So, first game in the new first. And what was the momumental total? Er, Us 0 Fake Scousers 0, that’s what. Actually, I’m being unkind, we did actually play pretty well, though our shooting boots were clearly put in the same place as Crystal Palace’s defence. Had we manage to shoot, then I shudder to think what the score would be.
Apparently, TRFC are an “average” first div side, and many people reckon that it’s only Blackburn and Fulham we need to “fear” this season. Which is fair enough, we clearly dominated today. Patrick Agemang shone, though there were good debuts for Mark Williams, Kelvin and Ian Selley when he came on. Paul Robinson also came on, looked very hungry which is nice to see. Jupp and Kimble were solid, so was Double H.
Trond got better as the game went on, Damien looked useful, but up front concerned me a little. The fact that Carl Leaburn played the full 90 simply because of his experience may well have cost us two points. He may hold the ball up well the ball well, and he may be a loyal and dedicated servant to WFC, BUT…. he’s still not particularly skillful. Can’t wait till JH returns…. Gayle and Ardley were good in parts, though Neil Ardley cannot shoot to save his life. Overall, not too bad, still needs a bit of work, but at least we didn’t lose.
A couple of extra things. One, it was too bloody hot today (I’m struggling a bit writing this at the moment because I’ve got a bit of heat exhaustion). Two, the expected collapse in our support hasn’t materialised. The crowd was 8,000 odd, no worse than many Premiership games we’ve been in (and indeed you could argue that it’s as many as we normally had when we played the likes of Man U), the lower Holmesdale was practically full, and apparently the upper tier was open as well.
Thirdly, I like the new programme – more mentions of Plough Lane in that one programme than there probably has been for about the last 9 years. Fourthly, did anyone else notice in front of the Arthur Waite stand that the CG thing has now gone, and WTID has been painted over it? What’s the betting that it will become our new name for the membership? (I hope not, I think it’s too gimmicky a name for such an important thing). And finally – the new WFC club shop at SP looks nice, even though it hasn’t been fitted out yet. General thumbs up, can’t wait to see it finished….
One more thing, if you click HERE, you will now get a movie of the Tranmere player getting sent off [note: you’ll need Quicktime or a suitable plug-in and it’s not streaming]. It was such a shock that it caused a huge surge of radiation onto the pitch…..