Bacup

The latest report from the Blackburn & Darwen Robins comes from the trip to Darkest East Lancashire to see the Robins take on big-spending Bacup Borough in the League Challenge Cup. Being a Friday evening game, it was too late to get down to Harwood for some quality building supplies from Thomco, so straight after tea, Jimmy ‘Mad-dog’ and Billy ‘The Kid’ Hughes, and Dave came round and we set off. Unfortunately we didn’t have the flag as it hadn’t been fixed after some Fleetwood hooligans had torn off a couple of ties.
Remembering how cold it was last time we went to West View, we all had about ten layers of clothing on and it was quite a squeeze to get us all into the car.
Arrived five minutes before kick-off to find a very sparse crowd of about twenty, although there was thankfully a late rush which swelled the gate to over a hundred, with the Harwood following amounting to around twenty. With the big names on show at Bacup these days, the Borough chief, Brent Peters, must be rather disappointed with the response from the locals and the club rarely draws in three figure crowds unless there’s a large away support.
The teams were read out over the P.A. system and we were shocked to hear that not only was the injured John Eastham absent, but his strike partner Paul Mashiter was also missing. New signing Mark Young was to be the lone striker so it was going to be very important that the midfield players got forwards if we were to threaten the home goal. The kick-off was delayed by two minutes as the home keeper finished off his pre-match chicken and pasta……potato pie, chips, peas and gravy……mixed grill, sweet and sour pork and fried rice.
The game eventually got under way and not surprisingly Bacup were soon on the offensive, enjoying the advantage of the slope and strong, biting wind. It was nice to see that the local village idiot, who got knocked off his ladder in the earlier league game, hadn’t suffered too much brain damage and had taken up his usual place on top of the 12-foot high perimeter wall.
Luckily for us, Bacup’s passing was pretty woeful and they persisted in kicking the ball down the hill and into touch. Most of their shots were just as poor with several balls flying over Bobby’s goal, and down the street towards Todmorden. Having settled down, we began to put some good passing moves together without causing Fatty Foulkes in the Bacup goal too many problems and it was no surprise that the scoresheet was blank as the half-time whistle blew.
The second half saw us take control of the game and the midfield really started to pass the ball well and once again Steele and Hill were working well together on the left. Young up front had run himself silly against a solid Borough back four but now he was getting more back- up from the excellent Price and McManus. A neat one-two between Hill and Steele had the latter take the ball on from the half-way line, turn his marker inside out, burst into the area, made to go on the outside but cut in on the right, before burying an unstoppable right foot shot beyond Fatty and into the net. The crowd went mad – well at least two or three of us did. The side was now oozing confidence and were outplaying their high-flying hosts and a few minutes after the goal, Dennis Hill went on a mazy run, similar to Steele’s earlier effort, but delayed his shot which was eventually blocked. There now seemed only one winner and Bacup threw on their three subs. in a desperate bid to change the outcome. ‘Grumpy’, a midget who was playing in midfield for the hosts, decided that he’d start to kick a few players seeing as he wasn’t able to kick the ball, and took great delight in leathering Dennis who was running circles round him. The little chap was booked but he still wouldn’t calm down and the reason became apparent after the game. Snow White had told him that he had to be home by ten o’clock or he wouldn’t get any cocoa so maybe he was trying to get sent off! Darren Rogers, who’d moved further forward in the second–half, was suffering from cramp after he’d also put in a non-stop performance. Sadly he had to be substituted, leaving Mark on his own once again.
Then, about five minutes from time, a highly debatable free kick was awarded on the edge of our area. The ball was chipped to the far post where a forward bundled the ball home while the defenders stood looking. After the way we’d defended for the first 85 minutes, it was a really disappointing way to concede. Things looked even bleaker a couple of minutes later when two forwards, looking yards offside, ran through on goal with most of the back four motionless save for their raised arms. As Bobby came out to the edge of the area to meet the man with the ball, the forward passed it sideways to his unmarked teammate to slide it into the empty net. NO ! Bobby launched himself through the air like a tiger pouncing on its prey and pulled off one of the best saves you’re likely to see anywhere in the world this year.
The Harwood boys were now tiring and young Young was on his knees up front after his non-stop battling. Bacup threw everyone forward in a last ditch attempt to prevent extra-time, but having played over four minutes of stoppage time, it was surely going on for a further 30 minutes. With Grumpy already having missed his ten o’clock deadline, Bacup broke down the right but it was going to be O.K. as the ball was passed to a forward who was well offside.
He is offside isn’t he ? PLAY-ON ? HE’S OFFSIDE LINER !!! In it went for 2-1 and that was that.
Well, at least we played some good football although as usual we didn’t get what we deserved. The players were applauded off by the Harwood followers and as the ground emptied, players and officials remonstrated with the men in black but it was all so futile because they weren’t going to suddenly change their minds and say, “Oh yes, your right, it wasn’t free-kick and we’ll disallow the second goal ‘cause he was offside and I should have blown for full-time a couple of minutes earlier.”
The whistle goes for full-time so that’s it, arguing with the officials can only result in trouble for the club so let’s cut it out. We the supporters are allowed to give the officials stick, and we will, the rest of you button it!
Looking on the bright side, we didn’t have to endure extra-time, some of us are up for quarter past four so night matches are hard work anyway. The team had once again excelled against a leading side, and we can now put all of our efforts into the almost impossible task of avoiding the drop. At least we won’t get any injuries or suspensions from further cup games.
We decided to go straight home as Billy and Jimmy had to tuck their teddy bears up in bed and me and Dave had to be up early in the morning.
As we were nearing Darwen, Billy’s phone rang, it was his girlfriend. “Yes sweetheart, I’ve missed you too, see you in five minutes, bye Daisy.” “Ah, that’s nice, is Daisy her ‘pet-name’? Is it because she’s small, pretty and smells nice?” I asked.
“NO WAY ! I call her that because she’s fat, looks like my uncle’s prize cow and smells even worse.” Replied our lovestruck teenager. And they say that romance is dead!
There’s never a dull moment on our away-days so why not join us on the next trip, and don’t forget……..

Rally round the robins!

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