Oops Football Blog

KoolSport Northern Counties East Premier Division

Shirebrook Town 0 Rainworth MW 4

A quick geography lesson. Shirebrook and Rainworth are opposite sides of Mansfield.


What the more observant of readers will notice is the absence from this map of the metropolis of Leicester. This is because it is a good hour away from Rainworth, and approx 60 miles from Langwith Road, Shirebrook. So why then is it that the PA was blasting out the latest from the Hit Parade courtesy of Leicester Sound FM?- Your Number One Hit Music Station, apparently. Such minor things bother me in my dotage.

Anyway, it was cold today. Not as cold as it has been in the preceeding days, but still colder than it usually it is for Xmas games. This game was the only one to go ahead across the NCEL, and only a handful survived in the Unibond. So it is perhaps churlish of me to complain about the PA, given the efforts of all involved at Shirebrook to make surw we all had a game to go to.


I say we "we all" because prior to this game both teams were averaging 90 - 100 crowds (here) , but today's attendance was closer to the 200 mark. Bolstered no doubt by assorted groundhoppers (I saw numerous falsks, beards and carrier bags, not to mention one or two shiny new cameras) but still a sizeable crowd for the NCEL.

Shirebrook are having a poor season. On the occassions I have seen them this season, they appear to huff and puff, and produce very little. But the locals appear to think the fabled green shoots of recovery are there. Rainworth on the other hand are flying high, not having lost in their last 17 at the time of writing, rubbing shoulders with the big hitters of the East Coast, and ruffling a few feathers in the process. They also boast the fantastically monickered Rudy Funk as manager, and therefore in my book for this alone, deserve to rise thru the ranks with nary an obstruction worthy of the name. So, on paper, this game promised to be a prosession for the visitors.

And so it transpired. Shirebrook seemed unable to grasp the folly of launching long high balls to their front two, as they were up against a pair of centre halves who may not have been the best I have ever seen, but who were scarcely, if ever, troubled by their somewhat less physical opponents. To counter, The Wrens had a front pair two who sauntered about as if they owned the pitch, firing in to life whent he mood took them, but whose lack of interest perhaps explains their presence at this level of football. Certainly, when they involved themselves in the game, both Ant Lyman and more glaringly Massiah McDonald, they were head and shoulders ahead of anything else on the pitch.

Shirebrook were unable to string two passes together without throwing a hopeful ball forward, where the strikers ran willingly but with increasing frustration. There was no plan B, barely a plan A to be fair, and as a result the visitors were able to stamp their swagger on the game relatively painlessly. In the midfield, the home sides portly assistant manager ran around like he knew what he was doing, but did little to effect the game, and was easily muscled off the ball by his younger and fitter counterparts. The only glimmer for Shirebrook appeared to be the left back, who gainfully pushed his team forward whenever able, but time and time again found his desire at odds with those of the others in red shirts.