Tamworth v County: Match Thread (28/08/2017)

And here is my hurriedly-produced 'Take Five' piece for COWS:

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TAKE FIVE…Tamworth

By Hatter in Macc

1. Oh joy - a Bank Holiday, and we’re on the road!

You’re still reeling, I guess, from our trip up the M6 towards Fylde two August Bank Holiday Mondays ago - when the traffic delays held up not only County’s team-bus but also the Referee, who ordered the kick-off to be put back 30 minutes. (At least we ended up winning, mind!)

Hopefully, schlepping along the same motorway in a southerly direction to Staffordshire will be a kinder experience, as we visit the ‘Lambs’ of Tamworth at… erm, ‘The Lamb’.

2. Hints there of a young ovine link - but wasn’t The Lamb originally used for pig farming?!

That was indeed the site’s first recorded purpose, in the early 19th Century. But any connections with animal husbandry were purely coincidental when it came to naming the ground, which took its title from ‘The Lamb Inn’ that once stood at the entrance to what is now the club’s car-park.

Pubs, in fact, played more of a direct role than agricultural processes in Tamworth’s footballing heritage. The current club has played at The Lamb since 1934, although, for a season after its formation the previous year, home was a ground on the other side of the River Tame - and behind the also-now-demolished ‘Jolly Sailor Hotel’. For good measure, both playing fields, with relevant brewery backing, had earlier hosted other teams from the town - with Kettlebrook Oakfield and Tamworth Castle having plied their respective trades at The Lamb and Jolly Sailor.

3. Lambs? Sailors? All sounds a bit of a rum do, if you ask me. Arf.

Actually, The Lamb Inn itself had an active supporting function in the early days - providing changing facilities for the players, who, once kitted up, ran out of the pub and directly on to the pitch. Today’s ground - officially known, for sponsorship purposes, as the (deep breath…) EST Electrical Services Stadium at The Lamb - still has changing rooms that are separate to The Lamb’s infrastructure - albeit of the portable type, and obtained from Salisbury City.

Another fellow non-league club from back in the day - namely, Scarborough - donated the floodlights which, for the most part, still stand at The Lamb. They were put up in 1969, during a purple patch that saw Tamworth win three West Midlands League Championships, as well as local Senior Cups on several occasions, before moving up to the Southern League (for 1972/73). The Lambs are also the second FA Vase winners that County will face this season, courtesy of Tamworth’s victory, following a replay, over Sudbury Town in 1989 - some 24 years before Spennymoor Town lifted that trophy.

4. We’ve seen a fair bit of them in recent years. Anyone played for both clubs?

Yes, the Lambs have… well, rubbed shoulders with us for all but one of the seasons since our relegation from the Football League. And one of their current number, midfielder Aman Verma (at County in 2013), may well turn out against the Hatters on the 3G surface this holiday weekend.

Going slightly further back in time, last term’s top-goalscoring Hatter, Danny Lloyd (2016/17), as well as another midfielder, Richie Baker (2014/15) both had prior spells at The Lamb. Striker Nick Chadwick (2011/12) went there at a later stage in his career, while Tom Eckersley (2012), who played a couple of games in County’s defence whilst on loan, appeared briefly for the Lambs in their 2013 pre-season. And right-back Javan Vidal (2013) came back to haunt us two years later by scoring at Edgeley Park with - would you credit it - his only-ever goal in a Tamworth shirt!

5. What if the traffic all gets too much?

Just grit your teeth and press on - if only to experience the perverse joy of negotiating Tamworth’s very own ‘magic’ roundabout. ‘The Egg’, which adjoins roads leading to both The Lamb and - if winter sports are more your bag - the indoor ‘SnowDome’ ski-slope (with real snow), will, with its in-built mini-roundabouts, literally leave you not knowing whether you are coming or going!

A quick turnaround and this will probably the first test of how we manage in the absence of Oswell. Thankfully, in what will be a physically demanding game, we should have some freshness from Stephenson, T.Walker and Hampson who came on as subs yesterday. The programme notes suggested that O'Halloran and Winter may be available. Regardless of performance, hopefully we have enough to bring back 3 pts to make it 3 wins on the trot.

Edit: Winter confirmed tonight as unavailable. *sigh*

'Take Five' piece now up on COWS:

www.stockportcounty.com/take-5-tamworth/

Totally agree, Gazz.

Just clocked this myself, and was utterly appalled by it.

Checked the M6 cameras at 12:34 and the M6 was clear. Left early and arrived at the ground at 3:30! I think the Creamfields revellers all left and joined at the same tome as I did. What a ****in joke. I allowed an extra 1 hour but to no avail.

The last quarter of the first half was dire. The second half start wasnt much better and we only really got going in the last 30 mins. Somewhat devoid of confidence and ideas. Okay it was hot but I would have expected the players to chase the ball more and get stuck in. Certainly other fans did. We need to work on corners and make something of them. Smalley gifted their second goal with a really poor clearance direct to Styche who put it away with no trouble. I'm not sure if the penalty was a soft one but we need more discipline in the defence. Either way this team needs a rocket somewhere and a lot more time on the training ground. Even with the play offs being 6 teams now we cant afford to be dropping points like we have been.

A disappointing day after another delay on the good old M6. Theresa May Northern Powerhouse my **se. You cant even sort out our transport links.

oh well. at least i've got a sun-reddened face to show for my afternoon at the lamb.

the M1 was quite a bit easier than the M6 by the sounds of it, and i joined the crawling queue for the car park at about half two. enjoyed a hot dog with cheese as well as onions. could tell it was cheap and crunched some cartilage of thankfully unknown provenance at one point, but it was, in the tradition of a 'good' 3am kebab, nice for all that it was terrible. looked pretty busy under the covered bit, so we stood out in the sunshine...was pretty hot. coincidentally, the only other time we've lost at tamworth it was also red hot and had us all scurrying for cold drinks.

we were shooting towards the other end first half. very early, and without too much fuss, sam minihan was suddenly in their box with just the goalkeeper to beat, which he duly did. looked to be terrible defending from them, but then our entire defence proceeded to be easily taken out by one simple ball on a number of occasions afterwards. with the hot dog and the goal, all the good bits of the experience had come early.

tamworth had already got in one on one and cocked it up, before doing so again. their player, styche, who has played and scored against us for forest green, went round hinchliffe to score, although i thought smalley might clear it off the line. as the half progressed, we had the better of the possession, and they the better of the chances. we got to see, earlier than we would have liked, how we look without oswell or a decent oswell replacement in the side. stephenson was garbage. given that jim has been saying he's not fit, and he looks to be struggling for touch and confidence, playing up top today hung him out to dry. in retrospect, i'd rather have seen someone like ball up there to compete in the air and hold it up, and stephenson playing off him. i appreciate that then requires some changes elsewhere in the team, but we lost by two goals, so it probably wouldn't have been much worse.

stephenson mostly looked half a second slower off the mark than their defenders. when he did get going, it was too early and he was caught offside. he looked at times like he was trying to give the impression of chasing and tackling without actually doing much of it. at the moment, he's looking like a commitment-phobe. on one occasion, he did appear to have got away from their defender in the left hand side of the box. for some reason, in holding their defender off, he fouled him, and the whistle -while annoying and another demonstration of his poor play this afternoon- at least meant his pathetically tame attempt at a finish didn't count, and we can strike it from our collective memory. he's got a track record. he's coming back from an injury hit season, and today might have been more pressure than he could handle not fully fit...but it's got to get better than this. quickly.

we had a lot of corners during the game, and with three exceptions, they were either too flat and snuffed out at the near post, or boomed long enough to land in the neighbouring snow dome. unfortunately none of our attackers had thought to get the ski lift. the first half saw two of the exceptions - one that forced their 'keeper into an excellent catch under pressure, and one that chris smalley went close from, with scott duxbury worrying the skiers with his wild follow up. not a great half after the promising start.

second half proved worse. michael clarke should have done better with his header from the third of our trilogy of decent corners, putting a very respectable chance well over the bar. they took the lead with a deflected effort that gave hinchliffe no chance, although he did make a couple of very good saves today. we huffed and puffed a bit, but mostly didn't look like kicking tamworth's back doors in. late on, following a bit of after you claude failure to pull the trigger on the edge of their area (mostly from new walker, who had come on as sub), tamworth broke and won a penalty. with a couple of minutes plus injury time left, i headed for the car park as soon as the penalty went in.

didn't notice that much good stuff to be honest. minihan was busy, and scored. hampson had a few good runs forward, but his set pieces were very variable in quality. none of the forwards covered themselves in glory, the defence seemed to get opened up by simple passes too frequently, and although jimmy ball was mostly decent, he still misplaces a couple of simple short passes every game, and also fannied about with the ball on the edge of our box alarmingly on two occasions. it was too hot to be standing in the sun for two hours, so it must have been difficult playing in it. however tamworth managed to be the boys of summer regardless, and were worth the win in a crap game. right. i'm going to moisturise, otherwise i'll be lying there in the small hours asking myself 'how can i sleep when my face is burning...'

It's a bit disappointing to say the least. I get a bit nervous when the board talk about a "competitive" playing budget. What does that mean? Does it describe the transfer pot or the wage pot or both and competitive with what? A full-time professional club or other part-time clubs?

One assumes that if we could have gone full-time this season we would have done, the fact that we didn't speaks volumes for the mess that the current board have had to deal with. We were a decent centre forward short of a promotion side last year. Does this individual think that Gannon didn't know that? Why does he think that an otherwise competent Manager didn't fix it? Was it because Gannon, along with the rest of the board knew that sustaining promotion in a largely full-time league was all but impossible at this stage of the clubs recovery.

One of the reasons that this club is in the state that it's in is because of individuals whose competence in influencing the direction the club took was in inverse proportion to the size of their ego. It's unfortunate that people like that rarely take the trouble to shut up.