National League North 2023-24

[Railway Blue]

Wow never saw us winning 2-0 at Hartlepool. Sounds like it was well deserved too. Had a bloody appointment so couldn't go.

 

[Bluandwite]

Sat back and hit Hartlepool on the counter a few times. We were organised and generally kept them well at arms length. They could have played all night and not found a way through. Deserved.

The cup got us going last season so hopefully it can again now.

 

[Swedes]

Southport 2-1 Gloucester

Close game with a lot of effort from both sides but little quality. We opened the scoring with a Brad Holmes header from a cross. Gloucester equalised when the little tubster Elliott Durell decided to start playing for 30 seconds and orchestrated the best football of the match, the resultant shot being spilled by Renshaw for an easy tap-in for them. They hit the post with 5 mins to go, then we scored at the start of injury time with a Harry Flowers header from a corner.

Five wins and a draw from our last 6 games now since Jim Bentley took over, hauling us from rock bottom to mid table and 2 points from the play-offs. Honestly didn't see that coming given how poor we were at the start of the season.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Don't take our chances and we'll get punished. Should have scored that chance all day long. Our Manager in his post match interview said a new RB and a new RW will join next week, so imagine Durrell's time could be up.

He clearly has natural ability but also clearly likes a pie or four. He's far too fat to be effective at this level and needs to shred the weight pronto.

We desperately need a striker alongside Harry Williams too, Danny Wright is another one who is completely ineffectual at this level. 11 games no goals tells the tale.

 

[SF_]

Southport 2-1 Gloucester

Close game with a lot of effort from both sides but little quality. We opened the scoring with a Brad Holmes header from a cross. Gloucester equalised when the little tubster Elliott Durell decided to start playing for 30 seconds and orchestrated the best football of the match, the resultant shot being spilled by Renshaw for an easy tap-in for them. They hit the post with 5 mins to go, then we scored at the start of injury time with a Harry Flowers header from a corner.

Five wins and a draw from our last 6 games now since Jim Bentley took over, hauling us from rock bottom to mid table and 2 points from the play-offs. Honestly didn't see that coming given how poor we were at the start of the season.

How is Mikey O'Neill doing?

 

[GEORGE]

What’s happened to the Darlo fans on here.
Do you think you can turn it round,a club like that is too big for Northern Counties.
I went to the Tadcaster friendly and you looked very poor up top.

Maybe they've switched allegiance to Darlington Town FC. ?

 

[Swedes]

How is Mikey O'Neill doing?

Tidy player, generally retains possession well. He can be a bit lightweight but I'm sure a few more games in this league will help him develop that side of his game. He wasn't at his best yesterday but the surface was very slippy. Somehow scored with his face last weekend. He's from around the corner from our ground so was always going to be well received here for that alone, and it would be good to help him develop so he plays at a higher level.

 

[AndyPark]

Another Darlo performance dominating the ball and doing absolutely nothing up top.

Defensively we are terrible and our forward line just isn't good enough.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

That can be sorted in non league if you still have some budget hit you are in danger of running out of clubs you could genuinely think will finish below you in the table……and you need four of them.

If you need to give yourselves hope Blyth and Farsley showed it last season both were dead and buried at this point.

 

[David Curries Mullet]

Sorry just checked meant Northern Premier.
Do Darlo still do boost the budget because it always made them competitive.

Yes, we still do Boost the Budget. Raised £160,000 this year, but unfortunately Armstrong has blown it on a woefully unbalanced squad, and Gowling is struggling to turn them into a coherent unit. We leak far too many goals and are just too easy to play through. A side with Lees, Lawlor, Hatfield, Platt, Griffiths, Moke, Liddle, Nelson, Hazel shouldn't be the soft touches they are, but confidence is shot to bits. Thought we looked a little more creative on Saturday against Kings Lynn, but we still lost to the most overweight full-time side I've ever seen. I'm not at the point of righting us off as being able to stay up, but we need a result pretty soon. Fact 1350 still turned up on Saturday is a miracle.

 

[High Peak Blue]

Yes, we still do Boost the Budget. Raised £160,000 this year, but unfortunately Armstrong has blown it on a woefully unbalanced squad, and Gowling is struggling to turn them into a coherent unit. We leak far too many goals and are just too easy to play through. A side with Lees, Lawlor, Hatfield, Platt, Griffiths, Moke, Liddle, Nelson, Hazel shouldn't be the soft touches they are, but confidence is shot to bits. Thought we looked a little more creative on Saturday against Kings Lynn, but we still lost to the most overweight full-time side I've ever seen. I'm not at the point of righting us off as being able to stay up, but we need a result pretty soon. Fact 1350 still turned up on Saturday is a miracle.

The lad Barrett, who scored against you, looks as though he can't run more than 5 yards without wanting a sit down for 5 minutes. He's good with the ball at his feet though and has a good shot.

 

[David Curries Mullet]

Barrett is the only threat they have, yet we somehow managed to leave him on his own twice for 2 goals. Actually, 3 times but the keeper saved a one on one to prevent his hat trick. Think our "analyst" would have worked out he was the one player we needed to mark. Coulson at the back was carrying a fair bit of timber, but we never tried to run him once.

 

[Pride Of Yorkshire]

What's happened to Wheater ?

 

[David Curries Mullet]

Retired.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

The lad Barrett, who scored against you, looks as though he can't run more than 5 yards without wanting a sit down for 5 minutes. He's good with the ball at his feet though and has a good shot.

We had him for a while, came with lots of promise from reading but never delivered and looked overweight most of the time so we got rid

 

[David Curries Mullet]

He's the Sunday morning League lad, who has a pie before kick off, a can of lager at half-time, and still runs the show (or walks the show in Barrett's case).

 

[High Peak Blue]

Got something at this level, but you can see why he'd struggle higher up. Easy to ridicule him as a fan, but it comes back to bite you.

 

[Darlo On Tour]

I was reading Aldershot Town showed some interest in Barrett back in September.

He was way too good for our powder puff defence to handle.

For me he was an all round player

 

[GEORGE]

I was reading Aldershot Town showed some interest in Barrett back in September.

He was way too good for our powder puff defence to handle.

For me he was an all round player

If Barrett could stay fit he would be a very good player. Third Division standard at least.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Hereford away for curzon tomorrow, an interesting game because it’s the first away game for Mahon and while I think he’s 100% improved us at home from the days of 0 up front Lakeland, one thing I will give Lakeland is his style is perfect for away football so be interesting if our away form drops going forward.

A good team to start at, like Darlington Hereford has been a pretty lucky ground for us and normally leads to one of our better away performances, they also recently have been poor in league form but their excellent cup win last week and great cup draw may boost them.

 

[Bluandwite]

We've signed Tom Peers on an 18 month contract. Started his career here before going on to do well at Alty and Curzon, particularly last season. Not sure why it hasn't worked at Macc although probably the same for a few there.

Happy with that, think him and Caton together will be tough for anyone to deal with.

 

[Kenneth Dodd]

Great win for us again today I think with 6 wins out of the last 7 games the Chester train has started to roll again just like last season, when I saw Scunthorpe come out on the pitch my first impression was how massive they looked . They have a lot of big units in their side and certainly tried to bully us on and off the ball, first half was pretty even but after taking the lead from a missed placed back pass which still left Caton with plenty to do to round the keeper and score from an acute angle with his weaker foot, We played into their hands a bit in the first half playing to many long balls but after the break we started to play through them with some great one touch football, I don’t think they can have any complaints about losing as we were much the better side in the second half.

 

[Bluandwite]

Did make me chuckle when the ref got injured that Scunthorpe's management were trying really hard to get the game abandoned.

Good today, Caton did well to put away the first from a really tight angle, sounds like his injury isn't too bad thankfully. Whitehouse clearly enjoyed his goal as well.

Disappointed with Scunthorpe, really bad. Whitehall nothing like his Dad, who was a good pro for us back in the day. One of the most sulky, stroppy efforts I've ever seen from him. Decent bunch of away fans though fair play.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Poor result for us at Hereford need to get back on track midweek “, think home games will suit us more since change of manager.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Huge win for us. Ref was very card happy but even with 11 a side we were the better side, so nice to watch us actually attack and play the ball about and create chances. We hadn't scored at home in four games prior to yesterday which just shows how awful we were under Flowers, we went two of those games without even registering a shot on goal!

 

[High Peak Blue]

Scunthorpe were disappointing. Too much complaining and fouling (especially Whitehall, who berated the linesman for a good 5 minutes at half-time). Their management team clearly wanted the game abandoned after their player had (accidentally) injured the referee and the game was lost for them. They had one spell in the first half where they looked dangerous for 5 minutes, with a couple of set pieces from corners and a free-kick and then one disallowed goal in the second half for offside. Other than that they rarely threatened.

We looked good once we got the ball down and realised that we could play throught them. Their old-style centre backs didn't have the answers to slick passing and pace. Their one one threat came through Ogle on the right.

 

[Bottega Don]

We're a completely different team since the financial situation came to light, players aren't playing with the same freedom they were. We looked unstoppable at times, totally changed everything. Jimmy got it all wrong though yesterday, don't think I have ever seen us win with 5 at the back. No idea why decided to bring it out.

Missing our best CB, two best CM's, best winger and our star striker going off after 10 minutes really isn't helping though.

 

[High Peak Blue]

We're a completely different team since the financial situation came to light, players aren't playing with the same freedom they were. We looked unstoppable at times, totally changed everything. Jimmy got it all wrong though yesterday, don't think I have ever seen us win with 5 at the back. No idea why decided to bring it out.

Missing our best CB, two best CM's, best winger and our star striker going off after 10 minutes really isn't helping though.

If I were a team with with Danny Elliott in it, I'd not play him against Chester. I've seen him play at Boston and at Chester. First time he got sent off and was totally wound up. Yesterday I still felt he was overdoing it, running around and leaving a foot in where he didn't need to. It ended up with him getting injured in two challenges of his own making. I feel that he believes he has a point to prove, but it doesn't do him any favours.

 

[Bewdley Bull]

We were brilliant yesterday, could’ve been 3 up before an individual mistake gave Curzon an empty net tap in. Fought back well and really starting to gel now, 5 wins and a draw out the last 6, 5 clean sheets in a row before yesterday (and as I said that was an individual error). This is all with Cowley and Williams still out. Ceesay has been a breath of fresh air - class on the ball and works hard, Downing and Lyden (who have signed until the end of the season) are a class above this level. Freemantle has come in and doesn’t stop working the whole 90 minutes if never going to be prolific. Hopefully Cowley will be back in the next few weeks and Williams a month or so. Cowley alongside Freemantle and Ceesay with Babos in behind is an exciting proposition. Play offs a realistic target now. Next two games this week - Alfreton and Chorley away - two difficult, physical tests and will give us a reflection of where we are. Pointing to exciting times ahead

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Noticed curzon also have taken Campbell back from Macclesfield…..guess we’d had some peers back had Chester not swooped.

All a total mess at Macclesfield they ain’t storming the league so seem to be getting shot of most of the team and bringing in a new one