Date: Saturday 7th February 2009
Competition: VodkaT NWCFL Div 1
Venue: New Sirs, Daisy Hill, Lancashrie
Attendance: 024
Ticket In: £4.00
------------------
Total: £4.00
Some rare sunshine in the North West was a pleasant addition to a day that was forecast to be freezing cold. But let’s give the forecasters their due, matches across the leagues are being called off with rapidity as the cold temperatures and the recent snowfall take their toll on the pitches across the land. Ringing around the local grounds, I was met with the same response “no, it’s been called off I’m afraid mate” until I checked with Daisy Hill FC, more out of hope than expectation, but my hopes were unexpectedly answered, the match was on. Daisy Hill lies in Lancashire near to Bolton and Westhoughton and the football team plays at the New Sirs ground. Perpetual strugglers in the 2nd tier of the North West Counties League, this season appears to be no different as despite a good start to the season, Daisy Hill find themselves at the wrong end of the table again having won only 4 of their 17 games this season. This should make Norton United favourites for the match this afternoon as the Staffordshire based side currently sit in mid table with a 6 point advantage over their hosts this afternoon. I attempted to view this Daisy Hill Vs Norton United fixture a few weeks back, but a postponement here at the New Sirs meant a hastily re-arranged trip to Robin Park Arena to see Wigan Robin Park play Chadderton. The bar/clubhouse at New Sirs is quaint, an old wooden building lovingly converted for accommodating two football teams worth of people. There is a newspaper article posted on the wall with the headline “Why Daisy Hill are the Best Team in the World”, curiosity eventually got the better of me.
If you base the argument on Scottish Logic, as the Scotland fans declared their national side World Champions when they were the first to inflict defeat on England’s actual World Champions in 1966, Daisy Hill beat a team last year that could eventually be traced to a team that beat Manchester United, the Premier League, Champions League and World Club champions. This makes Daisy Hill better than Manchester United, therefore the best club in the world, despite the fact that they only managed to win 2 games last season. Well I was sold to the fact that I was watching the best team in the world play Norton United this afternoon. The clubhouse is cosy except for the smell of the gas heaters. Reassuringly, the pitch looks in good condition, certainly the best I’ve seen it looking on my trips here. The ground comprises a seating stand behind one goal and a small covered stand down one side of the pitch. There would be many that would scoff at such a facility, but it’s this type of ground that lets you get right up close to the action and provides a community with a football team. Call me a basket case, but I prefer a place like this to 40,000 seaters, I’d choose this any day of the week. Weather conditions prior to kickoff are bright and breezy, not as strong as last week so it shouldn’t have an influence on the match. 3pm rolls around and the two teams take to the field. Daisy Hill in their all blue kit and Norton United in their changed strip of Aston Villa like maroon strip with sky blue. The captains meet with the referee in the centre circle and not long after Norton United got the match underway. The match was off to a good start with both teams able to spend time in each other’s half and work some good play, the first real moment of note coming in the 9th minute when a Daisy Hill forward was brought down in the penalty area under a good challenge. The loud shouts for a penalty from the boys in blue were in my view rightly ignored by the referee . Daisy Hill were able to keep the pressure up in the early going and in the 15th minute they won themselves a free kick in a dangerous position. The delivery from just outside the penalty area was sweetly dipping below the crossbar until the Norton goalkeeper superbly tipped it over to concede a corner. Daisy Hill failed to threaten from this set piece and Norton had ridden the storm. The game became a fairly end to end encounter with Norton United finding plenty of success down the wings with pacey breaks from their own defence, but the next chance would fall to Daisy Hill in the 27th minute when a mix up in the Norton defence saw the keeper come to collect a through ball shielded by his defender.
The keeper failed to gather and the defender failed to clear, the waiting Daisy Hill forward managed to steal the ball but the Norton keeper recovered in time to make the necessary save. The deadlock was broken just after the half hour mark when Norton United took the lead. A superb aerial through ball to the wing was played from the midfield and was picked up by Paul Rutter on the wing. Rutter took the ball into the penalty area and beat the keeper at his near post to put the visitors into the lead and put the smiles on the small travelling contingent. Sadly after this point, the match officiating took a dramatic turn for the worse as Daisy Hill thought they had levelled the match straight from the restart, only for the referee’s assistant to incorrectly chalk off their goal. A cross from the wing was volleyed into the net in emphatic fashion by a player who was never standing in an offside position, an inactive player was judged to be offside and the goal was chalked off much to the disbelief and displeasure of the Daisy Hill players. To their credit though, they didn’t let their heads dropped and when they were awarded a free kick in the 36th minute, the delivery beat the waiting defenders and needed a smart save from the goalkeeper to prevent the scores from becoming level.
The last chance of the half once again fell to the hosts right on the stroke of halftime when a cross into the penalty area was only half cleared by the Norton defence, but blasted over the bar by the Daisy Hill forward. Half time soon followed. It had been an entertaining half of football with both teams going for it. Norton had proved very dangerous down the wings when breaking at speed, where Daisy Hill were missing that last telling touch in front of goal. In my opinion, they should be level having had a goal disallowed wrongly, but their heads never went down and they continued to battle well. With the pitch beginning to cut up a little, the game is still open for anyone.
Half Time:
Daisy Hill 0 – 1 Norton United
Daisy Hill made the better start of the two sides in the 2nd half when they forced some encouraging chances early on. A foul by a Norton defender in the corner conceded a free kick and the delivery into the box was cleared as far as the edge of the penalty area where a Daisy Hill forward sent a superb curing shot towards goal that beat the keeper, but also beat the far post by inches and the scoreline remained the same. Another free kick in another dangerous position two minutes later saw the delivery just dip over the crossbar as opposed to under it as Daisy Hill looked threatening but were unable to score. Ten minutes later however, Norton United extended their lead when an aerial ball over the Daisy Hill defence had the Daisy Hill keeper coming to clear the ball outside of his area, but the Norton United forward beat him to it and had an open net to shoot into with the keeper now in no man’s land. A great last ditch challenge by a Daisy Hill defender prevented the striker from scoring, but this only delayed the inevitable as Michael Machin applied the touch to send the ball into the empty net and double Norton’s lead, much to the delight of their supporters. There was a bad tempered undercurrent to the match that was slowly beginning to bubble up to the surface, not helped in the 66th minute when a very rash challenge by a Daisy Hill midfielder resulted in a free kick for the visitors, the player lucky to escape a yellow card. A mistake by the referee by not issuing the card was then followed by another mistake by the referee two minutes later when Norton United should have been awarded a penalty kick, a challenge from behind in the penalty area by a Daisy Hill player brought down the forward but the referee regrettably kept up his low standard of officiating and didn’t award the spot kick. Come the 71st minute, Norton United were getting into a dangerous habit of giving away silly free kicks in dangerous positions when they didn’t need to, Daisy Hill almost clawing a goal back from one of these but the short delivery was just turned wide of the near post and the danger passed.
But the game was over as a contest in the 76th minute when Norton United extended their lead to three goals. Norton worked the ball to the left hand edge of the penalty area before a cross was played in across the face of goal which the Daisy Hill defence just allowed to pass through, not seeing a lurking Norton forward waiting at the post and his effort goal wards hit the crossbar and bounced out to the waiting Lee Talbot who had an open net to score Norton’s third of the game. Game over, Daisy Hill’s efforts being completely eradicated. With the points in the bag, Norton United put an impressive finish on the game as they came forward with intent, drawing a fine save from the Daisy Hill keeper from a range shot and adding a 4th goal in the depths of injury time. Some great work down the wing from the Norton winger saw him fight off the attentions of the Daisy Hill player and put a pinpoint cross into the box for the diving head of Lee Talbot to loop the ball over the keeper and into the net to round off a fine display from Norton United. The fixture would sadly end on a sour note when the card happy, spotlight loving referee who had spoiled the contest on several previous occasions, decided for no apparent reason to brandish a red card to a Norton player, at least I can’t figure out how letting the ball go for a goal kick is a sending off offence! It would be an interesting referees report to read as that poor unfortunate player will now have to serve a ban after committing no obvious offence, but maybe the referee had his own reasons. However Norton weren’t playing with 10 men for long as full time soon followed and the three points were off down the motorway to Staffordshire.
A decent game of football that was let down by some very poor officiating. The match could have been a very different game had the officials not wrongly ruled out a perfectly good score for Daisy Hill, but to the teams credit, they battled away valiantly to try and get themselves back into the match.
Comparing the two teams, Norton definitely looked the more comfortable of the sides and were able to find ways past the defence that faced them. Daisy Hill looked for much of the game like they were trying to walk the ball into the net as opposed to shooting when they had good chances to. In the end though, the scoreline just about reflected the balance of play on the whole, congratulations Norton United!
Full Time:
Daisy Hill 0 – 4 Norton United
View more pics at:
http://www.photobucket.com/daisyhillnortonunited
0 comments:
Post a Comment