not so long ago....
Rovers at the True Dons
Late season, and the weather was warmer but, with both teams not yet safe, it was likely to be a slightly tense one.
Rovers started with Clucas coming back in for the injured Woodards, Matty Harrold up front with Mo, and a following wind from a reportedly excellent if fruitless performance Bury in the week.
And we had our stylish purple away kit – one of the few real ‘keepers’ from this season (Mildy excepted, obviously).
Being a bit low-budget, they had no-one I’d ever heard of and a non-league, if fit-for-purpose, ground. It was the right size for the 4,500 crowd, though, and it made our 625 feel more as we more-or-less filled our space.
It was pretty standard, if competitive, stuff, until they started to pass it well and put pressure on our defence. They had a bloke who plays a lot like Kaid, running quite directly at the defence, and while none of it really came off it was quite unsettling and made me realise the effect that Mo has on the opposition team and fans.
Our defence was well-organised, though, and while they threatened a lot and pumped crosses and passes into the box we usually had the cover to cope. I thought that our back line looked a really good unit, in fact, always ready to back each other up if someone got away.
Wombles had a free-kick which was looping ominously back towards their forwards when someone, Parkes I think, managed to get under it in front of the forward and head it over the bar when it would have been easier to head it into his own net. Mildy gave him a big pat on the back for that one, and I thought it was very well-earned.
Up front, I think you know what was happening. Matty was running around a lot to little effect, always seeming to be a yard or two behind or in front of the ball, and we lacked bite. After a while JJOT had a lovely-looking volley just outside the box which was our first real chance, but he Jonny Wilkinsoned it clear of the stand.
Kaid gave away the ball needlessly and stupidly in our half, and their bloke was through on goal. He rounded Mildy excellently, but the 3 Rovers defenders took up blocking positions that made him hesitate and then miss the target. Great teamwork, but he really should have scored.
They had a fat bloke called Sweeney, and a good player in Midson, but no one else who really stood out for me.
In the ten minutes before half-time it looked like they were going to score in a minute, but we held out and didn’t have time to take a corner of our own because the whistle blew.
Second half Clarke was probably trying to repeat the second half at Bury, so Alfie came on for Lockyear, and later Gillespie for Seanan (who had been excellent in defence, I thought). Their crowd perked up too, and I thought they made much more noise than many of the home crowds that we play against.
The bloke marking Alfie was even smaller than him, which is a first in Alfie’s league career, I’d guess, but he still struggled to make much of an impact, with many of his better touches and passes not being picked up by his teammates.
Rovers were much more in the game than in the first half, but the football deteriorated as the half went on, with Rovers in particular resorting to a lot of Whooshball with Matty Harrold not getting on the end of much of it.
It got so bad at one point that someone shouted out ‘bring back f***ing Buckle’, though I think that in the cold light of day he wouldn’t mean it. Another bloke got out of his seat at about the 70-minute mark and shouted ‘hurrah, we’ve had a shot on target’, and when the lino got something right there was a chorus of ‘Harrold, Harrold, Harrold’, which must have confused him no end unless he’d twigged that it was only because he was a ginger.
They had several shots, and Rovers made some splendid blocks and Mildy a couple of tip-top saves. It wasn’t all one-way though – Matty chased a ball through to the penalty spot and stretched at it. It wasn’t exactly a dive, more of a stretch that gave him a chance to make contact with the full-back, but it was a dive really.
Nothing was given, but he paid the price ten minutes later when he was pushed to the ground in the box and nothing was given again. It was a nailed-on penalty, but he was in a weak position to complain.
Three Germans came and sat in front of me, and started shouting for Fabian Broghammer when Gillespie came on, and we had to tell them that he’s still injured. They were about a month too early, I think, although whether they’d come all the way from Germany to watch League 2 I couldn’t say.
We had a few chances in the last few minutes, but nothing genuinely close. Mohammed had been a bit less effective than in the first half, probably because of the Whooshball, and Harrold apart from the penalty-not-given about the same.
Talking with a couple of their fans after the game, they thought that 1-0 would have been a fair reflection of the game, and I had to agree with them. But they saw it as a penalty too, so it was definitely one which could have gone either way.
With 5 games still to play, and Pompey, Wycombe and Northampton winning today, the tension isn’t over.
