Colne - Story 1 (Goto Report 2)

The latest report from the famous Blackburn & Darwen Robins comes from the local derby game at Colne.
After the embarrassment at Nelson four days earlier, we feared the worst from our trip to Holt House to face the ‘Mighty Colne’. Michelle picked up Fat Phil, Auntie Sheila, Dave, Billy ‘the kid’ and Jimmy ‘mad-dog’ Hughes before collecting me. First stop was Thomco Building Supplies where we not only picked up some quality materials, but also gathered expert advice from their well trained and efficient staff. Seeing as we’ve been barred from almost every pub in East Lancashire, we decided to take our own booze and what better place to get stocked up than the Co-op Superstore on Queen Street where we got some cracking bargains from the beer department. I also bought some quality Australian wine at unbeatable prices for the following days Sunday lunch.
It was a beautiful sunny day and we arrived at the ground at about half past two to find cars everywhere and we had to park miles from the ground. Blimey, there’s going to be hundreds on, or so I thought. It appears that most of them belonged to players from adjoining pitches and when we entered the ground, most of the supporters, as usual, were from Harwood. The crowd did in fact build up to a very respectable 177 with around 20-30 firmly behind the Robins.
The game started with Colne well on top and we couldn’t get a touch. When we did eventually get one, we leathered it upfield to no one in particular, before another Colne attack took place. Luckily, the home forwards forgot to bring their shooting boots and most of their efforts flew over the goal towards Yorkshire, but the opener eventually arrived via a corner after nine minutes. (Did we really hold out for so
long ?) Most of the Colne players were far taller than their Harwood counterparts and you really couldn’t blame the defenders for being out jumped.
Wave after wave of attacks continued and Bobby Harris had to be at his best to keep us in the game. As we were being totally outclassed at this point, all that we needed was to be a man short and Greeny duly obliged by stupidly abusing the Ref. and getting his marching orders. It was now a case of how many. The inevitable second goal came just after the twenty minute mark and it was well worth waiting for as Ingham hit a 30 yarder into the top corner that very few keepers in the country would have got near, and Bobby was no different. I must say that it was one of the best goals scored against us in recent seasons, and like the first, no blame could be attached to any Harwood player. After the sending off, Paul Mashiter moved back leaving Eastie up front on his own against four quality defenders! The ball was continually pumped up in the air to him and even if it had been Alan Shearer up there, he’d have stood no chance of making an impression. The wayward shooting of the Colne team continued up until half-time and amazingly we went in just the two goals down. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the snack bar ran out of pies before the break and Fat Phil was almost suicidal.
During the interval, the Ref. decided that he couldn’t bare to watch any more of the slaughter and retired from the proceedings to be replaced by one of his assistants, who looked more like Mr. Bean than Rowan Atkinson !
The second-half started with Mash reverting to the forward line and just like the last two away games, we started to play after we’d already lost the game. Unfortunately, we could still make little headway against a very competent looking defence but it was against the run of play when Colne added number three. Dennis Hill made a tackle, which appeared to be well outside of the area, but surprisingly, the liner gave a spot-kick. As if our predicament wasn’t bad enough, we have to get landed with partially-sighted official. The excellent Haworth put all of his fifteen stones behind the shot which arrowed towards the bottom corner. Incredibly, Bobby made a fantastic flying save but as the ball went away from the goal, and the Harwood players stood applauding, Simpson rushed in to belt it high into the net. Very poor play from the Harwood boys.
Still, the players kept their heads up and were given tremendous backing from the Blackburn and Darwen Robins who also targeted Mr. Bean for some stick as his decisions became stranger and stranger. In fact, the best official on the park was the Colne chap who took over on the line.
Although we saw much more of the ball during the last half-hour of the game, Colne were the only side who looked likely to add to the score and further saves from Bobby and more erratic finishing meant that we didn’t concede again. We wondered if we were going to break some kind of record as we reached the last minute without having had a single shot on target. ‘Lurch’ in the home goal only had a couple of crosses to deal with which was never going to be a problem to 6’ 11” giant. As the Ref. put his whistle to his mouth, Eastie ran along the edge of the box avoiding two tackles before firing goalwards. Young Baxter in goal, seeing his chance to finally earn his money, making it look far more spectacular than it needed to be, flew through the air like a gymnast to make a fine save. As he clutched the ball, the whistle blew for full time. It still remains a mystery how we only lost the game by three goals against a team that certainly looks the best in the league on the evidence of our two games against them. Maybe they just like playing against us, because if you take their two results against Harwood away, you're left with this far from impressive record: Played 15 Won 6 Drawn 4 Lost 5 For 29 Against 20 Points 22. Anyway, tough luck Colne, you won’t be playing us next season !
We were going to go straight home as we were all pretty depressed but Billy said that he knew of a pub that we hadn’t been barred from. Off into the countryside we drove until we ended up in the middle of nowhere at a hostelry called the Lost Sheep. “There’s no way we’ll get banned from here, they get hardly any customers so they need everyone they can get.”
As we walked in you could see why, the place was a right dive and the Landlord and Landlady looked like something from the Adams family. Seeing as it had already gone dark outside and there was a howling wind, I had second thoughts about going in myself. The Landlady was dressed in black and had a huge wart on her neck. “Michelle, whatever you do don’t mention her wart.” I pleaded.
“No worries.” She replied but as we got to the bar, Dave chirped up, “You can have that huge ugly thing on your neck surgically removed these days Missus.” “You mean the wart ?” Asked the Landlady. “NO, YOUR HEAD YOU OLD HAG !” He shouted.
“GET OUT, YOU’RE ALL BARRED !!” Get the cans out of the boot Jimmy !
There’s never a dull moment on our away trips so join us for the next one and remember………

ROBINS 0 COLNE 0 - Report 2

19-04-04

Colne arrived at the Showground on the back of 8 straight wins despite having to play 3 games a week for the past month. During that run, they have notched 26 goals and conceded just 7 to leave themselves just one win away from the 2nd Division Championship.
Cheered on by the majority of the 183 crowd, Harwood’s biggest of the season, Colne made their intentions clear by going on the offensive right from the kick-off. Shooting at every opportunity, the Robins defenders had to be at their best to stop the visitors from adding to their 90 goal haul for the season.
The pitch was very heavy after a weekend of wet weather, torrential rain throughout the Monday morning, and a downpour an hour before kick-off. Despite this, both sides played some fine football and only excellent defending prevented any goals in the first half. Ex-Harwood player Paul Walker, who had an excellent game at right-back, was closest to breaking the deadlock with a right foot shot from the edge of the box which grazed the post.
The second half followed a similar pattern although the Robins enjoyed more possession than in the first half.
Paul Mashiter had the ball in the net after a terrific run which saw him beat two defenders, only to see his effort harshly ruled out for offside. At the other end, Gizon and Walker both had fine long range shots which were just off target. Just after the hour mark Harwood were reduced to ten men when Neil Kennedy brought down a Colne defender on the edge of the visitors goal area as he looked to make a quick break out of defence. Having already been booked, he didn’t even wait for the card and made his way towards the dressing room. Sadly, Baxter in the Colne goal decided that the punishment was not enough and gave Harwood defender an ‘ear-bashing’ which almost caused a set-to before the players were pulled apart. Despite the set back, the pattern of the game didn’t alter too much, although the visitors did make good use of the extra man with their fine passing. Harwood defended from the front and on the few occasions when Bobby Harris was called into action, he dealt admirably with everything that high scoring Colne could throw at him.
At the final whistle the two teams were given a tremendous ovation by both sets of supporters after an excellent local derby which was played in great spirit, hard but fair. The result left Colne needing a win at Leek in their next game two days later, though Harwood needed the three points on offer to have any chance of securing one of the top four promotion places.

Rally Round The Robins!

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