Simon Inglis - the UK's leading authority on football stadiums (he doesn't like the word 'stadia') lists Feethams as his second favourite ground in the country, after Highbury. I can sort of see why in that the place does not have the usual 'grim oop North' feeling that some of these grounds have - Feethams has a kind of rustic charm, especially on a nice day with cricket being played on the green adjacent to the ground.
Anyway - to the game. The overall quality of the game was rather lacking I'm afraid. It really did look like a Division 3 game in comparison to games against good Division 2 oppponents that we have, I guess come to taken for granted over the last decade. Well not any more.
The team lined up as Moss, Young, Tindall, Maher, Purches, Thomas, Elliot, Browning, Carl Fletcher, Holmes and Connell as against Rushden & Diamonds the previous Tuesday.
Undoubtedly we started the brighter of the 2 sides, although it was the usual AFCB i.e. lots of possesion but no end product, save a couple of long range efforts that did not provide Collett in the Darlo goal with too much concern. It was much the same for Darlo as well to be honest.
On 26 minutes a free kick went wrong and looked to be drifting out of play by the Darlo corner flag away to our left. However full credit to Shaun Maher (pronounced Marr so I'm reliably informed) who managed to keep the ball in play and flick it to Deadly Derek. 1-0 and a very smart finish that gave Collett no chance.
Darlington pushed a little more, but the AFCB defense and Moss seemed to be able to repel them, including Tindall wearing a TFG shirt of such poor quality, that the club badge had fallen completely off.
However Fenton, the ex Blackburn, Villa and Blackpool among others forward swooped tp poke home after Moss blocked a shot from targetr man Conlon. Maybe you would have expected a Premier League keeper to deal with it a bit more convincingly - however I can not be too harsh as was some distance away from the incident.
Going in at HT, I felt this was a game we were capable of taking 3 points from, the sort of 3 points that a team intent on promotion would gladly gobble up. Sadly this was not to be the case as Darlo looked more up for it for much of the 2nd 45.
Midway through the half, O'Driscoll decided to withdraw both wide men Thomas and Elliot, in an attempt (so he says) to win the game by pushing on-coming sub Hayter into an advanced position. No-one would disagree with the decision vis-a-vis Thomas - he was quiet as a soundproof library after HT, but Elliot was running the Darlo backline all over the shop and causing no end of problems.
Anyway, sure enough Darlo took the lead soon after. Young with no-one in front of him does not look assured, he may still have the skills, but the pace has long gone without Elliot to help him out down the flank. 2-1 to Darlo - the goalscorer Conlon, (who in the matchday programme was described as one of the best target-men in the football league but doesn't score enough goals - hmmmmm...who does that remind you of).
However full credit to the team, they did not want to head south empty handed. Following Browning missing a sitter, in which he had all day to pick his spot, that man Connell pounced to snatch us a point with a very composed finish akin to Owen's finish in Shizuoka against Brazil.
On balance we were good for a point but would have been nice to come away with all three.
In all honesty it was one of those games where as we were the team that equalised late on, the AFCB fans left with smiles on their faces. Had it been the other way around and Darlo had snatched an equaliser, the AFCB fans would probably have had the hump. Yet the net result is the same regardless of the scoring sequence! Such is the beauty of following your team away from home.
|
AFCB: Moss, Young, Maher, Tindall, Purches, Thomas, Browning, C Fletcher, Elliott, Holmes, Connell
Subs: Broadhurst (for Maher), Eribenne, Stock (for Elliott), Hayter (for Thomas), Narada
Vinny Goodfield, Uxbridge