The View From Churchmans

I’ve just read a staggering Daily Torygraph report which says, and I quote,
“Such was the quality of this promotion contest, past heroes such as Terry
Butcher and Alan Brazil may not have felt out of place as George Burley’s
team stretched their unbeaten league run to 10 games.”
Come again?
OK, we weren’t bad for parts of the first half, but the reporter wasn’t
watching the same game as the rest of us. Thank goodness Stockport were so
devoid of ideas (about four goal attempts in 90 minutes, and they weren’t a
particularly defensive outfit). In truth, it was a dull match. The main
weakness of our “Scowie-behind-the-front-two” 5-2-1-2 formation, the fact
that Matt and Jim have to run the midfield on their own, was cruelly
exposed, as Matt clearly was suffering from something (flu, I heard) and
struggled to keep up with the pace. Swindon continually punted the ball
forward, allowed our defence to head it out, and gratefully picked up the
ball in midfield nine times out of ten.
Nice to see us have the resilience to hang on to a one-goal lead, although
(as usual) the tactics and commitment seemed to fall apart between the 60th
and 80th minutes. I don’t know why this keeps happening! And, as ever, we
squandered far too many chances. But hey-ho, for a team who keeps wasting
chances, we’re still the fourth highest scorers in the division; for a
wildly erratic season, Johnno’s just about top scorer in the division, and
ten matches unbeaten ain’t a bad way to finish the year…

Some ratings…
Wright 8: Almost nothing to do except having to face a penalty and pull off
not one, but two magnificent saves (the second was even better). Just
another superb day at the office.

Wilnis 6 McGreal 7 Mowbray 8 Venus 6 Clapham 6: The wingbacks failed to use
acres of space (especially Wilnis) although on a couple of occasions they
*finally* got almost to the goal-line to cross, resulting in the goal and a
close effort. Jamie looked a little nervous at first, for some reason. Veno
was presumably playing so Burley could make a point to Wayne Brown that
there’s still competition for places; not on this performance there isn’t,
Veno gave away far too many balls.

Holland 6 Magilton 7 (Wright 7): Matt was out-of-sorts and made more
uncharacteristic mistakes than the rest of the season combined, including
giving away the penalty (which sadly was a penalty, a really clumsy hack).
Jim disappeared mysteriously at half-time (presumably down the sales with
the missus) and although Jermaine was enthusiastic, he didn’t have quite the
same vision or authority

Scowcroft 9 Johnson 5 (Stockwell 7) Naylor 7 (Midgely 6): Scowie’s imperious
performance was worth the entrance money on its own. He was link man to the
front two, he was our main forward threat, and in the second half he dropped
back to sort out the midfield. He was bloody marvellous. If only Johnno
hadn’t been such utter pants. Could the two be connected? Tell me it ain’t
so. But it did look as if Johnno was in a sulk all afternoon, by the end he
was pulling out of challenges and jogging around as if he wished he was down
at Argos with the Magiltons.

20,671 crowd 8: that was a bit of a bonus. And the North Stand were
awesomely loud on a couple of occasions. And Churchmans’ sang at the North
Stand. And only one pillock in the North Stand tried to keep the ball (yeah,
really funny, right). YEEE-EEE-SSS!