Just home from spending seven hours at Plainmoor, but I have had the very best day out I have had for such a long time. It was so great to sit down and enjoy a meal with the really great people who were at the carvery, I enjoyed the food, the chat and the great company. I’m so very pleased I set this forum up, because meeting and sharing time with such great TUFC fans, has brought me so much pleasure and brightened my life at a time when it so often has dark clouds over it.
We were unable to do the boots presentation at the carvery, Leigh got held up in traffic, so we decided to do it after the game in the Gulls Nest. I also had a good chat with Darryl and was introduced to the club photographer. The good news I was hoping to bring you was that the club were happy to provide the forum with a few match day photos from all home games and any away games they have pictures from. We just needed the photographers blessing and I will make a post all about this and the part we need to play, later tonight.
So filled up and happy with my news, I left the party and headed over to the popside, to take up my place before I lost it., got to meet Petef, another top man and all my regulars who stop to say hello. All that was left to make the day perfect I thought, was a good game and a great result.
Well I got both and I was so pleased to see a near 4000 fans inside plainmoor, I talked with Alex before the game and he was worried that as it was such a sunny day, the gate would be low. I told him it would be 4000, so Alex you just listen to the old wise Dave R.
I won’t do the match report has I have been doing it, I will just give my views on the game and the players. When we kicked off the first few balls we played, were just hit high up front, I had just told the man who normally stands by me on the popside, what great football we had played in the PSF(he could not make any of them).
I spoke about this with Tim Sills after the game and he said they just needed to get into the game at the start of it, but soon we were back to the pleasing passing game that was the feature of the PSF games. It was clear Chesterfield were a good side and had a few very good players.
At times we were getting caught on the break a bit too often, but our defenders got in good hard tackles in and around the box and dealt with everything they had too. On the 10 minute mark Hargreaves had to stoup low to head a ball into our box over the bar and Chesterfield, only had one more decent effort on goal in the first half. It was a good powerful shot from the edge of the box, but Bevan got down well near the post and blocked it.
What a class goal we scored to take the lead on 15 minutes, Rendall passed it to Stevens, he played it across the edge of the box to Wroe, he played it back inside the left hand side to Stevens who had continued his run into the box, a sweet ball across the box by Stevens, saw Rendall there to side foot it home. Top football and a goal that had everyone around me talking about it for some time after we scored it.
After we scored we really saw the team passing the ball with so much more confidence and it was really pleasing to watch. Rendall was a class act, he has great feet and real vision of what’s going on around him, the balls he was spraying around the pitch to his team mates, was what you might expect to see in a much higher league.
Danny Stevens was at his very best for over an hour in the game, his running and holding of much bigger players was brilliant, he was not afraid to take the full back on and send in some delightful balls into the box. Carlisle once again showed what a great footballer he is, makes me so pleased that the popside has now got off his back, playing at this level really suits him and he is going to be a big player for us this season.
Wroe was just Wroe, only made the odd mistake when a few balls came off his boot not the way he intended, but he bossed the midfield for us. I was not surprised Hargreaves started the game; I think Bucks wanted a good old head in there for our first game. He battled well and worked hard, but not my man of the match.
The second goal was needed to steady the nerves
and it was great to see Mansell head it in(we have the very picture on the forum
) it did look like we might let a goal in near the end, but we held on tight and deserved our clean sheet.
Bevan made yet another two wonderful saves in the second half, Bucks might say he expects Bevan to save them, but the shots would have beaten plenty of other keepers. Can’t fault one single player today, they showed they have a great team sprit together and I do believe we will have a good season again this year.
After the game it was back to the Gulls nest, Tim kindly agreed to be in the Boots presentation shots and I will put them up later. The last thing to do was to sit down and have a great long chat with merse. We went and sat in the top seats of the family stand, Capitalgull was worried we would start fighting. No we had a great chat about the forum and about life, not sure he expected the big cuddle he got from me, it’s just a Devon thing Merse.
A few shots taken before the start of the game.
Steve 004 in action
), so we had to make do with crowding around a computer and keep refreshing the BBC ´live´ updates page.