Darlington v County: Match Thread (07/10/2017)

Damn, my plan to get him to EP is falling apart!

Article on County making history at Darlo today:

Northern Echo link

so...it's another venue right on the furthest edges of darlington, except this time it has about 25,500 fewer seats. another of those grounds surrounded by trees and greenery which look quite pretty on a fine afternoon, as yesterday was. large bar/pavilion with a balcony was a main feature on one side, and the rest was pretty rudimentary. catering arrangements were poor. just past them were three rows of seats, but with a slight upwards slope to the pitch, and people standing against the barrier, they were utterly pointless as you couldn't see the action from them. we walked round and to the small, temporary stand that straddled the half way line, but every unoccupied seat had 'reserved' on. given that, at £14, it was one of the more expensive entries at our level, frankly it was a bit of a piss-take.

we stood behind the county right back position first half, and saw the increasingly dodgy looking smalley put one of theirs in with a woefully short back pass. fortunately steve o'halloran was quickly across with a very good block tackle. down the very distant other end (there was extra rugby pitch run-off behind the goal line just to increase the distance), we could see adam thomas hitting his low cross, but not oswell's back heel that maccy mentions.

sam walker put a decent delivery in for smalley from a free kick, but the header went wide. then he whipped a shot from another free kick on target, but the 'keeper got his fingertips to it - slightly too central to be more of a threat.

hadn't found it a very interesting half, truth be told. i think it was a combination of the football on display, feeling a bit dislocated in our distant corner, and also i twinged a muscle in my back a couple of weeks ago and although i kept the worst of it at bay with a bit of careful management, it was muttering a bit first half. so...i went and sat in the three rows of seats you couldn't see from for the majority of the second half. i saw the darlo celebration (but not the goal), i saw connor hampson's effort strike the post (although not him hitting the shot), and their 'keeper make a decent save; but not a lot else. seemed as though the match had significantly livened up from the first half though.

with ten minutes to go i rejoined our party against the barrier down the side and county were pushing on, with ball, cowan and mckenna involved in a lot of play in front of us. in the first minute of injury time, jason oswell took cowan's cross down and turned onto a bouncing half-volley that beat the 'keeper at the right hand post. ok then. that'll do. i hadn't really enjoyed my afternoon, but ultimately, the ending is crucial to how you feel about it...and it was a good ending. the game then went briefly ragged, with darlo charging upfield, and county charging back down. everything was a little overhit though so no-one could latch on to it. only took twenty minutes to get out of the car park -we were fearing longer- so came out pretty even for the afternoon.

Maccy managed to bring much happiness to the world with this tweet:

We need to provide a list of words that Maccy has to include in the match tweets (1 a week)....