2012-13 Match Reports CCFC v HUDDERSFIELD

17.8.2012

CCFC 1 v 0 HUDDERSFIELD

Our opening game had been chosen as the pre-cursor to the entire season, The Footie 2012 Opening Ceremony if you like. If Danny Boyle had been directing events we’d have opened with a time-honoured pastoral idyll being replaced by a revolution orchestrated by Vincent Tan, played by Sir Kenneth Branagh, heralding a new dawn, looking to the future with confidence, finding our place in a brave new world. And hoping that this season will be more Bond than Bean.

It ‘s been a difficult week coming down after the fantastic fortnight of Olympic highs. Much has been made of the contrast between the Great British athletes, the humble self-effacing response to their successes and their articulate insightful interviews, compared with the monosyllabic single-brain-celled automatons of the footie world. The best example amongst many for me was Victoria Pendleton’s dismissive comment ‘I just get on a bike and turn left for a living’. Can you imagine John *!!@!**! Terry saying ‘To be fair all I do is run around kicking a wind-filled pig’s bladder’ or Ashley Cole wishing to ‘inspire a generation’?

The athletes’ honesty and unwillingness to suffer media fools gladly was clear in Mark Cavendish’s response to being asked if ‘the Tour de France was a tiredness factor’ in his failure to win a medal ‘Stop asking stupid questions. Do you know anything about cycling?’ he told the BBC’s head of sport.

And a fine antidote to the old Bill Shankly line that ‘Football’s not a matter of life and death; it’s more important than that’ has to be Beth Tweddles’ Dad replying to an interviewer’s concern about what he ‘must have been going through this week’. He shrugged ‘I’ve been laying a patio’.

And so to today’s opposition, Huddersfield Town. It seems a long time since we welcomed the Terriers and the fixture has the ring of an old school Division 3 basement bash about it. It’s just a year however since we beat them 5-3 (aet) in the first round of the League Cup, long before anyone sat up and took any notice of a potential ‘run’ in the competition. That particular distraction will not be bothering us this year since our U-14s lost out to a load of old Cobblers at Northampton in the week. We last faced Huddersfield in the league in a League 2 fixture in 2003. A team featuring the definitive centre back partnership of Fan Zhiyi and Spencer Prior went down to a narrow 1-0 defeat. Ah, happy days.

Keen to get into the stadium to escape the rain, the stadium is eerily empty as I walk to my seat. I stand at the end of the row and check I haven’t been allocated a new seat as mine appears to be taken by a rather portly gent. He stands up. ‘Hi, I’m Fat’. Have I gatecrashed a meeting of Porkers Anonymous? No, he said ‘Matt’. I introduce myself but I still can’t find my seat. Then I realise it’s occupied by Fat Bloke’s right cheek. ‘Are you here just for this game?’ (Please!) ‘No I’ve moved here for the season’. Oh dear.

There were still blocks of empty seats as the players ran out to an enthusiastic but less-than-deafening roar. Interestingly we’d decided to play our first home game of the season in our away kit! Some of the crowd had obviously got wind of this cunning plan as they also turned up in red! Unfortunately the ploy didn’t seem to be working as we were playing like the away team and Huddersfield, playing in blue, had the best of a tepid first half.

The Terriers had two excellent chances early on but they found Marshall in imperious form. Fortunately for us, last year’s 40 goals top scorer Jordan Rhodes had conveniently tweaked a minor muscle ahead of a proposed big-money transfer so the away / home team were lacking in firepower.

We had the bulk of the possession but most of it was played across the back as the our centre-backs searched in vain for an outlet, the midfield too keen to push forward to help out Helguson and the full-backs unable or unwilling to break down the wings. We did have one decent chance when Helguson’s header crashed against the bar but it was a disappointing opening 45 minutes.

We were brighter at the start of the second half as Bellamy and Mutch dropped back in search of the ball and McNaughton got forward down the flanks. But on too many occasions the final ball was wayward and easily dealt with by a solid Huddersfield defence. Worryingly Whittingham was missing in action. This happened during Bellamy’s last spell with us. Mackay needs to find a way of optimising his talents in a packed midfield.

Of the new boys, Mutch was mutch of a mutchness showing flashes but uncertain of his role playing too far forward, but he clearly has plenty of potential. Spring-heeled Helguson may not be the tallest striker but he’s capable of winning the toughest of aerial battles and when the dust settles and the service improves he should be able to impose himself. Bellamy huffed and puffed and showed a few nice touches and plenty of commitment but was shackled by an opposition keen to prevent him having too much influence.

The crowd was as thin as a Bobby Charlton comb-over as the inevitability of a dull draw was becoming apparent. We were still making the occasional foray into enemy territory as the Terriers tired so there was still hope. The board had already gone up showing 5 minutes of injury time as the opposition failed to deal with loose ball in the penalty area that found its way to a rampaging Hudson who planted the ball firmly into the corner of the net. It was tough on a hard-working opposition who would have been confident that they’d secured a point, but on this performance they should have a comfortable first season in the Championship. On the way home, from 4,000 possibilities the car’s mp3 randomly chose Tom Petty’s ‘Even The Losers Get Lucky Sometimes’. Quite.

I left to the strains of the crowd singing ‘We are top of the league, we are top of the league’. For 24 hours. Can we stay there? On this performance the task is Olympian, but there is plenty of time for our Chef de Mission, Mr Mackay to work things out. Few of us could contemplate dropping into the play-offs repechage again and let’s hope that the 2012-13 closing ceremony doesn’t conclude to the sound of a generation’s hopes fa-fa-fading away...