Duff cracks off a nice one to equalise.A good game to start the season proper, against opposition who should be challenging for the promotion places at the end of the season. Despite the the current chaos behind the scenes, including an exodus of top players, we actually played quite respectably for a well deserved draw. This included some good passages of play which were highly encouraging.
Before the game there was a tribute to Bobby Robson, marked by a minute’s applause, a ghastly and despicable innovation by God knows who, which seems to have replaced the more traditional and fitting minute’s silence. Of course, Sir Bobby is fondly remembered by both clubs, having spent the peak of his playing career at West Bromwich from 1956 to 1962.
While it was probably WBA who had the better start to the game with their opening onslaught, United’s heads didn’t go down and they recovered to gain a foothold. (more…)
Duff on target for the Toon.We got our Championship campaign under way with a 1-1 draw at West Brom last night.
In the first half we looked the more fluent side in possession but, rather like last season, the final ball into the box often lacked quality. Duff probably had the best chance of the half when Carroll set him up from 20 yards, but he shot wide.
Our defence was typically fragile and we can be thankful that The Baggies failed to capitalise on some of the early chances they had. They got their goal on 39 minutes though when Harper failed to clear from a set piece and a scramble in the box saw Shelton Martis punt it home.
During the goal mouth free-for-all, Ameobi tried to clear Harper’s head off the line and, although the goalkeeper played on until the whistle, he was substituted for Krul at half-time.
After the goal our heads went down a bit and there seemed to be some bickering amongst the players, but we managed to make it to the interval without conceding again. (more…)
My amateur photographyWell the weather was drab, the performance was drab and overall it was, well pretty drab.
In keeping with the theme so far, the opportunity to go and see the lads again was off the back of my own game being cancelled. But as with the Darlington game, late notice meant the only person keen to make the trip to Huddersfield was me. Note to self – get some ‘reserve friends’ who are regulars to games as a fallback. As it happens, the timing was quite tight and so it was only viable to take my own car as most sensible folk would have already left.
Shoving a lovingly crafted sandwich and some pop on the front seat I headed to the services, dieselled-up and typed the postcode into the sat nav. It told me I’d be there at 7.35, so I was a bit sceptical about my chances of getting parked and into the ground and imagined some worst case scenarios of getting there late and missing half the game or not gettin there at all. As it turned out, I made good time and pulled off the M62 at 7.20 with 4 miles to go. Which was just as well because that’s where the traffic for the ground started. Having snaked slowly to within a few hundred yards of the stadium I dumped my car strategically just off the main road and asked some lads for directions to our end. That’s when the heavens opened. (more…)
