Bathgate no more, Irvine no more....

I first met Mickey Hydes on Saturday 13th January 1996 at Portland Park when Ashington beat Alnwick Town 5-2 and immediately liked the fellow, mainly because we shared an affection for Hibernian and Teenage Fanclub. I last saw him attempting to interview the Arthurlie goalkeeper at Dunterlie Park on Saturday 12th June 2011. When Mick moved to Scotland in 1997, first to Cowdenbeath and then to Paisley, I was able to rely upon his hospitality to regularly indulge my passion for the latter whenever gigs at Barras or Motherwell were in the offing, but not for the former. Indeed at the end of September in 2006, up for the weekend to see TFC perform Bandwagonesque at Bible John’s favourite east end dance hall, the St. Mirren v Hibernian fixture was never an option (just as well as the home side won a drab game 1-0) as our deep and abiding love for the game at the non-professional level (non-league as it is known in England and the Juniors as the Scotch call it) meant that Benburb 5 Larkhall Royal Albert 0 got the nod over the Leith Brazilians.

During Mick’s Caledonian sojourn, my visits have seen me at Hampden Park museum, Cowdenbeath stock car track and Albion Rovers boardroom, but more importantly the aforementioned Benburb, but also Pollok, Petershill, Bathgate (twice) and now Arthurlie, as I attempt to make an annual pilgrimage to see a Scottish Juniors game. Over the past few seasons, the ritual has been for me to bring down the curtain on my football watching season by heading up north after all the English games are over. Two years ago, May 30th 2009 to be precise, we took in Bathgate 6 Forfar West End 2 in a crucial winner takes it all relegation crunch clash in the ACA Sports East Superleague (I simply don’t have the time or mental capacity to explain the structure of the Scottish Junior game, other than to mention it exists in West, East and Northern sections, with 63, 64 and 35 clubs in each area respectively). The welcome at this ground was the best I’ve ever had; they invited us in for a half time cuppa and handed out free shirts and scarves, so I was delighted they won this game, but don’t fret as Forfar came back up to the top flight after a year in the ACA Sports East Premier League, below which there are North, Central and South divisions.

In 2010, Mick was required to work on the only day I had free, so Saturday 12th June, when Robert Green made his hilarious howler in the England v USA world Cup game, I headed by myself to the East of Scotland Cup Final in which Linlithgow Rose beat Musselburgh Athletic 2-1 in a tight tussle. I had no trouble finding the ground as it was played at Creamery Park, home of Bathgate Thistle! In 2011, despite the terrible winter weather, the East region closed up on Saturday 4th June, though there were some outstanding (as in remaining not brilliant) cup fixtures in the West so it was definitely a case of Bathgate no more, as Craig and Charlie Reid said back in 1987.

With all of the league fixtures finishing the week before (apart from Newmacher United v RAF Lossiemouth in the twice postponed Northern Division 2 clash that ended up 4-2 to the home side), the last competition to be decided was the Evening Times Cup, a competition so labyrinthine and confusing that it could have been an element of a James Ellroy plot rewritten by Franz Kafka. The SJFA website puts it thus -:

“This is a knockout tournament played at the end of the season and features the winners of the ten West Region competitions during the preceding season. Clubs who win two or more competitions during the season enter as winners of the highest ranked tournament with runners-up qualifying from lower ranked tournaments. For the purposes of the Evening Times Cup Winners Cup, the order of preference for West Region competitions is as follows:

Order of

Preference Competition 2010–11 qualifiers

1 Super League Premier Division Irvine Meadow


2 West of Scotland Cup Arthurlie


3 Super League First Division Ashfield


4 Ayrshire Cup Auchinleck Talbot


5 Central League Cup Pollok


6 Ayrshire Sectional League Cup

no qualifier, as finalists Irvine Meadow and Auchinleck Talbot qualified through higher ranked tournaments

7

Central Sectional League Cup Shotts Bon Accord


8 Ayrshire District League Ardrossan Winton Rovers


9 Central District League First Division Kilsyth Rangers


10 Central District League Second Division Yoker Athletic






This is how the competition went (check the dates of the games):

Preliminary Round

1. Yoker Athletic 2 Ardrossan Winton Rovers 2 (8-7 pens): 28th May

2. Pollok 1 Shotts Bon Accord 2: 8th June



Quarter Final

3. Kilsyth Rangers 1 Irvine Meadow XI 1 (3-5 pens): 28th May

4. Arthurlie 1 Ashfield 1: 7th June

5. Shotts Bon Accord 4 Yoker Athletic 1: 10th June

6. Auchinleck Talbot bye

Hence, 31 years to the day since I’d seen The Clash at Newcastle Mayfair, I took a fast, packed, pricey, luxurious train to Glasgow Central and a smooth suburban one on to Barrhead, arriving under swollen, purple clouds in to the teeth of a stinging breeze slightly after noon and ran directly in to Dunterlie Park, home of Arthurlie and Mickey Hydes, notebook in hand, ready to pen his copy for the Sunday Mail.

We took a tour of the town as I searched for Bonjela to help sooth a raging mouth ulcer, realising that Barrhead is pretty much a no horse town, where the number one attraction at Rumours Nitespot that Saturday evening was DJ Nae Fitba Colours which made me glad I was here for the football and not the culture.

Mickey regaled me with a story about his role as a Community Relations Officer for the Fire Brigade in Barrhead, when he’d phoned up an elderly lady who’d won a Mothercare voucher in a tombola he’d been running. Realising that the woman was too old to need such a thing, he asked if she had children or even grandchildren who could have made use of it. The reply was she’d one daughter but “her sort don’t have children.” Further ramblings by the old dear revealed that they didn’t have girls like that when she was a lassie and that there are always programmes on Channel 4 late at night about these sorts of women, but she’d forgotten the word to describe this type of female. A deeply embarrassed Mick attempted to end the call, only for the woman to announce she’d remembered the word to describe her daughter. The word she’d been searching for was not what Mick, steeling himself for a Sapphic soundbite, had been expecting. The daughter in question was a career woman!!

Entering the ground around 20 minutes before kick off, it was clear that Dunterlie Park is an absolute diamond; a glorious 4 sided traditional ground with steep, uneven terracing at one end and a covered enclosure down one side, with a crowd of well over 700 in attendance, including about 50 malodorous English groundhoppers and one fragrant one; me.

I’d been to Irvine once before. Back in the late 80s I walked out with a young lady from Dublin who was training to be a histologist. Her clinical practice involved a stint at Ayrshire General in Irvine. The hospital may have been top quality but the town was a dump. We spent the weekend getting drunk and arguing in July 1988, so I didn’t even get to see any football. The Irvine fans here today were armed with carry outs (Tennents and 20/20 being the beverages of choice) and many were attired in that frightening Huns away shirt that looks like a Mackem one; never has a football top aroused such feelings of acute nausea in me. Therefore, bearing in mind the fantastic ground, the fact that Mickey had introduced me to Ed the Arthurlie official photographer and that the Irvine fans were scruffy sods, meant I was rooting for the home side attired in Coventry City style sky blue stripes.

After an uneventful opening 30 minutes, the Lie (sadly pronounced Lee) took the lead when Jan Koller lookalike John McLay, who was Man of the Match by a street, sidefooted home from inside the box. It seemed as if this would be the only goal, but two errors by home keeper Neil Parry, the second a foolish missed punch, late in the second period seemed to have handed the Medda, as they are known, the tie. However, deep inside the 3 minutes of additional time (after 92.56 to be precise), an unmarked Stephen McKeown lashed home a loose ball, to provoke a joyous pitch invasion by a couple ofd dozen exciteable young lads who’d kept up a series of pro Lie anti Medda songs all match. In the Juniors, extra time does not exist, so it was straight to penalties.

Happily, Parry saved 2 Medda kicks and so the Lie advanced to the final at Newlandsfield, home of Pollok FC, where they’ll play Shotts Bon Accord who defeated Auchinleck Talbot 3-1 in the other semi final on the Monday evening. As well as Bathgate no more, it was a clear case of Irvine no more, in the Evening Times Cup at any rate. I have to say the pitch invasion after the shoot-out was the most joyous celebration I’ve seen all season. This is what the Sunday Post said about the game -:

NEIL PARRY admitted he owed his Arthurlie team-mates the penalty heroics that booked their Cup Winners' Cup final place.

The big keeper denied Meadow hitmen Brian McGinty and Mick Hughes in the shootout as Lie dumped the holders in a dramatic finish.

Parry's blunder had let Hughes put the West Region champs 2-1 ahead with just a few minutes left, only for the West of Scotland Cup winners to level deep into injury time and take it to penalties.

The keeper's saves made it five stops in as many days after saving three as Sandy MacLean's Barrhead aces beat Ashfield on penalties in Tuesday's quarter-final.

Now Parry wants to sign off in style before signing for Queen's Park - by helping Lie lift the trophy in the final game of the junior season on Thursday, when they face the winners of Monday's second semi between Auchinleck and Shotts.

Parry said: "I owed the boys that after the mistake I made at the second goal.

"I shouted for it but never got near it and I should never have come for it, it wasn't my ball at all.

"But all credit to the boys for keeping going and forcing that equaliser right at the end, then it was down to me.

"I always fancy myself when it comes to penalties, I've got a decent record and it's been a good week for me in the shootouts.

"Now I want to help the lads lift the cup on Thursday. That would be a perfect way for me to bow out."

John McLay fired Lie into the lead but Meadow hit back and Hughes nodded in crosses from Keir Milliken and John Dillon. Arthurlie refused to give up and Stephen McKeown's effort took it to pens.

Dillon and Richie Barr netted for Meadow while Lie were perfect from the spot through McLay, Callan Adam, David Merriman and Andy Arbuckle.

Meadow boss Chris Strain said: "I don't know where the ref got all the injury time from."

Post match I emerged, dazed and happy, and took a direct train from Barrhead to Newcastle; a cold, deserted, freezing train that had no buffet car. All I’d had to eat that day was an Arthurlie pie which appeared to be filled with something from a Cormac McCarthy novel (Blood Meridian meets The Road I was thinking), so I dozed most of the way home and listened to Teenage Fanclub, turning my back on the evening redness in the West.

I love Scottish music and I love Scottish football; I can’t wait for my next fix of the Juniors.

Home for a while in the auld country...

My sense of timing is shit; frankly, there’s no other word for it. Despite having known for months in advance that I had Whit week off work, additionally bookended by a pair of weekends, I managed to schedule a trip to Ireland to cunningly avoid almost all the football taking place in the 32 counties at the end of May and start of June. I’d finished work on the Friday afternoon, but having booked the flights a couple of months in advance, I had simply assumed there would be some kind of footballing commitment on Tyneside that would stop me going straight away, which as it turns out would have been pointless anyway, as Thursday, not Friday or Saturday, was the scheduled night for the League of Ireland card that week.

As it happened, Saturday saw Percy Main kicking their heels as the Northern Alliance season had finished the week before, but I was still needed between the sticks for Winstons in the morning as we brought the curtain down on an inglorious campaign with a 2-1 win over The Philadelphia to finish in a less than satisfactory 11th place. I used the first spare Saturday afternoon I’d had since July 17th last year to visit my mam, before saying farewell to a couple of old pals who are off on a round the world jaunt for a year courtesy of redundancy and not having any kids. You’ve probably read the work of one of them, a lad by the name of Kriss Knights, who pens stuff as Billy Furious; if not, here’s his website http://billyfurious.com/

Half a dozen pints of Saltaire Pale Ale and the vague knowledge of the Champions’ League Final taking place in The Bodega meant I went woozily to bed. Sensible people would have got up dead early and flown to Dublin to see the Ireland versus Scotland game at the Aviva Stadium, but not me. I’d not booked a Sunday flight in case there was a final at Percy Main in the Newcastle Central Sunday Afternoon League, but there wasn’t, as these had finished the week before. Hence, I was left with a spare Sunday, which I frittered away watching Robbie Keane score the goal that defeated Scotland, and a Monday departure.

My trips back to Ireland, especially over the past 4 years, have started to be more and more frequent. It’s no secret that I’d give up almost anything, apart from those I hold dearest, to live in Ireland. Even the fact that my passport has the shameful words United Kingdom emblazoned on it makes me embarrassed to display it in civilised company. I really don’t want to be a dirty English bastard. That said, I wasn’t expecting the kind of fawning, slavering, obsequious toadying to accompany my arrival that had categorised the visits of Mrs Windsor, who singularly failed to provide a proper apology for the 842 years of social genocide enacted upon the island of Ireland by her state or Barak O’Bama, even though I was unspeakably delighted to see the Bus Eireann website proclaiming details of tours to Moneygall.

Indeed I was content to be a synecdochal version of the 15,000 bemused Portuguese football fans quizzically ambling round Temple Bar before the Europa League final, wondering why there were security checkpoints every 50 yards and the sky was dark with helicopters. Perhaps, in view of the fact Wales v Northern Ireland attracted the grand total of 529 paying spectators to the AVIVA Stadium, the next championships to be staged at the former Lansdowne Road could be the IMF NAAMA Bowl, with Portugal and Greece invited to take part. Even then I’d no doubt fly in 6 hours after the trophy was presented.

At least the good old Airtricity League had obliged me with a full fixture list for my visit. Initially I’d pencilled in Shamrock Rovers v Bohemians on the Monday, with Drogheda against Bray for the Tuesday, as it would mean 2 new grounds and the chance to see Big Club re-establish DNS supremacy over the Tallaghtfornian Halting Site dwellers in the Fair City classico. Tragically, all games were moved to the Monday to allow teams to prepare properly for the Third Round of the FAI Cup, which was scheduled for Friday 3rd June. This, naturally, was the day I was due to fly back because the Percy Main end of season do was on the Saturday night. Consequently, I was left with the stark realisation that I only had 1 game I could attend. These were my choices -:

Premier Division:

Derry City v Galway United

Drogheda United v Bray Wanderers

Shamrock Rovers v Bohemians

Sligo Rovers v Dundalk

UCD v St. Patrick’s Athletic

First Division:

Athlone Town v Salthill Devon

Limerick v Cork City

Mervue United v Longford Town

Monaghan United v Finn Harps

Wexford Youths v Shelbourne

Geography meant I simply had to discount Derry, Sligo, Limerick, Monaghan and Wexford from my calculations and I’d already seen a UCD v St Pat’s game, so that was a non-starter. A trip on the LUAS to D24 seemed the inevitable choice, almost by default, until my mate John, who was putting me up in Maynooth, County Kildare offered to take the car to the Westmeath and Roscommon border, to see the splendour that is Lissywoolen; Athlone Town versus Salthill Devon was my destination.

As someone who avoids driving at all cost, since a Tesco 18-wheeler almost made me an RTA statistic back in December 2005, I always rely on the kindness of others to fetch me places. My ex-wife Sara obliged with a lift up to the airport, where Ryan Air, despite being the Weatherspoons of flight travel, had me touching down in Dublin at midday, absolutely bang on time. Switching my phone back on, I sent the typical “arrived safely” texts then took the 747 DublinBus to Connolly, noticing the text wouldn’t send and that my phone was seemingly incapable of roaming. I took a trip to the Vodafone shop on Henry Street, where a long and frustrating phonecall to the UK support centre finally saw me having my roaming enabled, despite never having previously requested for it to be disabled. This finished, I skirted back along Talbot Street to Connolly, taking myself up to the historic site of Monto (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wny_0pi4hR4) and availed myself of the stopping train to Maynooth, via Drumcondra, Phoenix Park, Ashtown, Leixlip and so on, arriving at John’s place just after 3.

John’s the conduit for my reconnection with Ireland; I first met him in October 1993 in Newcastle. A Magpies fan since the mid 70s, he makes a few trips over a season when I put him and his son Ciaran up, so he likes to repay the compliment when I’m in these parts. He may not be the most regular of attendees at League of Ireland games, but he makes the effort when I’m about and it was his suggestion that took us to Lissywoolen for the Athlone v Salthill Devon game, having driven me to Longford v Salthill last August. Of course John is also a great guide and a skilled chauffeur, so he invited me to come west along the road on a tour that took us through Counties Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Longford, Roscommon and back to Westmeath as Athlone play on the Leinster side. Particular highlights on the journey included the “Good Luck” Chinese in Ballymahon, the power station in Lanesboro and Douglas Hyde Park in Roscommon Town, not to mention the incessant hailstorm that we encountered just on entering Athlone.

Within 5 minutes, about 2 inches of golf ball size ice particles had gathered in the gutters, but these were soon washed away by a tumultuous downpour that made me unhappily recall the only Airtricity game postponed in the 2011 season thus far had been Athlone v Monaghan. This could not happen again could it? No, it didn’t, as while I enjoyed two magnificent pints of black porter in Sean’s Bar, allegedly the oldest pub in Ireland, the rain was replaced by glorious early evening sunshine, which continued unabated until the night arrived at almost 10pm, reminding me we were far further west than at home.

By that time Athlone Town had won 2-0, in front of 104 less than hysterical onlookers. It was a dull game in a functional stadium; one impressive stand that has probably 1,000 or more seats, housed the entire crowd, with 3 basic uncovered narrow concrete walkways on the other 3 sides. It was like a slightly smaller, slightly better kept Flancare Park, home of Longford Town, where I’d seen Salthill Devon come back from 2-0 down to draw last August. Despite the presence of two-goal hero from that night Victor Collins, Salthill had no chance of repeating that result. A fabulous bullet header of an own goal broke the deadlock on 25 minutes, before Salthill attempted to get back on terms. Their 10 minutes of semi-pressure was undone when a loose cross saw the home side break against a badly organized defence. A desperate grab of a shirt saw Kevin Williamson tumble in the box. The impressive female referee gave a spot kick, but no red card and Williamson rolled it past a keeper who’d gone the wrong way.

From then on, nothing much happened, so the lad from the supporters’ shop was most excited when I splashed out on an Athlone Town scarf for the Percy Main clubhouse wall; he even had to open up a new packet of them to flog me one. The night stayed warm and I didn’t need to wear it. We headed back to Maynooth, with Shannonside FM giving us the full time scores, depressing though they were -:



Derry 6 Galway 0

Sligo 1 Dundalk 0

Drogheda 0 Bray 1

Shamrock Rovers 1 Bohs 0

UCD 1 St. Pat’s 3



Limerick 0 Cork 0

Mervue 2 Longford 1

Monaghan 1 Finn Harps 0

Wexford 0 Shelbourne 1



So, Galway and Drogheda were bottom and second bottom, respectively, nine points below UCD. The Premier Division will be expanded to include 11 teams in next season. D1 champions go up and the bottom 2 in the Premier play off, with the losers (pay attention now!) facing the winners of the second against third play off from Division 1. At least that is what is planned, but undoubtedly Galway, currently reaping the expected harvest of Nick Leeson’s time as their financial chief executive, will struggle to get a licence to operate unless NAAMA gets involved in football. Consequently Drogheda will presumably manage to make 3 successive Houdini escapes from relegation, courtesy of the fiscal improprieties of others. Of course, in terms of crowds attending games, if this means Cork and Shelbourne go back up, so be it. Obviously, as it’s the League of Ireland we’re talking about, what this means for Division 1, already running a club light after the Fingal disaster has not been thought through as yet. Don’t even mention the possibility that the A Division is about to disintegrate either!

We got back to Maynooth in time for 4 quick pints in the New Town Inn, before I went off visiting on Tuesday, while still assuming the role of an unabolished Domhnall Og Buachalla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domhnall_Ua_Buachalla) . John fetched me out to Tallaght so I could take a look at Shamrock Rovers’ very impressive stadium, paid by South Dublin County Council, which is affectionately known as the Halting Site for the Tallaghtfornian Corinthians. I took the LUAS (aka the world’s slowest train) in to town, met Declan on Jervis Street, skirted Smithfield, marvelled at the Private Shops on Capel Street, then embarked on a tour of pubs; The Halfpenny Bridge, the Foggy Dew, The International Bar, Grogans, the Lincoln and then back to Little Britain, or Dalkey as it is known, for some time with the quality, including a take-out curry laced with sleeping tablets that finished me off by 9.30.

I’d vaguely kept an eye on the news that day, which was full of stories talking about the presumed reintroduction of a version of domestic rates, or a property tax of some sort, and water charges, that will end up being metered. Apart from remarking this latter charge will probably be of little concern to those west of the Shannon, I found it wryly amusing to observe the level of anger at these charges, especially as I’m shelling out £130 a month in council Tax and Water Rates.

More importantly, the Irish presidential election was starting to take shape. With Mary McAleese coming to the end of her second term, the race to get the cushy sinecure and the big house in Phoenix Park was starting to hot up. While Labour and the Blue Shirts were being courted by the minor league great and the good, all wanting a party machine to help with their publicity once they’d found a ticket of convenience, and Dev’s Diehards were furiously looking at their shoes to avoid the poison chalice of candidature, the frontrunner was David “Dottie” Norris, who has one hell of a story to tell. Born in what is now the Congo, while it still had its Belgian prefix, to an English father who died when Norris was an infant and an Irish mother, Norris was a lecturer in English Literature at Trinity College until 1986. Since then he has been famous for being a campaigner for Gay Rights, which lead to the liberalization of Irish homosexuality laws in 1988, and an ardent campaigner for social justice. His sexuality is seen as being of little impediment to his political career, as is his membership of the Church of Ireland, even if he has gone perilously close to being culturally off message as regards 1916 and other sacred Republican and Patriotic cows. What may finally scupper his chances is the publication of a 2002 interview in which Norris makes clear his understanding of the ancient practice of pederasty, which in post Artane Ireland is inextricably linked to paedophilia. It seems as if the spectre of his hero Oscar Wilde is looming large over Norris and his ambitions.

Next morning, suitably refreshed after a grand night’s sleep, Declan and I headed up to Belfast, for him to meet with someone from work and me to hook up with Peter, a fellow Teenage Fanclub devotee, for lots of beers, to mark the centenary of the Titanic’s launch no less. As Ronnie Drew remarked; “sightseeing’s grand, but it’d give you an awful thirst.” We stopped being thirsty in The Kitchen, The Garrick, The John Hewitt, Whites, The Duke of York, The Morning Star and The Northern Whig, before being poured on to the train. The fact John then took me to the New Town after I staggered in to Maynooth around 10 was something I’m rather ashamed of. Still, I slept well.

Thursday saw me delicately head to town for a look around the National Museum’s 1916 exhibition, before taking coffee with Declan and the LUAS to Tallaght. John had noticed Shamrock Rovers Under 17s were supposedly at home to Drogheda U17s at the scenic location of Carolan Park on Kiltipper Road up in the mountains past Tallaght, which despite its reputation as hell on earth is really nothing compared to Ballymun or some of the places on DNS in Dublin itself. Indeed Kiltipper Road is a glorious country lane, but Carolan Park was little more than a field with posts in it, with no sign of a game, though some Shamrock Rovers youths were getting set for a training session. It seemed as if Drogheda hadn’t made it this far, so consequently I was limited to a single game during my visit.

We called it a day and headed back to Maynooth, for pints for John and Diet Coke for me in O’Neill’s, The Roost, where Longford’s superstar Keith Gillespie ended up on Saturday night apparently, and the New Town. The weather on Thursday and Friday was as glorious as any we’d had all year (no sign of hailstones), so I felt somewhat rueful getting on the plane just as 12 of the 16 scheduled FAI Cup 3rd round games, as well as the inaugural conference of the Irish Atheist Federation, were kicking off.

I arrived in Newcastle just in time to collect the scores, discovering the only major upset was Wexford beating Derry 4-1, the only draw was a 0-0 between Longford and Finn Harps (De Town won the replay 1-0) and the only non-league side to win were FC Sheriff (the ones from Fairview not Tiraspol in Moldova), who beat Salthill. It seems as if Victor Collins had almost as poor a footballing week as I did. No matter, I’ll be back in August; the question is, will Victor?



Season 2010/2011 Awards: Percy Main Amateurs version

 

Well, the 2010/2011 season finally ended at Purvis Park with our awards evening on Saturday 4^th June, when we gave out the following awards -:

Top Goalscorer – Malky Morien

Young Player of the Year – Dean Ellis

Players’ Player of the Season – Michael Bowman

Overall Player of the Season – Tony Browell

Many other websites and most newspapers have been handing out their own awards, so I thought I’d get in on the act and appropriate the same categories as the ultra-right wing, anti-Tyneside rag The Grauniad had used, mainly because I couldn’t think of any better ones, based on my football watching in 2010/2011.

Player of the Season – Jonathon McEnaney; a revelation in midfield and not a single head-butt all season.

Opposing Manager of the Season – Nicky Gray, Seaton Delaval Amateurs;  a truly good footballing outfit who took defeat in the Benevolent Bowl with good grace.

Goal of the Season – Matty Dunn v Wark, April 30^th; mainly for the sheer joy he displayed on slotting the ball home.

Match of the Season – Percy Main 9 Rutherford 0 on May 21st, for obvious reasons, but just shading the superb 2-2 at home to Ashington Colliers on April 23^rd.

Signing of the Season – Michael Bowman; has to be with a dozen goals, though many others such as Ashley Smyth and Matty Dunn are also in there with honourable mentions.

Flop of the Season –Hendrix Ekwen and Salim Husseine; who can forget their substitute sub appearances at Harraby? Mind, 11 players made a total of 5 appearances between them and, discounting Graeme Cole because of injury, 16 players made 20 appearances in total.

Gripe of the Season – The postponement of the Shankhouse home game on January 15^th a mere 7 minutes before kick-off really grated.

Pundit of the Season – Bill Gardiner the Alliance Press Secretary died in January 2011; RIP to a true gent.

Innovation needed for next season – Either more frequent programmes for opposition clubs, as only Rutherford, Harraby and Walker produced them this year, or a Northern League style postponements line.

League of the Season – Northern Alliance Premier Division; no contest!