have picked a better one to do it as it contained everything good, bad and infuriating there is about following the Lilywhites.

Absolute highs and lows of the opposite extreme contained separately in two easily digestible chunks of forty five minutes. Although the three quarters of an hour containing the low points seemed an awful lot longer.

It’s the highs we start with though and Mossley’s perfect opening to the match. Only five minutes had elapsed when Andy Watson got just enough of a touch on the ball to turn Ben Richardson’s scuffed free-kick past Danny McDonald in the Clitheroe goal.

Eight minutes and another free-kick later it was two. On this occasion however the goal sprung from a poorly executed set-piece by the opposition on the edge of the home side’s penalty area. Mossley broke forward quickly and despite a Clitheroe player stopping an initial attempt to send Kristian Dennis clear with one of the most deliberate handballs I’ve seen for a while, a pass was eventually put through that sent the forward scurrying towards the visitor’s box where he made slipping the ball under McDonald and into the net look surprisingly easy.

Dennis’s second goal (and Mossley’s third) in the 32nd minute was a near carbon copy his first; the only difference being that he decided to take the ball around McDonald before sliding it between the posts. And if it hadn’t been for the referee refusing to play the advantage as he galloped through the Clitheroe defence just before the interval it’s possible he could have finished the period with a hat-trick of virtually identical goals.

Three goals isn’t a bad return for one half of football against a side in third spot in the table but if there’s one possible teensy-weensy bit of criticism (heck, it wouldn’t be a proper report on this blog if there wasn’t) it’s that it was only three as it doesn’t do justice to just how dominant Mossley were. There was an abundance of extremely good play from the men in white shirts but not a lot of it resulted in shots on goal or to be more specific, shots on target. Looking back through the video footage of that opening period the goals (clips of which to come at a later date) were the only shots that the keeper actually had to try and stop. His failure to do so was much appreciated though by the majority of people watching him.

So that was the good bit: one of the best halves of football I’ve seen Mossley play this season. What followed after the break though didn’t really quite come close to matching it. By some considerable distance.

To be fair to the Lilywhites they did begin pretty much from where they’d left off. Dennis was prevented from galloping off on another one-on-one with McDonald by an offside call which is now the new benchmark for all contentious decisions and Aaron Chalmers directed a free header over the bar from a corner kick. Then it all began to go a bit wrong.

The wobble started in the 50th minute when Matty Kay was forced to leave the field with an injury. The departure of Darryl Weston for the same reason seven minutes later however turned that wobble into the full blown shakes. With the home side’s experienced central midfield pairing gone Clitheroe (who’d come out after the break finally looking like a side pushing for promotion) began to run rampant. The movement, marking, smart passing and discipline which the Lilywhites first half performance had been built on was replaced by fear, desperation and ridiculously stupid challenges – one or two of which were lucky to escape being punished by a red card.

Fortunately there was one person who hadn’t succumbed to the blind panic affecting the rest of his team mates and that was Peter Collinge who kept his former team at bay single handed, literally at times. Such was the pressure though that even he couldn’t stop the inevitable as Clitheroe finally found the back of the net in the 65th minute. He had a good go mind you, pulling off a superb stop to deny the initial effort coming from a corner on the right. Unfortunately it was a save in vain as the ball rebounded out to Danny Williams and with no-one marking or closing him down he was afforded more time than he should have been to pull a goal back.

Mossley’s net then lead a charmed life as the ball bounced off bodies being thrown in its path or, as in the case of one particularly fraught spell of a few seconds, rolled slowly along the goal line as players from both sides swung legs at it in an attempt to divert it in one of two directions. The pressure was incessant and not helped by the Lilywhites constantly surrendering what little possession they had by continuously launching the ball down the middle of the pitch to Clitheroe’s centre halves, enabling them to start another attack in which they proceeded to run rings around us.

And that’s how the match played out, Mossley grimly hanging on to their two goal lead in the face of unrelenting pressure until it became a one goal lead four minutes from time; Danny Kinsey’s strike setting the stall out for a bum puckering end to the match.

Except it didn’t. With the result balancing on a knife edge and the nerves getting increasingly more strung out Mossley actually managed to put their opponents on the back foot for the first time since the opening stages of the half. They even fashioned a couple of chances too, one having a familiar look to it – Dennis breaking clear of the Clitheroe back line – but not a familiar ending as McDonald clawed away his shot.

Mossleys cause was helped as well by Clitheroe’s efforts to fashion an equaliser becoming a little more frantic as time wore on and rushed passes lead to mistakes and less time in front of the home goal. There was still time for a couple of heart in mouth moments but – and it may have been only by some badly chewed finger nails – Mossley hung on for the three points.

As well as the warm glow that comes with all wins the match provided another service in giving seasoned followers of the Lilywhites the knowledge that while the year may have changed some things remain stubbornly the same: that no matter how big a lead the side has built up, there’ll always be the thought in the back of your mind that says we might, just might, have done enough to hang on for a draw.

Woodley Sports 3 - 4 Mossley

For the first time in five years Mossley got a new calendar year off to a winning start in what match reports are apparently legally obliged to call 'a seven goal thriller'.

At least I assume it was a thriller. Reports I've heard on the game do suggest it wasn't without its moments of high excitement, particularly in the second half when 5 of the match's 7 goals were scored. The first half however apparently contained little in the way of drama until both sides found the back of the net in its final minute.

Three of Mossley's goals came from last season's leading scorer Matty Kay but the pick of the bunch, as I'm lead to believe, was yet another effort from long range by Kristian Dennis; up until a month and a half ago a former Woodley player and someone who it appears is at his most lethal in front of goal when it's a dot on the horizon.

The win puts the Lilywhites comfortably into mid-table and it's a position they'll remain in for a while even if they keep winning due to the points gap between them and the teams directly above - the ones fighting it out for a play-off spot. With 28 games left to play it's certainly not an insurmountable gap and the possibility of closing it and finishing in the top 5 (no matter how faint it may seem at the moment) will make the next four months a little more interesting than we expected.

However, if I've jinxed everything by sharing that little bit of optimism and we now go on one of our not-exactly-uncommon losing streaks, please feel free to ignore the last paragraph and create one of your own based around a theme of looking over our shoulders nervously at the foot of the table.

The Even Later December Message

And that's it in terms of Mossley and football and everything else for 2010; a year that has been slightly more eventful than most at Seel Park: no floodlights for half of it, home games played in a neighbouring town, some great football interspersed with some truly woeful stuff, the return of the managerial merry go round... there was never a dull moment. Oh! Wait, there was.

So what does the New Year hold besides 29 games crammed into its opening 16 weeks? Well, probably more of the same really; the odd great game here and there, a fair amount of moaning and as we haven't had one for nine or so months, a situation occurring where the club stands teetering on the edge of a financial precipice.

Actually that list could equally apply to almost every club plying their trade on this green and pleasant land, especially the last bit about money worries. A number of clubs have ceased to be this year and with no sign of this new age of austerity ending for the foreseeable future, it's almost a certainty that they'll be joined by more over the coming months and years. To those people supporting and running clubs who'll be facing such a situation in the coming weeks and months ahead: good luck.

As for things closer to home, that is to say this very blog you're reading now, there will be changes over the next calendar year. Not just design-wise but content-wise too. It won't have failed to escape your notice that this site is starting to contain fewer actual reports on Mossley's games and I don't think that's going to change any time soon. Why? Well that's a question that deserves a more detailed answer than I have time for now.

What I can say though is that the blog's scope may expand a little. To include just what though is something I'm keeping close to my chest for the time being in case it doesn't happen. After all there's no point setting yourself up for fall. Or fail to use modern internet parlance.

I'd like to take this opportunity however to thank those of you who still make the time and effort to visit this little corner of the internet and read whatever ramblings I've chosen to share with the world. It's appreciated - a lot! - so thank you and for the kind words that have been imparted too. :-)

Like I did at this time last year though I shall leave you with TVGolo's look back at 12 months of blunders, ridiculous misses, angry ball boys, one man pitch invasions and the never gets tiring at all sight of officials being knocked over:




Happy New Year and on to 2011 and whatever it may hold.

Mossley 1 - 1 Curzon Ashton

In what can be described as a bit of a turn-up for the books, Mossley's annual home league defeat to Curzon Ashton ended in something other than a loss for the Lilywhites.

It might not have been a win but a draw is an improvement on the multi-goal hammerings we've received off our near neighbours at Seel Park in recent seasons. It's a result too that stretches our unbeaten run to over 5 weeks. Okay, it may be 5 weeks that only encompasses a grand total of 3 games due to the weather but good news is good news no matter how slightly less impressive it sounds when you look at it in finer detail.

From the things I've been told about the game it should have been a victory for the Lilywhites. However our inability to put the ball in the net when we were on top reared its head once more and the one goal we did score (another impressive edge of the box effort from Kristian Dennis apparently) was cancelled out later on when the visitors decided turn up in spirit as well as just body.

The first nine words of the previous paragraph should be a clue that you're not going to find an eyewitness account of this post-Christmas derby on here. If you want some internet musings from those of a Mossley persuasion who attended then you should visit here and here.

If you require a neutral eye's view on proceedings then you could do a lot worse than heading to Beat The First Man where NikNoCee has documented the game in one of his increasingly more frequent trips over the Pennines in search of football. While you're there you should take a bit of time to read the rest of the site because there's a reason why it has been chosen by The Guardian as one of the 100 general football blogs to follow in 2011.

Next up for the Lilywhites is a New Years Day trip to Woodley. Is there any better way to celebrate a new calendar year than spend it in a dank corner of Stockport in dank weather? At it happens the answer is yes which is I won't be there but I'm sure there'll be a proper Mossley report on here soon.

Possibly.

The Late December Message

Christmas Filler: Part Two

In retrospect it was probably a mistake to suffix yesterday but yesterday but one's blog entry with 'part one' as doing so has meant having to come up with a 'part two' so I don't look silly. Okay, sillier than usual.

In keeping with the minimum effort theme of the previous post I'm going to once again release into the wider public arena another video which has only ever had the eyes of a few people clapped on it. And once you watch it I've no doubt you'll be wishing that it had remained under lock and key in a dark, distant corner of the internet because - and I'm going to be brutally honest here - it's not really very good. Actually 'not really very good' is far too higher praise for it.

I'll readily admit that it's not the best one I've ever done, even by my shockingly low standards, but in my defence it captures the match perfectly. And the match in question is another fixture from the 2008/09 season but this time it's not league but cup football, or to be more precise the height of excitement that is the President's Cup, the Northern Premier Leagues answer to the question: can you come up a meaningless and universally unloved competition that blights the footballing landscape like a... sorry, I was getting away there.

Anyhoo the 'action' (purely for want of a better term) is from Mossley's 3rd round tie at Chorley (more here) and it starts with the home side already one-up.

Alright, don't say I didn't warn you:


If there's to be a 'part three' (I've now learnt not to promise such things) I'll endeavour to come up with something that's a bit more interesting.

Not much more but a bit.

Christmas Filler: Part One

The lack of games to report on because of the weather’s current match postponing, Arctic like qualities has thrown up an interesting puzzle: How do you update a blog with something that may prove vaguely interesting to someone, somewhere whilst exerting the minimum amount of effort in its production?

After pondering this conundrum for the better part of one blink of an eye I hit upon a solution: post something I did ages ago that not very many people have seen. And that is why the next-but-one paragraph is followed by the video of a random league game (this one in fact) from two seasons ago which had previously been hidden to all but a few people… until now!

So if you're sitting there with nothing better to do for the next four or five minutes - and the fact you're reading this blog kind of suggests you haven't - then why not spend them watching Mossley pick up what was a well deserved win at the Irongate back in 2008?

Go on, you know you want to.

Cammell Laird 1 - 2 Mossley

I almost forgot that last week, amidst the glut of postponements there has been recently due to the chilly and white flakey weather, Mossley actually managed to play a competitive game football.

As you might expect by now when it comes to away matches: I wasn’t there, so if you want to know more about the Lilywhites first ever win in Rock Ferry then click on this link.

Instead of enjoying the veritable charms of Birkenhead by night I was 41 miles away on the terraces at Seel Park, bumping the crowd watching Mossley reserves take on their equivalents from Bamber Bridge into the high single figures.

Of course I could furnish you with a report on this game but given that the only player I recognised was Lee Blackshaw it’s likely that you’d get mildly irritated by a string of sentences describing ‘thingy’ passing to ‘what’s he called’ before ‘you know, him up front, no, not the tall one’ sends a shot bobbling wide of its target.

I shall therefore just say that while it can be argued that Brig’s 5-1 victory was a little flattering, there’s another argument to be had that the margin of defeat could have been a whole lot worse had it not been for a missed penalty and other miscues from the visitors.

It would be errant of me though not to point out that the Lilywhites second string did play some very, very nice football at times - the passing, movement and awareness at times was exemplary. The problem was, much as it has been for the first team as well for a significant part of this season, all of these well-constructed moves fizzling out into nothing. There were shots at goal but all were straight at the keeper; even Blackshaw’s goal, as well taken as it was, made its way into the net under the body of the Bridge goalie.

The positive though - if there is such a thing to be taken from a hammering at home - is that it was such a young side Mossley had out that the game will probably be a valuable addition to their learning curve. Then again, how many times have we seen such things as supporters yet we still keep coming back for more?

With the weather having taken another turn for the worse and the forecast for the coming week looking decidedly frosty, the chances of seeing another game of football involving Mossley being played in 2010 is closer to zero than the temperature.

So as well as starting to save my pennies in readiness for attending the four game a week marathon we’re almost certainly going to be having in April in order to complete all our fixtures before the end of the season, I'd better come up with something to put on the blog in lieu of the trickle of match reports.

Well I have to give the two people who visit here every week something new to read, don't I?

30 Years Ago: Part Seven

As briefly mentioned at the end of the sixth part of this blog's reminiscences about Mossley's 'golden age', the Lilywhites reward for their one goal victory over Crewe Alexandra in the 1980/81 FA Cup was...


The following articles are taken from the edition of the Mossley & Saddleworth Reporter published in the week leading up to the game. Along with previewing the game and detailing the story that Mike Summerbee would not be replicating his cameo in a white shirt from the previous round, there's also news of Mossley's hi-tech approaching to securing their property; one which judging by trips to numerous grounds in the 21st Century has yet to be surpassed by advancements in technology:






After all the build-up the game unfortunately turned out to be something of a damp squib. At least it was if you were a Mossley supporter because I'm sure the travelling fans from Mansfield were reasonably happy with what transpired. The Lilywhites, while not disgracing themselves, didn't put in the kind of disciplined performance they were noted for until it was too late. Not for the first, or indeed the last, time at Seel Park there were a lot of people left to ponder on the thought: "if only..."

Below are four reports on the game taken from the Sunday and Monday editions of the tabloid newspapers:



The cup exit, as bitterly disappointing as it was, did at least mean that Mossley could concentrate on trying to secure a third successive Northern Premier League title and reaching Wembley again in the FA Trophy.

It wasn't to be though. The 13 point lead Runcorn had built up in the league while Mossley were on their FA Cup run proved to be insurmountable (it was a time when it was still only 2 points for a win) and the Lilywhites finished runners-up; a position they would end up in at the close of the following two seasons as well. In the FA Trophy Mossley made it as far as the quarter finals before they came unstuck in North Wales, losing 5-3 to Bangor City.

And with that comes the end of this look back at what happened three decades ago when Mossley, a team from a small Northern mill town, were arguably one of the top sides plying their trade outside of the professional leagues. There are a few scrapbook cuttings left but they're from a time that no-one particularly wants to relive: our mid-eighties slide to ignominy and the first of a long series of brushes with oblivion.

I hope that this and the preceding six parts brought back some happy memories for those of you who were around to experience this incredible period of the club's history first hand. If you're too young to remember or weren't following Mossley at the time then I hope they proved to be of some interest.

Most of all though I hope they brought some enjoyment. Even if it was only a little bit.

Mossley 6 - 0 Trafford

No, your eyes do not deceive you. The score above is correct - we did indeed put six unanswered goals past Trafford. Yes, really!

To be honest I don't think I would have believed that score line if I hadn't seen it for my own eyes, especially after the way we've been playing recently, but not only was it a comprehensive win it was a thoroughly deserved one too. Then again I suppose that’s a given as surely there can be no such thing as a lucky six goal victory?

In fact the only criticism I have about the result (and it's an itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny, microscopic one at that) is that Mossley didn't score more. It wasn’t a case of ‘could have’ reached double figures: we ‘should have’ reached double figures for the first time in the club’s history.

The reason why being - and there’s no nice, sugar-coated way to put it - Trafford were shockingly awful. Not only did the visitors fail to register anything that can be remotely described as shot in the general direction of Mossley’s goal, I can’t recall them winning a corner or spending more than thirty seconds in the opposing half of the pitch.

That’s not to denigrate Mossley’s performance in any way because they played extremely well - magnificently so even - but there’s no question they were helped along the way by the most hapless display I’ve seen from a football team since… well, let’s just say it involved the Lilywhites and leave it there.

Like everybody else with a link to Mossley though I'm more than thoroughly happy with six goals the team did score, and what a set of six they were. There were no scrambled efforts or scruffy tap-ins from a matter of inches - everyone was a doozy in its own special way.

The goals started to fly in as early as the fourth minute when Callum Byrne fired the ball home from twenty yards and quarter of an hour later Kristian Dennis doubled the lead from a similar distance. Ben Richardson then added a third with a powerful close range volley before Byrne notched his second goal of the evening. A rather natty piece of ball juggling just inside the Trafford half by Mike Fish created the opening and the loanee from Rochdale lifted the ball over keeper Tom Read to finish a well worked move.

An even better passage of play took place not long after that would have undoubtedly been goal of the season if Sam Hare could have applied the finish to a move which numbered more than twenty passes and tore Trafford apart. A miskick at the vital moment though denied him both his goal and the chance to pick up a small trophy in the social club in May.

With the temperature dropping below freezing point and the ground whitening under a thick layer of frost there was a worry that the match might not see out the full ninety minutes. Happily though the ground failed to harden during the second half and in a touching show of solidarity with Mother Earth, neither did the Trafford defence.

Chances came and went for the home side with a frequency bordering on the incredible but it wasn’t until just after the hour point that the Lilywhites troubled the net again. Kristian Dennis equalling Byrne's tally for the evening with an effort that was a near carbon copy of his first goal in the preceding half.

With a bit more composure in front of goal Mossley would have added a sixth long before Matty Kay did so eight minutes from time. Last season’s top scorer taking advantage of the acres of space afforded to him to finally open his account for this campaign.

And having read about the goals you can now see them:


It’s a horrible football cliché to use but as bad as Trafford were, you can only beat what’s in front of you and Mossley (another horrible football cliché coming up) did so with some aplomb.

Will a victory as convincing and as comprehensive as this one finally kick-start our league campaign? Truthfully I’ve no idea. I thought the four goal win over Ossett a fortnight earlier might have had the same effect but that proved not to be the case so who knows? It certainly won’t do our confidence any harm at all which is no bad thing considering that we’re heading into a run of pre-Christmas games against opponents who share our lowly league position.

So get those fingers crossed. Not just for some upcoming wins but that the weather warms up and improves enough to allow the matches to be played.

Mossley 2 - 4 Lancaster City

It's starting to feel like I'm stuck in a Groundhog Day style time loop when it comes to watching and writing about Mossley.

Dominating possession - ✔. A not overly exerted opposing goalkeeper - ✔. An over-abundance of attacks consisting of a short sequence of passes followed by a lumping the ball down the centre of the pitch - ✔. Calamitous, laugh or you'll cry defending - ✔. The opposition registering a win without having to break too much of a sweat - ✔. Leaving at the end wondering if it is going to start getting better any time soon - ✔. Looking at the fixture list and coming to the conclusion that it probably won't - ✔.

The only way I know for certain that I'm not reliving the same ninety minutes over and over again is the steadily decreasing temperature and the changing colour of the opposition's shirts.

We did get something a little bit different though. For a while it appeared that the one notable event in the first half would be Daryl Weston managing to get the ball through the window of the tea bar, which if you know the geography of Seel Park is quite some achievement. Sadly, by the time it came for the teams to leave the pitch for the break the majority of people inside the ground were wishing that the sight of pies, peas and gravy being sent flying had been the only incident worth talking about.

As a Lancaster fan on their own club forum has so accurately put it, the visitors only really played for a total of 15 minutes which straddled the interval and they left with three points. Before they took a 42nd minute lead the Dolly Blues had spent the majority of the game in their own half of the pitch, dealing comfortably with Mossley's laboured efforts to create something with all the possession they were being allowed and looking to hit the home side on the break.

And it was from one of these counter attacks that they scored the opening goal and what a goal it was. A brilliant piece of individual skill from Josh Kenworthy to take two players out of the game was supplemented by an equally impressive bit of teamwork which opened up a space for Max Rothwell to launch an unstoppable shot past Peter Collinge. It was a goal of such quality (and one that my description goes nowhere close to doing it justice) that you couldn't put any blame on Mossley for conceding. If only I could say the same for the three that followed.

It's only fair though that the midfield shoulder some of the blame for the second goal too as it was in their area of the pitch, deep into injury time at the end of the first period, that the ball was lost in a surprisingly cheap fashion. City broke upfield and despite Paul Jarvis horrifically mis-controlling a cross that was played into him on the edge of the six yard box, the lack of any close marking whatsoever meant he had time to chase the loose ball down and finally get it under control before putting his side two ahead. Two then became three ten minutes after the restart when Kenworthy took the ball off Ben Richardson and calmly slotted it past Collinge.

Going three goals down seemed to spark Mossley into taking control of the game once again (though it could be argued that the resurgence was due in part to Lancaster sitting back on their near unassailable lead as well) but not for the first time a lack of guile and incisiveness at the business end of the pitch meant they were confined to shooting from distance.

Yet it was from one of these slightly hopeful long range efforts that Mossley pulled a goal back. The ball from a Lilywhites corner wended its way to Mike Fish on the corner of the Lancaster box and with the aid of a slight deflection he curled a shot into the net to give the home side the glimmer of hope of a comeback.


It was enough of a flicker to increase the rate of huffing and puffing from the men in white shirts but the chances needed to realise that recovery were few to non-existent and any optimism left was extinguished five minutes from time. Once again the misery was self-inflicted. Cavell Coo played an ill-advised and misdirected pass across the back line which gave Rothwell the chance to break clear and register his second and Lancaster’s fourth goal of the match. The afternoon’s scoring still wasn’t completed though and in injury time Michael Thomas added a bit of respectability to the score line with an absolute humdinger of a shot from 25 yards out

Not bad for a centre half, eh?
In some respects the final score is harsh on a team that controlled so much of the game but matches aren’t won by finishing having had a greater share of the possession. If it was there’d certainly be more than four teams between us and the bottom of the table which is how it stands at the moment.

What has let us down on this and umpteen other occasions so far this season is our inability to do the fundamental basics of the game properly: attack and defend. Rather worryingly too we don’t seem any closer than we were back in August to rectifying the situation. It doesn’t matter how many times the personnel changes (and with around forty players used they’ve changed quite a lot) the same problems continue to exist.

And while they do that Groundhog Day feeling will go on, and on, and on...

30 Years Ago: Part Six

Back in June I said that the look back at events of 30 years ago wouldn’t end with the coverage of the teams return from the FA Trophy final, simply because there was another notable event in Mossley AFC’s history during 1980.

On the 22nd of November (three decades ago to this very day in fact) the Lilywhites claimed their first, and so far only, Football League scalp in the FA Cup when they beat Fourth Division Crewe Alexandra 1-0 in the first round of that season’s competition.


Unfortunately, unlike the Trophy games, my memories of this famous victory for the club are practically non-existent because I wasn’t able to attend the game. Having spent the best part of the week leading up to the match in Manchester Royal Infirmary having had an operation to try and improve my hearing, I was under strict doctor’s orders not to leave the house for two weeks. And as welcome as a fortnight off school was, it didn’t come close to making up for the bitter disappointment ofnot making it to this game.


What I precisely did miss can be read about in the following report on the match which appeared in the Mossley & Saddleworth Reporter:


It was a game also memorable for being Mike Summerbee’s last ever game of competitive football having come out of retirement (and off the back of playing alongside Pele, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone in Vichy France) as a favour to Mossley’s then manager, Bob Murphy. With it being his last game the fixture does get a lengthy mention in his autobiography and what follows are a few selected extracts:

My professional career had been over for eighteen months when I agreed to help out an old friend and shirt customer, Bob Murphy, who was the manager of non-League club Mossley. A couple of months earlier Bob had said he was short of players: would I turn out in an emergency if required? I said I would, not thinking he would ever be that desperate. Well, Mossley reached the first round of the FA Cup and there was Bob on the phone asking me to play against Crewe Alexandra. He registered me as an official footballer once more – and I had to find some boots again.

Michael Crawford was staying with us at the time and he took Tina (Summerbee’s wife) along to watch the game; I told him not to start laughing or anything. I had to do the best I could. I got to the ground at about 12:30pm, far earlier than I ever used to in my career, but I knew I had to warm up gradually. I was out on the pitch, gently preparing for more than an hour, and then came into the changing room.

‘I’m going to make you the substitute, Mike,’ said Murphy as I went in.

‘You can’t do that,’ I said and it wasn’t ego talking. ‘You have to put me on now, otherwise I won’t be able to play at all. It’s taken me an hour to warm up on the pitch. Put me on from the start.’

As he was doing the team talk I kept walking round all the time, kept moving. I couldn’t afford to stand still for a moment. Then it was out for the game and a fella in the crowd shouted: ‘What are you doing out on the pitch, you b*****d, Summerbee?’

‘How does five hundred quid sound?’ I said to shut him up. Actually, I was playing for nothing. For the first time in my life I was an amateur.

The Mossley pitch had a slope and we played down hill in the first half. I stayed out on the wing and just clipped a few balls in when I had the chance and jogged back to keep the team shape. At half-time it was 0-0 and I had to keep moving through the break. I could already feel the stiffness creeping into my body. In the second half we were going up the slope and to me it felt like climbing Kilimanjiro. Behind me at full-back was was a young lad who kept overtaking me and I was really struggling, sucking air up my rear end. I could hardly move but I kept going. A minute from time there was a corner on the left hand side. I went over and took it, and the centre forward, who was a big fella, rose up and, boom, the ball was in the back of the net. 1-0. We’d won the game and there were all the wide-eyed celebrations you get when a minnow wins an FA Cup tie against a League side.

The Mossley chairman came in afterwards and looked straight over at me and said: ‘You’ll be playing in the next round.’

‘No I won’t,’ was my instant reply. ‘I can’t. It will take me three weeks just to walk properly again.’

And I’ll tell you how stiff I was. I dropped the soap in the shower and I couldn’t even bend down to get it. One of the young lads had to pick it up for me. Outside I found Tina and Michael and they were laughing their heads off. That was it. Finished. Job done. It was the last match I played. The boots went in the skip again.

There are a couple of inaccuracies (the time of the goal and the centre forward didn’t score as intimated) but nothing compared to those in Neil Warnock’s book.

Some more clippings from the Mossley & Saddleworth Reporter:


The reward for this 'giant-killing' was a second round tie against more Football League opposition - Mansfield Town. And it's that game which will make up the seventh and final 30 year trip down memory lane in three weeks time.

Harrogate Railway Athletic 4 - 3 Mossley

If you look at basic facts that can be gleaned from this game - Mossley coming from behind three times before losing to a goal deep into injury time - it would appear that we were once again the unfortunate victims of an absence of luck that some fans think is responsible for our lowly league position.

The comments of those who attended the game though tell a different story; "If we'd have got ANYTHING out of this game - we wouldn't have deserved" standing out amongst many as for the first time this season the forum played host to more than a few postings questioning tactics, team selections and other points of concern that had previously only been talked about with quiet concern on the terraces.

With two home games aginst mid-table sides up next it will be interesting to see how the Lilywhites react to this latest setback. If by 9:45pm on Tuesday evening a run of one win in eight games has been extended to one win in ten outings then it's likely that the concern expressed in the aftermath won't be quite so mild mannered. Alternatively four to six points from the same games could push us up to a respectable spot in the middle of the division.

As always with this club it's going to be interesting to see what does transpire as it's never not dull... well, not often.

Mossley 4 - 0 Ossett Albion

If you're a regular visitor to this blog it can't have failed your notice that updates have been somewhat tardy over the past few weeks. That reports on games are being posted at least a week past a point where all right minded people have given up caring.

There is a reason. Well there's a big one and a small one. The small one is that the new Call of Duty game has eaten up a proportion of my free time as I try to get past the point of being utterly rubbish at it on-line (progress update since this paragraph was first written: still utterly rubbish). The big one is that I simply couldn't be bothered. I know I've said numerous times in the past few months that I'm becoming fatigued with football but that feeling just continues to grow and grow. Why it does I may elucidate on at a later time when I'm in the mood for the argument it may possibly cause.

In the meantime though I should really get this report done, especially as in a break from the recent norm, it's on about a match that Mossley won. The scoreline suggests it was a comfortable victory and effectively it was with the Lilywhites almost dominating the game from start to finish. But it's that 'almost' bit which, no matter how well the home side played for the majority of the match, could have seen the three points slip from their grasp.

Mossley opened the scoring with their first shot on goal in fifth minute - Callum Bryne getting his temporary spell at the club off to quite the start with quite some strike - and 75 minutes and approximately 483 efforts on goal later they added a second when Mike Oates got on the end of a huge upfield punt and turned the ball past the Ossett keeper. The third followed not long after when Lee Blackshaw curled a low free kick into the bottom corner of the net and contrary to what you may have seen elsewhere, the Lilywhites final goal of the night came courtesy of Ossett's very own Ryan White. How Oates has been credited with it is a mystery I'm sure Arthur C. Clarke would have eventually got round to investigating had his TV show not finished 30 years ago and he not died in 2008.

Another mystery is why I bothered to detail the goals when you can see them for yourself - just about - in the following video:


The outcome could have been very different though if it wasn't for a brilliant piece of last ditch defending a minute or so prior to Mossley's second goal. Yes, this is the aforementioned 'almost' bit of the game where Ossett briefly got the upper hand and it stemmed from a 75th minutes change of formation from the Lilywhites.

Before the reshuffling of the pack Mossley were lined up in 5-3-2 formation with the full backs pushing forward at every available opportunity, effectively making the shape 3-5-2 for significant periods of time. It worked fantastically well too; Ossett barely got within glimpsing distance of the Lilywhites goal let alone close enough to have a shot. After the change though Mossley reverted to the flat back four they've been using for the majority of games this season and just like in the majority of games this season, the defence got wobbly and things didn't look quite so rosy.

The ball was lost and given away with embarrassing frequency in an incredibly short space of time, culminating in a moment in which Ossett should have equalised. A cross from the left arrived at the feet of one of two Albion players alone and unmarked in the middle of the Mossley penalty area. The resulting shot beat the dive of Peter Collinge but not the outstretched foot of someone in a white shirt who'd managed to get back and hook the ball off the line. I'd like to name who that player was but because it's only possible to make out shapes and not who's who at medium to long distances under the new floodlights, I can't. So to whoever it was who stopped the visitors drawing level: thank you.

Overall though this was a much improved performance from the men in white shirts. However, just as you can't get carried away after one defeat, it would be silly to do so after one good result. If we can put in performances and results like this more consistently (and against better teams than Ossett - let's be honest, they were pretty poor) then it will be time to start thinking that a corner has been turned. The outcome of the next game at Harrogate Railway should give us a clue to whether that may be soon or a while longer yet.