A stand without cover and they tore us apart

In her brilliant memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson isn’t terribly complimentary about her hometown: “Accrington is not famous for much. It has the world’s worst football team – Accrington Stanley – and a large collection of Tiffany glass donated by Joseph Briggs.”

By 2.30pm last Saturday, we had made Accrington Stanley look far from the world’s worst football team, and I wished I’d gone to look at the Tiffany glass instead.

As an away day, it could most generously be described as character building. The temperature? Freezing. The rain? Relentless. The terrace? Uncovered. Our starting line-up? Perplexing. Quigley on his own up front in what appeared to be a 4-5-1 formation? Fondop and Mellon on the bench? I never normally drink before midday – not even at the airport – but I needed some fortification before heading out to watch that, fully exposed to the Hyndburn winter.

They did at least have Clayton Park Bakery pies at the (ahem) Wham Stadium, and Andy managed to get us the last two cheese ones before KO. That was as good as the afternoon got.

📸 Phill Smith

We did have the better of the chances early on, to be fair. Payne had a decent shot from the edge of the box saved; Hawkes’s shot from 25 yards was just over the bar, as was his shot from a free kick after Rawson fouled Quigley and was rightly booked.

Hawkes was superb against Newport, and started brightly again at Accrington, so it was gutting when he went off injured 25 minutes in. Drummond, who had a great game v Newport, came on for him, so it shouldn’t have been a killer blow, but we never quite recovered.

Rawson could consider himself lucky to not get a second yellow shortly after for what was clearly a deliberate handball, punching the ball off Hannant’s head. The referee bottled it, and it became depressingly clear that it wasn’t going to be our day.

Their goal came against the run of play, and if it was horrible to watch on TV, it was utterly gruesome having a perfect view of it out in the open behind the goal. I’m not convinced it was a foul by Payne for the free kick, but that doesn’t justify our utter failure to defend it. Hudson parried Ward’s shot, and Robson’s attempt to put it out for a corner trickled painfully over the goal line. I thought at the time that Caprice got the final touch trying to stop it going in; it was given to an Accrington player by their PA announcer. Whoever it was, it was sickening.

We probably should have levelled from a corner, but in the scramble in the 6-yard box, Quigley’s shot went out for another corner, which came to nothing. From a long ball from Monthe, Drummond reacted well and found himself one-on-one with the keeper. Obviously, his shot was saved, but he closed down the rebound and crossed it to Quigley, whose shot was headed out for another corner.

📸 Phill Smith

Fair play to whoever was doing the PA for playing Weekend In Paradise by Jamie Webster at half-time. Top bantz. Well played.

We’d ‘huffed and puffed’ and created chances, but changes needed to be made at half-time and weren’t. Isaac Heath, on loan from Everton where he was named U21 player of the year last season (and who, disappointingly, doesn’t appear to be related to Adrian Heath), made a dangerous run down the left from a throw in early on and his shot was put out for a corner.

We brought Mellon and Stevens on for Quigley and Hannant 52 minutes in, which was odd timing. If you’re going to make subs that early in the second half, why not just do it at half time? Mellon tried a flick shot with his back to goal after being played in by Payne shortly after coming on, but it went over the bar.

67 minutes in, we brought on Simeu and Fondop for Payne and Drummond, which I also thought was a little odd. Was Drummond knackered? He didn’t look it. Presumably we brought on Simeu to switch to 3-5-2 and get Robson and Caprice further forward. It was worth a go, but that didn’t really work either.

Fondop, yet again, was repeatedly fouled with nothing given. Caprice, once again, was booked for what didn’t seem that bad a challenge. Sunrise, sunset.

We gave it a bit more of a go in the last 10 minutes, but it all felt a bit desperate and chaotic. We finally got a free kick for a foul on Stevens, and Mellon’s shot on goal drew a good save. The less said about the pea roller for the other free kick, the better. The less said about the game as a whole, the better. Well done you for reading this far.

We were hoping to try to redeem a dismal day by going somewhere nice for tea. We headed into the town centre, and the one place that looked good was fully booked. Wetherspoons it was, followed by a trip to Tesco for the essentials for the train home.

Hibs played Celtic in the lunchtime kick off on Sunday (no, stick with me on this). It finished 1-2 to Celtic, and Celtic’s first goal came from a defensive mistake, with the Hibs keeper, Sallinger, attempting to pass the ball out from the back, Hatate intercepting it, and squaring it to Maeda, who slotted it into an empty net. I found the comments made by the Hibs manager, David Gray, after the game rather interesting: “We gift Celtic a goal, because that’s what it was, it was a gift. But it’s not through them doing something that they’re not being asked to do. I take responsibility for that as well because of how we play.”

A manager holding his hands up, taking the flak and admitting he got his tactics wrong. Interesting. I find that interesting. Refreshing, if you will.

Anyway. I digress.

Thank fuck for our women’s team, who made it back-to-back wins with a 3-1 win at Hyde United last Sunday, with goals from Paige Stopford and Chelsea Cook. They’re at home to Lymm Rovers this Sunday, kicking off at 2pm at Hopwood Hall (M24 6XH).

📸 Oldham Athletic

Off the pitch, huge kudos to the club for announcing that they’re opening the fans bar on Christmas Day between 1-3:30pm to give people who are spending Christmas alone somewhere to go. They’re showing the play off final, so I might go over myself. Hopefully there’ll be some way for people to donate and support it; I know lots of people have asked, it’s a great initiative that people want to get behind. Also, if anyone has any videos of the carol service on Thursday, please share them. Who doesn’t love brass bands playing Christmas carols?

📸 Oldham Athletic

Safe journey if you’re off to Milton Keynes today. I wasn’t prepared to give Franchise any money to watch our first game in the Football League for three years; I sure as fuck can’t be arsed going less than 3 weeks before Christmas. Why yes, I will be of course be going if we get through to the third round and get Arsenal away, and I make no apologies for that. Wrap up warm, hopefully it’ll be a massive improvement on last week, we'll be in the draw for the third round, and that'll be done a sight more professionally than whatever the godforsaken fuck that was last night. KTMFF.

📸 Phill Smith

Written by Arlene Finnigan