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Hey Stevens, boy, you might have me believing
- Arlene Finnigan
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
Unbeaten in five games, four clean sheets in a row. Mellonball’s not so bad after all.
One improvement on last season is that we generally comfortably beat the struggling teams. Remember losing at home to Maidenhead? Drawing with Fylde and Dagenham & Redbridge? Those days are behind us. So we were quite right to expect a win at home to Crawley, who were on a bad run of form that left them just above the relegation places. The cryptobro experiment hasn’t worked out well for them. I wonder what Chris Lees is doing nowadays?
The starting line-up was unchanged from the Gillingham game, and their keeper, Chapman, was keeping them in the game in the first half. He made a great save from Stevens after Pett played the ball over the top of their defence, and Drummond couldn’t put the rebound away; he made another good save when Fondop shot from the edge of the box after Stevens squared it to home; he held onto Kavanagh’s shot at the near post; and he made another good save after Fondop made a great run down the middle, holding off their defender.
He could only hold the line single-handedly for so long, though. Caprice played a great ball into the box from the right, and Stevens is just so cool in front of goal, isn’t he?
If Stevens hadn’t been so unlucky with injuries, we’d be getting promoted. There, I’ve said it. It was a brilliant solo effort from him to double our lead, and it sums up Crawley’s afternoon that it came from THEIR free kick. Fondop headed it clear, Stevens picked the ball up in his own half and thought, “yeah, sod it, I’ll take you all on”. No-one could stop him, and he slotted the ball under Chapman like it was the easiest thing in the world. He almost looked too knackered to celebrate it, though, bless ‘im.
Crawley, credit to them, had several chances, but never really looked like scoring. Certainly not with Hudson in goal. His save from Davey’s shot on the volley, which he showed great reflexes to tip over the bar, was another to add to his ever-increasing highlights reel.
The referee, Leighton Baines’ brother, was terrible, booking four of our players in a game where we hardly needed to go flying into tackles. Dale Baines, I bet you thought this game was about you. It wasn’t about him though. It was about us winning three on the bounce, it was about another clean sheet, it was about Jack Stevens showing us what we’ve been missing.
Mellon was full of praise for the whole team, calling Stevens “such a good player”, highlighting the energy that the subs brought on, our “outstanding” pressing, and the back four’s work rate, which “will only be seen by people who know football”. Apparently Crawley are difficult to play against because they play with “this gay abandon”, which is a delightful turn of phrase. Mellon gave a special mention to Kane Drummond, who played after losing a family member in the week.
Stevens endearingly played down his MOTM performance. When asked about the two goals he scored, he said “the first one I need to watch back cos I don’t really know what it’s hit as it’s gone in!”, and credited Kavanagh for making a run alongside him for the second goal to stretch their defence. Some of the credit apparently needs to go to Mystic Pett: “I told him, before the game, ‘Stevo with a brace today’!”
As I mentioned in last week’s blog, we were in Northern Ireland for the funeral of Andy’s Uncle Michael. There was a great turnout, he got the send off he fully deserved, and I got told off in the pub afterwards for responding to his cousin asking “have they got any football on?” with “yeah, they’ve got Leeds v Man City on.” “I MEANT PROPER FOOTBALL.” Oops, soz, when in Rome and all that. You’ll be delighted to hear that Derry battered Cork 1-31 to 0-14 on the Sunday.
We’ve got something of a mixed record against Bromley, but I can’t help but think of them as the team who bookended David Unsworth’s tenure by beating us 3-0 in both his first and last games. Ahead of our game last Tuesday, they were unbeaten at home , 4 points clear at the top of the league, and no-one had scored against them at Hayes Lane this season. Plenty of reason for trepidation.
The task seemed even more daunting 16 minutes in, when Caprice had to come off with what Mellon confirmed after the game was another hamstring tear, almost a year since he did his hamstring away at York. Poor Jake, we’re all absolutely gutted for him.
We were doing OK though, with Stevens and Drummond both posing a threat going forward, and Bromley being forced into some, shall we say, rather old school tackling, picking up a couple of bookings in the first half. The injury count was evened up before half-time, with their leading goal scorer Michael Cheek going off with what also looked like a hamstring injury. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t sorry to see that, him and Pinnock had been linking up very well. (I hope it’s nothing too serious, obviously, I’ve nothing against the lad, I just didn’t want him to score against us.)
We continued to press, with Drummond having a cracking shot from wide on the left punched away by their keeper, and Kavanagh looking a lot like he’d been fouled when in a dangerous position just outside the box shortly before half-time, but nothing was given, much to Roy’s chagrin.
We could have been forgiven for sitting back and playing for a draw (Christ, that’s what we did this time last year at Boston Fucking United), but we started the second half on the front foot. Stevens did great work to keep the ball in play and backheel it, Drummond’s ball towards goal was touched on by Pett but was deflected wide for a corner. Drummond was fouled in the box and nothing was given. Sunrise, sunset. It may or may not have been a foul on Fondop in the box. Let’s say it was. Let’s say shit refs again, ole ole.
To be fair, we could have conceded a penalty at the other end. Ilunga gave us problems when he came on and it looked like he might have been shoved over in the box. Ah well, have to respect the referee’s decision, it’s a harder job than it looks, you know. Ahem.
We were the better team, and it reflects well on us that we were gutted to have not been the first team to beat Bromley at home all season. There was a chaotic goalmouth scramble from Pett’s corner, and Hammond was unlucky to see his shot cleared off the line. We were the first team to keep a clean sheet there all season, but my God, we really should have been the first to win as well.
We’d have been delighted if you’d offered us that result after the Swindon game, but Micky Mellon spoke for all of us when he said “I’m disappointed, positively disappointed”, and once again said that we needed to be more ruthless. He individually praised pretty much all of the players, except Hudson, who he said didn’t have anything to do. I hope the Bromley manager saw that, he’ll have been raging. Monthe echoed his manager’s disappointment, saying “it felt like a loss in the dressing room”. And that really is an improvement on having to suck up back-to-back 3-0 defeats.
We’re probably not going to go up (what do I know, I said Micky Mellon wouldn’t get us out of the National League), but this run we’re on is very enjoyable, so it’d be nice to continue it. And it would be VERY nice to continue it at Prenton Park. Tranmere are on an awful run of form, they’re in a battle to stay in the Football League, and the club announcing their season tickets going on sale early in the same week they sacked their manager after losing to bottom-of-the-table Newport has gone down as well as you’d expect. New manager bounce or not, we surely have to beat these today. See you in the Mersey Clipper. KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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