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Post by aussie on Mar 21, 2009 17:30:05 GMT
How long does it take to get back from Chester land cause I`m dying for a match report!
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merse
TFF member
Posts: 2,684
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Post by merse on Mar 21, 2009 17:32:14 GMT
How long does it take to get back from Chester land cause I`m dying for a match report!  Depends whether or you stop in the car park for a chat with the Adams Woods family and get invited back for tea! ;D |
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Post by aussie on Mar 21, 2009 17:36:05 GMT
Ooooohhh!  |
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Rob
TFF member
Posts: 3,608
Favourite Player: Asa Hall
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Post by Rob on Mar 21, 2009 20:54:48 GMT
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merse
TFF member
Posts: 2,684
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Post by merse on Mar 21, 2009 21:10:38 GMT
Three and a half hours since we won away yet again and nothing on here save people prattling on about rugby, racing cars and some prediction game. In desperation I turn to "another site" and there's loony postings about the manager picking an "awful lineup", "giving some youngsters a chance" and even criticism of picking Todd for gawd's sake! Now compare that with the amount of postings after the last defeat at Kettering................ Obviously winning five of the last six (unbeaten) games as the season reaches a climax is not to the liking of most people who post on Torquay United sites, they prefer inferring that the manager doesn't know what he is doing, has no man management skills and that the club holds no attraction to prospective young signings. No wonder the gates are so bloody poor!
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Rob
TFF member
Posts: 3,608
Favourite Player: Asa Hall
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Post by Rob on Mar 21, 2009 21:16:51 GMT
I was waiting on some of the match reports myself as I was only able to catch the first half on the radio today. And that left little to talk about.
Coming from behind twice shows a battling spirit far greater than that of last year. Bucks seems particularly pleased with Toddy and Sills' performances today. Good to see that Roscoe hasn't lost his goalscoring touch as well.
I quite agree with the observation on comments elsewhere regarding team selection - P6 W5 D1 L0 is really nothing to moan about. Albeit that Burton scoring their winner in the 96th minute was a tad annoying.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Mar 21, 2009 21:23:14 GMT
Merse its past your bedtime mate, you got out the wrong side of it today anyway, I'm more than happy to wait for the quality match reports we will get, if you want why play Toddy posts I can oblige.  |
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Post by jmgull on Mar 21, 2009 23:26:00 GMT
...Back an hour ago or so from my first (hopefully last) trip to Northwich. Yet another ground in some soulless out of town industrial site......beer excellent, locals friendly.
A cracking second half performance from us in what turned out to be a pulsating game, Northwich really played very well indeed and completely belied their lowly position, they were a shade unlucky to come away with nothing....although in fairness we created many,many more chances than them.
We lined up 4-4-1-1 with the welcome return of Chris Todd in to partner Hodges....as you can imagine Todd was given a rousing reception from the 200 or so gulls fans present.....Robbo at RB and Carlisle at LM and Thompson in the hole, although he was pretty advanced so maybe it was 4-4-2.......we started like a rocket, some delightful quick passing led to some good chances in the 1st 15 minutes with the best falling to the impressive Carlisle who was involved in everything positive we did in the 1st half......his firm shot from 12 yards after some great interplay with Sills, looked a certain goal but for a great save from the Vics keeper.
Our other 1st half chances fell to Sills who scooped over with his left foot from point blank range and Thompson who skilfully lifted the ball over the keeper only to see it unluckily land on the bar and go over......and right on the stroke of half time Thompson was foiled when put clear by another fine save.
Northwich's goal was their 1st real chance after half an hour although we had by then, gone off the boil completely after a really bright start......a deep cross headed back across Bevan and into the corner by the impressive Perry who led their line well and gave Todd and Hodges a very tough game, we so nearly fell 2 behind straight after when some hesitant defending caused a melee in our area with us blocking 3 or 4 shots from close in.
So 1 down at half time....we needed to up our game and we were given the perfect start to the 2nd half, when who else but Todd, drew us level after a couple of minutes.....you'll have to rely on someone else's report for details of the goal for after having sampled a superb pint of the local Marston's smooth......nature called and i missed it......gutted! and severely reprimanded by my 9 yr old lad...who gave me a right ear bashing.
Northwich hadn't read the script and scrapped away for their lives to stop us getting on top and and always looked a threat.
They took the lead again from a fine move on the hour, with a pinpoint cross being forced home by the willing Allan who got in front of his marker well leaving Bevan no chance.....a real sickener for us and you felt at that stage a blow we might not recover from.....on came Benyon for Thompson and Dsane for the ineffective Stevens
The last half an hour though, was all us, they had asked us a big question and we responded magnificently and gave everything, the game became more and more physical and we, very satisfyingly in the end, out battled a very big and tough side having a good day. Sills and Hargreaves both received deserved yellow cards as the game threatened to boil over at times. Sills was a bit high and a bit late on their RB and the Northwich bench (sadly but predictably these days) completely over reacted demanding a red, Hargreaves was caught by a late lunge and he reacted badly....ending up on top of the player who'd fouled him and just about stopped himself lamping him..........on another day either could have (harshly perhaps) been a sending off.
The equaliser was the goal of the match......A Nicholson corner met by a towering, thumping header by Sills that was a goal the second it left his forehead..........it capped another great display by our "main man" - he's having a cracking season.
Now the impetus was ours and Nortwich's attacks were becoming few and far between....you felt a winner was on the cards and so it proved.
Another dangerous long throw from Nicholson caused a panic in the Northwich defence.....the ball fell loose to Dsane who calmly and clinically side footed home from 8 yards.
Mansell came on for Nicholson (who must have had a knock?) and we held firm for the last 15 minutes or so......Bevan came and took every cross with some excellent handling to ease the nerves. We had chances to wrap it up late with Benyon in particular missing a very good chance.
To sum up - an enjoyable game against a team really "up for it"......tremendous battling spirit shown by the whole side. Todd and Hodges had good games after a hesitant start - Hargreaves was at his combative best, Robertson gives us extra threat at set pieces but is not as assured or composed at RB as Mansell is. Wroe had a disappointing 1st half but when the game opened up in the 2nd he looked full of running and broke very well several times. Carlisle looks back to his best and was a threat on the left.
Man of the match for me.....Sills.
Bloody shame about that late goal for Burton though....
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Rob
TFF member
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Favourite Player: Asa Hall
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Post by Rob on Mar 21, 2009 23:36:57 GMT
Cheers for the report. Good to hear the big man was on fire again. He does like scoring corkers at Northwich and is rapidly approaching his 20 for the season. In Todd, Hargreaves and Sills, we have Lionhearts as our spine.
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Post by aussie on Mar 22, 2009 9:30:02 GMT
Merse you naughty boy, upsetting the Janners again, what are you like? ;D
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midlandstufc
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Posts: 945
Favourite Player: Dawkins lol
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Post by midlandstufc on Mar 22, 2009 19:42:19 GMT
It was a cold and frosty morning...
No it wasn't, it was lovely! Then flying up the M6 I had to take off the shades and put the car's heating on. Found myself miles from civilisation at 12.30 and for want of a more normal thing to do left the ground and made my way into Northwich.
Bought myself a jumper (crickey, it was needed!) and had a beer and a burger in the lovely Wetherspoons.
Decided now that I was in the area I may as well throw £12 at watching the boys. Was fairly impressed by the ground. One more pint but I stayed clear of the food.
It always amuses me watching our level of football in that each team warms up with one touches, perfect control and back flicks etc - and then - the match; hoof, bosher, have it! What a waste of a wonderful playing surface.
Was impressed with the Northwich team and their performance belied their league position. Two big 'uns certainly gave us some trouble. Luckily for us, despite them scoring twice, I don't think they have a natural goal scorer.
For us, I thought Sills worked hard in trying circumstances and deserved his goal. What a dream for Toddy to score, even if I didn't see him get the touch despite standing 6 yards away! Overall, I think we deserved the win due to battling hard but with little quality.
Bad things - Stevens constantly losing battles and not being replaced early enough; the ref, what an officious knob; the midfield plaing too deep; long ball tactics when set up for wing play; freezing my nuts off.
Good things - Greavsie stopping himself in mid-punch and Carlisle pulling him away; Toddy; battling and never giving up; the balloons winding up the Mr Bean lino; Dsane when he eventually came on; Thmpson trying but not being Matt Green.
Other points -
My advice to you all is not to stand behind the goal at away matches due to the plethora of young loonies who may lurk there also. I'm sure some of them are a couple of cans short of a six pack!
The Head Steward confirmed that some of the Vics players hadn't been paid for a while, which is something for our players to take note of (let alone those pampered girl thingies turning out for MUFC!).
Saw a big car with the number plate PB1 on the way back; can't think of anyone fitting that bill at the moment. I prefer to see our PB as a 'work in progress' and refuse to spout the cack that comes out of the mouths of some of our supporters (maybe they should try playing or managing themselves once in their lives!).
Would have posted earlier but my lady-friend, Stella, lured me out last night; afterall, I'm sure I should have been the first one home (though the speed that Red Astra was going at with the TUFC scarf hanging from a back window, I'm not so sure!).
Cheers. Here's hoping for second or third!
(p.s. Still haven't seen the boys lose at a match for three years - must get myself to a play-off game {and break the run, obviously!})
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Dave
TFF member
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Post by Dave on Mar 22, 2009 19:55:32 GMT
midlandstufc you have both surprised and amazed me with your match report, but written in your own true style. Dave Thomas was complaining about how cold it was at the match, so different for me sitting in the my garden in the English Rivera in bright and hot sunshine. yes we need you at our play-off games as such a record must surely mean we will win, I did not hear what the gate was, but at £12 it does make you question if the £15 we pay at plainmoor, is part of the reason for our lower gates. posts like yours can never be too late, but if you could have made it last night, it could have stopped old merse getting so ratty.  |
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midlandstufc
TFF member
Posts: 945
Favourite Player: Dawkins lol
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Post by midlandstufc on Mar 22, 2009 20:05:40 GMT
Twas 705 and I'm convinced 250 of them were ours!
Shall make it a mission in future to forego my Belgian girlfriend and make a post for just for Alan. Mind, you, I'm not sure if the missus believes I can afford the petrol again (but she is upping her working hours, so you never know!).
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merse
TFF member
Posts: 2,684
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Post by merse on Mar 22, 2009 20:36:03 GMT
Three and a half hours since we won away yet again and nothing on here save people prattling on about rugby, racing cars and some prediction game. In desperation I turn to "another site" and there's loony postings about the manager picking an "awful lineup", "giving some youngsters a chance" and even criticism of picking Todd for gawd's sake! Now compare that with the amount of postings after the last defeat at Kettering................ It wasn't particularly a lack of match reports I was moaning about Dave (you never get mine that speedily do you!  ) it was that when we lose there are no end of instant retributions on the site, yet when we win it all goes quiet on that front save for trivia. In fact the quality of report on here re Northwich have been particularly good and worth waiting for, whilst "another site" still hasn't managed to entice one single contribution from it's clientele. It's like the Woods story, one sniff of that and all the Barrack Room Managers come out of the woodwork onto the sites and the HE site in particular, I bet tomorrow's edition sees them go bloody quiet now that Toddy scored the opening goal as his replacement and in Woodsie's home town to boot......................luv it  you couldn't make it up better could you! |
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tufc01
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Post by tufc01 on Mar 22, 2009 23:58:14 GMT
Apologies for the late match report but only just got back after making a weekend of it up in Manchester.
Drove up in Mediterranean weather conditions, arrived in Arctic conditions, has global warming not reached up North yet?
Stopped at a pub just off the M6, for a nice Brunch, which then filled up with Leeds fans who for once were immaculately behaved and even had time to ask how our season was going. Would probably got a different response had we been wearing Millwall shirts.
Had a bit of difficulty finding the ground for some reason, possibly because we were on the wrong side of Northwich, and it was in the middle of a disused trading estate, but the lack of signposts didn’t help. The ground itself was quite good, clinical and clean, not to everyone’s taste I would imagine but I quite liked it. The only problem was that it was very exposed and the biting sub zero (well it felt like it) temperatures meant we were in for a very cold afternoon, which seemed hard to believe when talking to people in Newton Abbot who were allegedly sunbathing?
Talking to some of their fans before the game, there was a certain resignation about them. They believed that the club was going to be put into administration on Monday and the only reason that it hadn’t been done earlier in the week was the hope of a big crowd, with plenty of away support. Unfortuneatley i believe the crowd was given as 705, of which about 150 were away fans, and 10 or so imbeciles who think they are Torquay fans but made complete twats of themselves behind the goal and could have, or rather should have, been ejected.(more on that later)
The pitch was immaculate and no excuses can be made about that.
Not the best game in the world and certainly not one of our better performances. In a results based business the result was fantastic, very harsh on a battling Northwich side that deserved more from the game, however a win is a win is a win. At the end of the day the win was more of a relief than anything else.
It is hard to believe that Northwich find themselves in the position that they are in. A strong, very physical team that can, and did, play some nice football. The only problem was that they did tend go down a bit easily and try some theatrics. Maybe if they concentrated on playing the game they might get a bit better rub of the green. They are certainly not the worst side we have played so far this season.
The starting line up was a bit of a surprise. I got the impression that Bucks was using this game, a game that in theory should have been an ‘easy’3 points, to ‘rest’ some of players before our hectic run in. Either that or Mansell is still carrying a knock, Benyon needed a rest and Green is injured. Although the recall of Chris Todd was a MASSIVE plus.
They lined up 4-4-2 (some will say it was 4-4-1-1, but Thompson definitely played up with Sills) with Thompson a direct swap for Benyon. Robertson remained at right back, Carlisle and Stevens on the flanks and Todd in for Ellis.
We started off really brightly, as we tend to have done recently, and should have been two up in the first 10 minutes. Carlisle had 2 shots quite brilliantly saved by their keeper, although in the follow up from the first one I was convinced that Sills had been dragged down for a penalty, but other than Sills and myself I don’t think anyone else thought so???
After those 2 shots, I don’t recall any other significant attempts on goal from us for the rest of the first half. Northwich came into the game and started to cause all sorts of trouble for us. You could see their goal coming a mile off, in fact it looked like they could score every time they went forward. In Elam they had a player willing to take people on and get a cross into the box. They had the big old fashioned centre forward who hustled and bustled, and wrestled, all afternoon. He got pulled up by the ref a few times, but did well for their goal, that went in off the far post after a delightful cross from Elam. Who was booed and jeered and abused for most of the afternoon.
A few in the crowd were uneasy (most polite way I could think of putting it) as half time approached and we were losing. Calls for Benyon to be introduced were understandable but the calling for Woods to be brought on and then for Buckle to go and Woods to be manager are way way wide of the Mark.
They must have had a rocket up their arses at half time because it was a ‘different’ team that started the second half. It didn’t take long for the equaliser and whilst I saw Sills involved, I didn’t actually see Todd score and only realised it was Todd when my daughter literally screamed “It was Toddy”. What great moment to witness and both my girls had a tear in their eyes.
It didn’t take long for Northwich to get back in front. We were very exposed down our right side and after a few attacks the inevitable happened and they scored again. By now Robertson looked way out of his depth at Right back and we desperately needed Mansell back there.
It was another 10 minutes before the substitutions were made but Mansell wasn’t one of them. Benyon on for Thompson and Dsane for Stevens. This worked well as we became more of an attacking force and we saw very little from Northwich for the rest of the game.
The next equaliser was superb, a bullet header from Sills. A free kick from Nicholson and Sills rose above everyone and powered a header into the top corner from 12 yards. At this point you still felt there was plenty of goals in the game.
Fortunately the winner came our way. There was a strange incident where their keeper went over to the touchline to hoof the ball forward, but the ref gave a throw in to us. A long throw from Robertson was flicked through the box, retrieved by Carlisle (I think) driven back across where Dsane finished neatly from about 15 yards. Good finish.
It was one of those moments that we, as Torquay fans, have been accustomed to, a feeling that we were still going to throw it away. However this season we are better than that, stronger than that and we battled and hustled and did what was necessary to hold on, in fact Sills and Benyon both had glorious chances in the last few minutes to put the game out of reach, but both just missed the target.
We still looked vulnerable down our right hand side and seeing Mansell stripped ready to come on we was assumed that it would be a like for like swap with Robertson, however Nicholson was taken off, Hodges moved to left back and Roberston moved to the centre with Todd. Nicholson was not a happy chappy and after Buckle had given him a pat on the back he did give the impression to Shaun North that he was unsure why he had been taken off. The introduction of Mansell snuffed out anything Northwich tried to instigate down that side.
Another thing that helped us was the substitution of two of their better players. The young black lad (Horrocks I think) was quick and skilful and always a threat and Elam was more than capable of getting the ball into the box for that big lump of a centre forward.
Biggest disappointment was the ref. Because we won I can say how appalling he was without it sounding like sour grapes. He was dreadful and made the ref at the FGR game seem like a premiership ref. Mistake after mistake upset both sets of players, managers and fans alike. The only good thing to say about him was that he could have sent off Sills and Hargreaves, and one of theirs, but only gave them Yellows. Sills was late and high and the Northwich player went down as if he had been shot. Hargreaves incident was different, he was taken out by their skipper but manhandled him in retaliation, to the point where it looked like he was half way through a punch to his face.
A special mention for their stewards who handled the overly eager celebrations of our fans really well. After each of our goals half a dozen ‘fans’ ran onto the pitch area to hug the players and dance around. Whilst it seems harmless enough, if they had entered the field of play at Plainmoor they would have been ejected, and quite rightly so.
Bevan: Had no chance with either goal. Did well collecting the ball from crosses and being a large presence.
Nicholson: Sound game, great delivery for Sills goal.
Todd: Awesome, fired up from the off and was very aggressive when going for the ball and scored. All you can ask for from your centre half.
Hodges: Quiet game, can’t recall any mistakes, but can’t recall any moments of brilliance either.
Wroe & Hargreaves: both had quiet first halves, but came into it more in the second half.
Carlisle: Industrious and had a good game in general. Could have lessened the impact of Elam had he put some strong tackles in on him rather than standing off him.
Stevens: Had little impact on the game and was rightly substituted.
Sills: Another who was awesome, great game, great goal, needed better support up front.
Thompson: Another who had little impact on the game and perhaps should have been substituted with Benyon a bit earlier. Him sitting behind Sills may have worked away from home earlier in the season but it hasn’t worked in the last 2 games.
Benyon: Thought he might have started, however he was his usual industrious self once he got on and no doubt that the introduction of him and Dsane turned the game around.
Dsane: Took his goal well.
Overall a below par performance, a sloppy first half and a hard fought second half. But a great result and 3 points. Not a game for the nervous and a game probably more suited to the radio, if you get my drift. Another win on Tuesday will see us in a very good position for the run in.
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