Workington 1-2 City

[Padz]

Saturday 9th February 2013

Blue Square Bet North

Discussion etc, any predictions?

[oldwhitehousehoops]

Well done to the lads today, great result, and a solo goal from Holgate and may there be many more, safe journey home!

[Deleted]

Great six pointer and on Mike Fords Birthday COYH !

[huxman]

Well done lads! I had this down as 1-0 City with PAddy Power. Missed out on 16 quid but worth it!

[Padz]

Fantastic Result!

Ash-an-Hol-gate, City's number nine!

[hedges]

maybe I should critise more often, I thought Holgate played very well against Histon and now he has his first goal against Worky....that will teach me!

[DavidJ]

Posted in error

[DavidJ]

I went to the game. I may have been the only non-official there - there were a couple behind the goal we were attacking in the second half who may have been City fans. I'm only a part-time City fan and have not been to game since before Christmas, but I decided to go to this one when the fixtures came out because it was such a crazy fixture for a regional league. For this reason I am afraid I can't really compare recent performances nor can I comment much on players and tactics as that is not something I take much note of. Anyway, here is my take on the game for anyone who is interested.

The pitch was quite heavy so I was not expecting a classic and so it proved. Workington started well and put the City defence under a bit of pressure with a succession of corners and free kicks, which City weathered quite well, though Workington really should have scored from one of them as the defending was a bit desperate at times. We were not causing them many problems and were limited to somewhat ineffective long throws from Ballard and rather aimless balls forward, both of which they dealt with easily. Hence the first goal was a bit against the run of play – in fact not long beforehand the Workington fans I was near were remarking that they needed to get a goal before we had our share of the game. The goal was a not particularly hard shot along the ground from Bell, which was either going wide or safely to the keeper, but it took a deflection off a defender and went sedately into the goal just by the near post. After that Workington, I thought, seemed to lose the momentum they had had earlier and did not really threaten that much until the very end of the game.

One feature of the game was the amount of time taken up with the treatment of injuries. In the first twenty minutes or so there must have been four or five lengthy stoppages for players from both teams, which led to the five minutes of injury time at the end of the first half. Workington fans were increasingly convinced that our players were faking injuries to time waste. I think the first piece of treatment very early on was for Pond and he was subject to a bit of stick, and this attitude towards City players carried on throughout the game. They were also convinced that the ref was utterly biased against them or was totally incompetent and that we were constantly elbowing them. The ref was not great and kept stopping the game rather than let it flow, but he did not do anything influential enough to cause them to lose. In fact he did give them every opportunity to get back in the game by adding plenty of injury time in both halves - the game did not finish till 5pm.

Rather than attacking the ref (after all there were no controversial incidents) Workington fans should perhaps direct their ire towards some of their own players, such as the number 2 (I think he played in the Football League at one point), who had two comedy defending moments in the first half. Once he 'cleared' an easy header from outside the box into the middle of the penalty area putting his team mates under unnecessary pressure and soon afterwards all he had to do with all the time in the world was either pass the ball back to the keeper, who was about five yards away, or boot it upfield. Instead he shanked it out horribly for a gift of a corner. No surprise when he went off in the second half.

In the second half as I said I did not think we were under that much pressure especially after we scored the second goal and indeed we had a number of opportunities to score. Their defence seemed increasingly slow or tired and we often outpaced them down the flanks in particular. Unfortunately our final ball was sadly lacking (either late or poor) and gave them an opportunity to get back and cover, so their keeper was not stretched at all. The goal came from one such instance down the left when Holgate received the ball and broke into the area quite close to the goal line. I felt he should have passed to a City player in the box earlier and was about to curse him under my breath for not doing so when he took a shot from a narrow angle and beat the keeper low down at the near post. Keeper should really have saved it but that was his problem.

We were pretty comfortable from then on until the last ten minutes of normal time and until then they did not really do that much. Typical of their efforts was one instance when their keeper had the ball in his hands after one of our attacks. Their right winger was in acres of space and they had no players down the left, so the keeper obviously booted the ball down the left where we easily picked it up and attacked again. Anyway, with about ten minutes of normal time to go they did start to put us under more pressure, mainly from long balls into the box, but we kept them out. In about the 85th minute Ballard went down injured near the goal line in front of the home fans as the ball went out for a corner (I think) and needed treatment. By this stage the home fans were apoplectic about any City injury and boos rang out. It didn’t help that he does take his time wiping down the ball when taking one of his long throws. Even when he was substituted and limped off around the touchline he was still booed for faking injury. However, the boos were shortlived since soon afterwards, they scored from a goalmouth scramble possibly from the corner after the Ballard injury (can't quite remember).

They continued to attack us and it looked as if they had one very good chance to score but messed it up (difficult to tell from the other end of the ground). It was bit nail-biting for a few minutes but we managed to repel them and should have picked them off more than once on the counter attack. However, at that stage we were understandably more concerned about keeping the ball to see out time than committing too many men forward. The players must have been quite tired at that point on the heavy pitch. The ref again gave Workington lots of time to get an equaliser by adding 6 minutes additional time, which was what I expected to be honest, given the number of substitutions and injuries, but we saw out the game without much trouble and spent the last couple of minutes down their end of the pitch which helped relieve my nerves.

Overall, I felt it was a good performance by City having had such a long journey to the game and after that playing on a heavy pitch. The pitch was obviously the same for both teams, but the City players had had a tiring journey, so it must have been worse for them. I was not expecting much after the first twenty minutes when we were not really in it, but after that we played OK and deserved the win. I thought the scoreline was about right from the balance of play.

As I said above I can’t really comment on individual players apart from Holgate, as with his hairstyle he did rather stand out. It was my first view of him and at first I thought he was quite laidback and not fully committed, but as the game went on I came to the conclusion this was more down to his body language and that my initial opinion was rather unfair on him. He kept going well right to the end and it was a nice bit of play for the goal as well (I am not sure I would have said that if he hadn’t scored!), despite being helped out by the keeper. I can't really pick our man of the match - no doubt the Workington fans will be saying it was the ref buying all our so-called 'antics', but they should really look closer to home for the reasons for the loss.

On a side note, the ground had obviously seen better days - it reminded me a bit of Hayes’s old ground (if anyone ever went there) with open terracing around three sides and a covered area with some seats along the far side. From the local paper I saw that the council are looking to get them to share with the Rugby League club rather than help redevelop their own ground. This did not appear to be a popular option from the article I read. From my experience sharing with a Rugby League club is not a great move, so I have some sympathy. Anyway, hopefully they will get what they want and need as it would be nice for an old ex-League club to get a bit more success.

[William]

An accurate account of the game David which never really got started due to repeated stopages either honest or not which led to 11 minutes of added on time. 2 very poor teams where niether side deserved to win. A very poor ref who failed to curtail the spoiling tactics of City who did take a long time to recver from their 'injuries' from the moment they went in front.

[City Fan]

Feb 13, 2013 23:20:26 GMT William said:

An accurate account of the game David which never really got started due to repeated stopages either honest or not which led to 11 minutes of added on time. 2 very poor teams where niether side deserved to win. A very poor ref who failed to curtail the spoiling tactics of City who did take a long time to recver from their 'injuries' from the moment they went in front.

Disagree, he did not mention two very poor teams?
the match report from both sites does not mention this nor does the local papers of both teams.
its your opinion of which your intitaled to. 
others have diferent opinion, they all agree the ref was poor and when you have a heavy pitch at this time of year
you do get games like that. However we  have been lacking up front and as Benjamin returns from suspention and Basham from calf strain, I hope we can improve for Satuarday against a very bulky Gloucester team who are doing we at the moment!!

[Deleted]

Feb 14, 2013 9:06:07 GMT City Fan said:

[quote source="/post/6
yes a for a304/thread" timestamp="1360797626" author="William"]An accurate account of the game David which never really got started due to repeated stopages either honest or not which led to 11 minutes of added on time. 2 very poor teams where niether side deserved to win. A very poor ref who failed to curtail the spoiling tactics of City who did take a long time to recver from their 'injuries' from the moment they went in front.

Disagree, he did not mention two very poor teams?
the match report from both sites does not mention this nor does the local papers of both teams.
its your opinion of which your intitaled to. 
others have diferent opinion, they all agree the ref was poor and when you have a heavy pitch at this time of year
you do get games like that. However we  have been lacking up front and as Benjamin returns from suspention and Basham from calf strain, I hope we can improve for Satuarday against a very bulky Gloucester team who are doing we at the moment!![/quote]

As for any suggestion of faking injury, I suggest people should read the Oxford mail Chris Wilmot is having an x-ray on suspected broken rib.
Apparently black and blue on what was described as a colorful challenge from someone who was at the game aswell!