Alfreton Away

The Facts
Total Distance travelled - 211 miles.
Total Driving/Travelling time - 4.45 hours.
Number of comfort breaks - I lost count after 7
Number of New traffic lights - 30. Why does Mansfield need so many lights on a so called By-pass.
Driving Conditions - Loverly Weather but the Traffic was horrendous on the outward journey. Get back to school kids .
Now people will know why we did not want to go North and endure the A17 nearly every game.
Quotes
"Can we stop for a piss" uttered before we even join the A17.
"What's said on the bus stays on the bus" This rule still applies.
"I've had my 8 pint breakfast"
.......What no story time this week.
Soundtrack
Tiesto - Summerbreeze
The Verve - Forth
The Babylon Whackers -Happy days With
Bits of Five live inc the Boxing Gold medal
The best of Euphoric House disc 2

The light travelling group left at dinner time for the simple journey to whatever county Alfreton is in. It soon became apparent that the journey via the 6 toed county would take forever so the driver just relaxed to the dulcet tones of the King rambling on within biting distance of his ear.I must say the good wife of the driver withstood the barrage with remarkable tolerance and only on the return journey started getting feisty.Note to myself I must do a correspondence course in hypnotherapy to put annoying passengers to sleep.The rest of the journey with the exception of everyone just zipping up after a comfort break in a farm entrance 5 secs before a passing blue lighted vehicle.It's all in the timing as they say.
On arrival at a ground surrounded by a social housing estate with loads of street parking (really) and a locked car park (the key was missing?)the difficulty of parking rose it's ugly head.A quick tour caused the twitching of curtains by the locals but upon return to the ground a quality local pointed us in the direction of a very close hidden parking space-Quality& Cheers to that man.The same local commented at the end of the game that we had a very good side...time will tell.
The ground was like a cross bred of Gresley and Stamford with lots of seats that they had got from a car boot sale everywhere, and i do mean everywhere in all corners, sides of the ground,behind the goal.It looked like the rare seat breeding programme was working well.Well done Bill and Kate for saving the seat population of Alfreton
Beer wise there were two bars at the ground with a social club outside that seemed ok and a clubhouse (of two sides) inside that were both the size of my front room.Mighty crowded at half time both sides but we got served quickly enough.
I never tried the food(not unusual)but heard no complaints from those that did.
The game
Much like all of the encounters so far,lots of huffing and puffing from both sides with no chance of blowing even a straw house down describes the whole game.
A More in depth report
Joe Francis looked much better and he was at times showing glimpes of last year.He is still going down far too easily and he needs more mental toughness.I guess the tests results were clear!
Overall going forward we looked good.Defty was outstanding,Frew very good but i will say about JJ despite his obvious class at times this was not his game.We looked very steady in both halves and if it was not for the Alfreton Keeper we would of gone in ahead at the break and extended this lead in the second half,he made 3 very good saves.
Howie had very Little to do all game and could do nothing about a great flick header that put the home side up. A great response followed instantly and with great close control Jack gave us the equaliser.Pure Quality.
We then went for the game and went close to snatching it until the refs glory "look at me I am the star of this show"moment. Crane challenged for a 50/50 ball that the keeper failed to get,the ball fell loose and Crane went for the ball falling over in the process and then was pushed back onto the ground several times by that Bostsum Twat that we rejected Ellender who was eventually thrown off him by Jack , then a bit of a scrummage developed with players from both sides flying in.Crane at fault?He certainly held his own but did no worse that many others. I guess the ref is ....( removed for libel reasons) That was the end of the game as a competitive match with us still busy laughing at the mini crowd invasion by the King after the sending off.
A good performance again but we do need to start winning.