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Head on high Waters
- Arlene Finnigan
- Mar 15
- 6 min read
We did it! We finally won a home game in 2025! Christ but it’s been a long hard road though, which continued last Saturday.
Football aside, Tamworth is well worth visiting. Quite a pretty market town, great pubs, lovely owl mural at the train station.
We didn’t bother wasting half an hour of valuable drinking time queuing for the Spud Man. Seriously, how nice can baked potatoes be? Is he putting crack in them or something? I bet they weren’t as nice as the veggie sausage rolls at the Tap anyway.
I can’t really give you much of an eyewitness account of the game, as this was my view of the pitch:
It doesn’t sound like I missed much. Fondop was once again on his own up front, and we’ve clearly decided to run him into the ground until he gets injured. He did win us a penalty, though, when he was tripped after a mazy run into the box, and for once the referee acknowledged it.
It was a bit of a surprise that Pritchard took it (thankfully with no repeat of the unseemly squabbles we saw earlier in the season over who should be the penalty taker), but it was the right decision, and he buried it into the bottom left corner. Maybe he should give Cole Palmer some coaching.
That should have seen us go in 1-0 up at half-time, but we were lethargic tracking back, and Creaney’s header was adjudged to have crossed the line. Several of our fans – and our players and coaching staff – weren’t convinced it had. Maybe concentrate on defending better, though, lads.
The mood was always likely to turn nasty once we conceded. We’re all frustrated, we’ve been on a really shit run and we’re all sick of it, but some people, predictably, took it too far. I don’t care if you go home and away, that doesn’t make it OK for you to sing songs calling Darren Royle a paedophile. The abuse and performative anger doesn’t show that you care more than everyone else, it’s dickhead behaviour.
Given that the game was going exactly how we feared it would, and I couldn’t actually see it anyway, there wasn’t really any incentive to attempt to watch the second half. We stayed in the bar till they kicked us out then went the pub. I’m told I missed decent chances for Gardner and Uchegbulam, Tamworth – like Barnet – are better at long throws than us, and from the highlights it looks like we were lucky to not go 2-1 down when Donaghy came sprinting out of his box.
Mellon’s post match interview followed a familiar script - thought we did well, showed great character, officiating was rubbish, you know it by now. As he did after the Barnet game, he talked about what a huge threat their long throws were, perhaps forgetting that we’re supposed to have two long throw specialists in Ogle and Leake. He also said that Conlon and Lundstram couldn’t play on Tamworth’s artificial surface, which is unfortunate give the shitty tinpot league we’re in, and also made bringing Gardner and Norwood on in the second half seem an odd decision.
It needed to be a huge improvement against Eastleigh. OK, it needed to be a huge improvement quite some time ago, but better late than never.
We finally ditched the ‘let’s just flog Fondop to death on his own up front’ strategy and started with him and Waters. From the off, we looked more attacking, more aggressive, more confident, just....more. Waters was back to being a nuisance, and it paid off less than ten minutes in. He won a corner, which Pett swung in, it got knocked to Waters, who glanced it in/put us ahead with a towering header.
We were unlucky not to double our lead when Fondop made a great run on the break down the middle, holding off two defenders, and hit the post, with Waters’ shot from the rebound being cleared off the line. Gutted, but Christ this was better than waiting until stoppage time for a dangerous looking shot on goal at Boston.
They say you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone, and I was as guilt as anyone of not seeing how important Conlon was to the team, but we can sure as hell see it now, eh? We’re so much of a better team with him making challenges, winning balls, calming the midfield down and driving forward.
Before the game we announced the signing of 22 year old striker Kian Harratt from Fleetwood. His Wikipedia makes for interesting reading. I guess hare coursing makes a change from drink driving. He looked decent when he came on in the second half, his movement is good, and I can see him and Norwood especially being a handful.
Caprice had a fucking great game, and I don’t know where he gets his energy from at his age. He made a brilliant, perfectly timed tackle when Boutin was through on goal in the 6 yard box, and that would have been enough to win him the MOTM award. He made sure of it in fine style, though.
Pritchard (who was a littler terrier again) made an excellent interception when the keeper tried to play the ball out to the midfield, Caprice made a fucking fantastic run into the box, Pritchard threaded the ball through to him, and Caprice had the utter audacity to meg the keeper from an acute angle. And, for once, I found myself thinking, “you know what, I’m glad I’m here and not at Anfield”.
The game came to a hilarious end, when Pritchard made what was admittedly a pretty naughty and late challenge on Tshikuna, who responded by two-footing him in the face. Kudos to the referee, who booked Pritchard for the original foul, let everyone think he was going to let Tshikuna get away with it, then, as the players were returning to their positions, called him back and sent him off. Beautiful comic timing, top bantz, well played. Then he booked Eastleigh’s assistant and our keeper coach, Scott Davies. LOL. Fair play, enjoy your moment.
Our first home win of 2025. I assume Harratt and Norwood celebrated by rustling some sheep.
Micky Mellon was pretty upbeat after the game, almost defiantly so. “Is that is fourth now? OK, so that’s not so bad is it.” He’s got a point. He acknowledged that it might not have been the highest quality of football – “Was it the Champions League? Liverpool, PSG? No.” No it wasn’t, the team from Lancashire won in this game. (apologies to my brother if he’s reading this.)
Mellon was a bit critical of the pitch, saying it was ‘tricky’ and ‘bouncy’. Give over Micky, it’s March in Oldham and we’re non league, that pitch is fine. It’s certainly better than Rochdale’s.
Not everyone was happy with his interview, but I think he had a fair point when he said “we are certainly heading in the right direction, haven’t won enough games, disappointed about that, but obviously neither has anybody else cos we’re fourth.”
He’s right. We’ve been on a bit of a crap run, we’ve been underachieving, but we are, indeed, fourth. And what better way to get our promotion push back on track than a home win against our neighbours, who played 36 consecutive seasons in the football leagues bottom division from 1974 to 2010, the longest any team has been in the bottom division?
Seriously, it baffles me that Rochdale Council list this under ‘Proud Sporting Achievements’ on their website. If I was them I might take more pride in the fact that Keira Walsh, who starred in the England team that won the Euros and has won two Champions Leagues, is from Rochdale, but you do you, lads.
Rivalries aside, club legend Keith Hicks is running from Spotland to Boundary Park today, which would be a remarkable effort for someone half his age. He’s raising money for Prostate Cancer UK and the Joe Thompson Appeal, both great causes. You can donate here and I’m sure he’ll get the welcome he deserves.
Hope you're all reading this bright and early, ready for the 12.30pm kick off. The Celtic Rangers game tomorrow, a derby of a similar magnitude, kicks off at the same time. Fondop hat trick today, Maeda hat trick tomorrow, that'll do me. KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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