Riding on the high of recent results, and heading in to the weekend with an impressive goal difference of negative 22, an away game at Crewe was in theory just what we needed to pick us up and get us off the mark in the league. An 11 o’clock meet at the Fallowfield MacDonald’s quickly turned into 11:30, and bad news came with our captain for the day Ash Lingham, we’d lost Stu, whether his car had been stolen or he’d left it around the corner and forgot where he put it, I’ll never know, but his name being taken off the team sheet was a heavy hit to take.
I’d never been to Crewe before, upon arriving I soon understood it wasn’t the kind of place I’d be choosing to return to. A brief changing room team talk from Ash set us up well for the game ahead, comments of “we know what to play boys” and “I’m not going to say much like Brad does, because when he does I don’t understand it, so you won’t when I say it”, got us in the appropriate mood. Safe to say we were up for it. The warm up was short but sweet, whoever was running it forgot a few stretches at least, lunges were left out, much to my distress, leading to personals lasting significantly longer than usual.
When we were finally allowed on the pitch we ran all manner of drills, my favourite of which was a shot box. Many shots, limited goals, you could say we were saving them for the game.
Push back, the first 10 minutes were dominated by Brooklands, and with the pitch being deceivingly slippery, apparently, I’d already put their winger on his arse within 30 seconds. It seemed as though we would absolutely ruin this torrid Crewe team, with the chances flowing, the missed chances also flowing, the open goal misses also running up, and without naming names the credit to one of those goes to our aspiring dj who was clearly still riding the high of his recent payday when he found himself needing to just touch the ball in order to score. We continued to outclass them in every single position, until they scored. They scored after Max Turner saved nearly 4 shots from a short, but they touched in a goal which we would’ve been ashamed of. And half time was called.

The half time team talk was nearly as impactful as the pre game, short sentences only, I believe the number of times “we said we wanted to stay in it, we still are” was said hit the double digits, and George English tried to educate some of the forwards on how to run. Tempers had calmed and we were ready to strike back.
Second half began and instantly we asked them as politely as possible to score, they declined. Gave them 3 chances one on one with Max Turner, I’d love to say that he saved one, but in fact they sent them all wide. Apparently 3 wasn’t enough, when someone decided to play a suicide ball across the top of the D to there striker, yet again they put it wide, I couldn’t imagine who it may have been, possibly George English but could never have been me. The chances continued to flow despite the static nature of our forwards, and we continued to spurn them. I lost track of how many times we could have won the game, as the profanity opposed umpires continued to produce the cards. I myself managed to avoid one due to how “innocent” I looked upon being accused, receiving an apology from the umpire after the game, the Crewe players clearly need to take notes as they seemingly loved the bench between the dugouts.
Even though we continued to attack, the final whistle did have to go at some point, and it came before we scored. Despite it being the closest score line of the season, and a class performance from a team who hadn’t played much together, it did come out as 1-0 to Crewe. Many positives to take but still yearning a win, we go to next week and hope that next time Brad promises pie and mash it doesn’t end up as curry and chips.

Mom: Max Turner
Dod: Eddie Rudolph, decided to steal my pint glass, which I was trying to ‘borrow’.