I freely admit that if I'd ever heard the name "Vauxhall Motors" before last August, I would definitely have thought they were a local garage, or at the very best a works football team. It is therefore still something of a mystery to me how they could possibly send a team to The Shay that would completely and utterly annihilate The Shaymen earlier this season. Neil Aspin's Shaymen at that. But that is nothing less than what they accomplished that Saturday afternoon.
The misery was compounded that day as I drove up to Ainley Top on the way home and fell in behind a battered old hatchback with a tatty looking Vauxhall Motors scarf stretched across a grubby back window, and carrying what I estimate was the entire away support of three. It is fair to say then, that I think we owe them one.
The Google Earth view of the home ground, having input the postcode into the search box, had me struggling to identify the spot. There was nothing that looked a likely site for a football stadium hosting games in the Blue Square North division of the pyramid, just a couple of rectangular areas of fenced-off greenbelt, with what looked like one or two small gardensheds around the edges. On closer inspection I eliminated one of the sites as definitely being a cabbage patch or something similar meaning the other spot must be the match venue. Being as fair as I can, it looked even more barren than some of the grounds we visited in the Unibond North division 2 years ago. Oh dear, lets hope it's better than it looks and that it doesn't rain today.
The moodyb1 massiv was down to its core members today, departing from the rendezvous point at 12.00 and arriving at the ground at 1.30 pm. The ground was set well back off a country road that ran parallel with the M53 - it ran so close to said motorway it was practically a fourth lane.
The clubhouse was outside of the ground itself and we followed signs inside the main doors that said "All supporters this way". We arrived in a huge room that was practically empty. It turned out that the
typically independent-minded Shaymen had decided to go in the opposite direction and had met up in a sports bar round the other side of the building. On the way to the large sports bar, with its extra-large TV screen, I glanced through the doors of a room marked "Games Room" and saw half a dozen billiard tables set out in yet another gigantic indoor space. The thought then occurred to me that many
of the clubs we have encountered on our journey back up the pyramid make more sense if they are thought of as "social clubs", rather than "football clubs".
The Ground itself, once we got in there, was rather better than the impression gleaned from Google Earth -although the layout was familiar as one more commonly found at Unibond North levels, the scale of the covered stands and standing areas was about fifty per cent larger. The sound of the tannoy though, was drowned out by the sound of high speed motorway traffic, just 60-70 yards away.
It was clear before we even arrived at the venue that the raging wind would mean today would be about nothing more than bagging the points in any way we could and scrambling back to West Yorkshire. Trying to play pretty football would be a waste of time.
Town kicked off with the weather at their backs. The wind was so strong though, that it was as much of a handicap as an advantage because any ball knocked forward with anything more than moderate pace would quickly carry out for a goal kick. It did also mean however that the Motors could make few inroads against it. Or us.
It soon also became apparent that the referee was going feature large in the incidental influences on the match. It must be said though that although he seemed to give most decisions against the Town team, he more than made up for it in deigning that Simon Garner's challenge twenty minutes in
was worth only a talking to rather than a second yellow, or a straight red. We had feared the worst. So too, it appeared, did Neil Aspin, who immediately brought the player off, lest the ref had second thoughts and decided to correct his decision on a later occasion.
The game was effectively settled in the last 10 minutes of the half when that good old boy Danny Holland helped himself to the easiest looking hat-trick of the season- but looks deceive of course, as the art on some occasions lies in being in the right place to tap the ball in.
In the second half, Town fared rather better against the wind than the Motors had, even though one of the first legends of the new Shaymen, Scott Phelan, started the new period by firing a free kick into the top corner to keep interest in the proceedings half alive. The way the team has turned their season on its head was perfectly illustrated late in the game when their chief tormenter at The Shay back in September, who scored a hat-trick that day, was dismissed with a straight red card for a series of spiteful kicks aimed at the now superb Scot McManus.
Six straight wins on the road then, and all of the last seven matches played. The other results put the cherry on the cake, and even Guiseley's astonishing comeback in the last 15 minutes of their match was unable to suppress the rising optimism among the Town fans, or the rising beat of the
Shaymen' march up the table.
See you all at The Shay on Tuesday.............
Moodyb1"
