Monday 6 March 2023
Dear County fans, Stopfordians, and any Donny Rovers supporters joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Monday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore.
For the second consecutive Monday, there’s no County goals to talk about from the weekend. At least we picked up a point, which keeps us in the play-offs (just), but Gillingham feels like a must-win tomorrow night if we’re going to reignite our automatic hopes. Thanks to Matt Cuss and Aaron Challoner who take a look back at Saturday’s 0-0 for us. (Click here to watch Aaron’s YouTube video from the game.)
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Paul and all the team at Colourtone for sponsoring today’s edition. See below for further details on what they have to offer.
Finally, as the editor of a football website, I feel it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the tragic news coming out of Blackpool today that Seasiders fan Tony Johnson has sadly passed away, following an incident with Burnley fans a couple of hours after the game at Bloomfield Road on Saturday. As well as County fans, we actually get lots of other football supporters reading The Scarf My Father Wore so our thoughts go out to any Blackpool fans that may be reading this today, and our sincere condolences to any of Tony’s friends or family.
Des Junior
Saturday’s match in one word:
Matt - Frustrating.
Aaron - Gallant.
Pre-match thoughts:
Matt - I thought it was a team selection born out of the Barrow result, but still surprising to see a lot of changes. Most of them made sense, but it’s always a bold choice to leave out Croasdale, as he’s so vital. The only thing I thought was maybe the fitness levels of players and form were being taken into consideration - could it be as simple as Croasdale needed a rest? I was interested to see Davenport as he looked tidy in small cameos and as we know good left-footed centre midfielders are rare. (Sadly, he wasn’t that good!)
Pre-match thoughts about them: Tommy Rowe was such a wonderful player for us (in potentially the best front three we have ever had?) so I wondered if he’d come back and haunt us. I was interested in how James Brown would play, as we always seem to be bitten by ex-players.
Aaron - Both clubs needed to get back to winning ways. We were facing another three-game losing streak if we weren't careful and County needed the points so it could have gone one way.
Post-match thoughts:
Matt - The ref loved the sound of his own voice. He let 90% of shirt pulling go, but spoke at length to players about it throughout the game. He was even warning a player before kick-off about something or other! He really slowed the game down overall. Didn’t set a marker for shirt pulling and time wasting so we had quite a lot of it. The ref aside, we didn’t have enough quality chances to win the game.
Aaron - Overall, in attack, it wasn't the best game at all. For our defence, it was a world class day. We weren’t great, however, sometimes we will get these results where we have to weather the storm. For me, the way we set up defensively is very strong and hopefully we see more of that going forward.
Verdict on County:
Matt - I think after Barrow we’re back to trying to find a winning blend of 11 players. Main question: are Paddy and Sarce able to play 90 minutes? Davenport for me, wasn’t a good fit and I expected him to make way earlier. Tanto drifted out of the game too. Our delivery wasn’t good enough from the left. Wasted corners and free-kicks, with a lot of checking back down the left-hand side.
Aaron - For me, County were disappointing. They will be the team kicking themselves here. Their attack was lacking in the final third and if they took their chances, we would be possibly talking about a demolition. In the air, our centre-backs dealt with that threat very well, which is something County will work on in training I’m sure.
Verdict on Doncaster:
Matt - I’m happy to say Brown was awful and Rowe was pretty anonymous. Their Ramsdale-a-like goalie made two great saves. We had the majority of the ball but didn’t get enough quality shots in. Doncaster clearly thought we’d be tough and seemed to set up for a point.
Aaron - I think in attack, we were very lacklustre and non-existent. Barely any service for Lavery, or Miller when he came on. In defence, we were very solid. Anderson in the middle with Nelson and Olowu either side is magical to see.
Top Hatter:
Matt - Overall, Wootton, but I thought Sarcevic was playing really well until he went off.
Aaron - Kyle Knoyle. It hurts that he isn't a Rovers player anymore, but he was a solid asset for County.
Top Rover:
Matt - Mitchell.
Aaron - Tom Anderson or Jonny Mitchell in between the sticks. Captain Tom won most aerial duels in the game and was very solid. Mitchell helped keep it from being a big defeat.
Atmosphere:
Matt - I think everyone was with the team, quite excited with the quick start then generally everyone got flatter and quieter.
Aaron - To be honest, I didn't hear us all the time but from what I saw, we were trying to get going in spells definitely.
Hopes for the rest of the season:
Matt - If we can push and get 3rd that would be incredible and well ahead of schedule. Any one of five teams could get that spot and there’s no reason it can’t be us. Avoiding the play-offs would be great. We don’t need to fear any team but it’s not usually the best team that wins the play-offs, so let’s give them a miss!
Aaron - I don't personally believe we’re consistent enough for the play-offs. However, try and get as high as possible, give Schofield the summer and then we push on next season.
The British Library receives a copy of every single book published in the UK. In the same fashion, Des Junior believes a detailed record of every County game should be preserved for the history books. So here’s the full story of our 0-0 draw at home to Doncaster Rovers on Saturday 4 March 2023, as told from his three County-related WhatsApp groups…
12.13pm: I intend on giving James Brown no grief today. Although I intended the same at Rochdale with all our exes until Danny Lloyd started being a bit of an arse.
3.07pm: Donny’s No 14 is the son of ex-Stoke Wayne Biggins, if you need a reason to abuse him!
3.08pm: All over these at the minute.
3.15pm: Collar should have scored.
3.51pm: Half-time. Been the better side but not really done much up top since the first 15 minutes.
4.06pm: I reckon today's bench would have got us out of the National League North… just the seven of them.
4.12pm: Decent save keeps out Wootton header.
4.57pm: Well that was underwhelming.
5.22pm: We’re too slow in passing and movement. I think we’ll miss the play-offs.
5.28pm: Marginal improvement on last week. Madden and Croasdale to start on Tuesday, we absolutely have to win. We cannot afford this to become a slump, and suddenly it's four, five, six games later and we still haven't won again.
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STOP! That got your attention, didn’t it? Just a quick one… I’d hazard a guess that at some point in March, all of our readers will use Google or Yell.com at some point looking for a particular product or service. But before you do, please have a quick look at our own directory to see if we have what you’re looking for. A number of great businesses support The Scarf My Father Wore, allowing us to publish fresh content every day, so let’s send a few enquiries their way in return.
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