National League North 2024/25

[Bottega Don]

Wasn’t the greatest performance ever last night but we managed to get the win.

Pretty much echo the thoughts of other posters regarding Needham Market. Very hard working but little quality going forward. Put up a proper battle last night and made it hard for us.

3 games, 3 wins, 0 goals conceded.

 

[Bottega Don]

Have to say Scarboro deserved the win last night although the game really should have been over by half time as we really should have been 3 up. They made changes early second half and took control, they equalised and then it was a battle to hold on to a point which we lost in added time, as I suspected not sure where our goals are coming from this season.
Quite a concern as we travel to Scunthorpe on Saturday and then face a tough game with Southport on Monday.

We are a much different team to last year so not sure how this one will go.

You’re quite a footballing side from memory? We’ve turned into direct football bullies this year so might be a clash of styles.

Assuming it should be Carlton’s first game following his suspension, he won’t start but will probs come off the bench.

 

[Harrier94]

Wasn’t the greatest performance ever last night but we managed to get the win.

Pretty much echo the thoughts of other posters regarding Needham Market. Very hard working but little quality going forward. Put up a proper battle last night and made it hard for us.

3 games, 3 wins, 0 goals conceded.

We've conceded the one that being a a screamer of a free kick against Darlo. Not conceded from open play.

4 teams still with a 100% record and that could carry on on Saturday as none of the teams face each other. Feel like it's rare that 4 teams at this point haven't dropped a point yet.

 

[DaveBirm1875]

a real shame for Rushall as the season is going pretty much as expected, losing McDonald appears to have been the beginning of the down turn, lots of players brought in but the quality has dissipated, going to take a massive upturn to turn this around even at this early stage. Last years feel good story of the NLN slowly turning into a nightmare, for a club this size being at this level borders on the miraculous, just shows the gap between the haves and the have nots grows ever greater.

I hope they can turn things around.

 

[joethegill]

a real shame for Rushall as the season is going pretty much as expected, losing McDonald appears to have been the beginning of the down turn, lots of players brought in but the quality has dissipated, going to take a massive upturn to turn this around even at this early stage. Last years feel good story of the NLN slowly turning into a nightmare, for a club this size being at this level borders on the miraculous, just shows the gap between the haves and the have nots grows ever greater.

I hope they can turn things around.

They actually played alright up at Scarborough last week, didn't deserve to go in 2-0 down at half time and probably had the better of the play. Weren't really in the game 2nd half though.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Next set of games, some really needing to get that win or going to drop quite behind, 4 sides still able to come out at 100%

Alfreton vs Chester
Brackley vs Curzon
Darlington vs Leamington
Marine vs Kings Lynn
Oxford vs S Shields
Peterborough vs Buxton
Radcliffe vs Needham
Rushall vs Spennymoor
Scarborough vs Farsley
Scunthorpe vs Chorley
Southport vs Hereford
Warrington vs Kidderminster

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Brackley vs Curzon is probably one of the more predictable type of games you can get this season, both very similar in their solid defence and good counter approach, both applied it a few seasons, Brackley more direct, curzon more grounded but way works for both teams.

These games usually are tight, even and hard battling won by a couple of goals.

The interesting f thing is Brackley for a few seasons were the horrid side curzon hated to play, they matched us better and always beat us comfortably by being better at this approach than us…………but……..it has swung 100% and think last 3 maybe 4 games we have matched them, bettered them at their own game and won the games comfortable.

This is the first time I think we meet with them under some pressure after a poor start, us confident and possibly favourites to win…….I think I like underdog status better.

 

[Lucky Bobble]

Brackley vs Curzon is probably one of the more predictable type of games you can get this season, both very similar in their solid defence and good counter approach, both applied it a few seasons, Brackley more direct, curzon more grounded but way works for both teams.

These games usually are tight, even and hard battling won by a couple of goals.

The interesting f thing is Brackley for a few seasons were the horrid side curzon hated to play, they matched us better and always beat us comfortably by being better at this approach than us…………but……..it has swung 100% and think last 3 maybe 4 games we have matched them, bettered them at their own game and won the games comfortable.

This is the first time I think we meet with them under some pressure after a poor start, us confident and possibly favourites to win…….I think I like underdog status better.

Not a great start - but H to Scunthorpe and A to Chester and Kidderminster... it's a tough opening. Kidderminster and Scunthorpe probably favourites for the league?

 

[joethegill]

I will be at Peterborough Sports v Buxton tomorrow followed by Kidderminster v Oxford on Monday. Great chance for Buxton to make it 4 from 4 you'd have though, and depending on how they do at Warrington, Kidderminster could be 100% as well come the Monday fixtures.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Not a great start - but H to Scunthorpe and A to Chester and Kidderminster... it's a tough opening. Kidderminster and Scunthorpe probably favourites for the league?

I don’t disagree you had a horrid start but as I say it’s usually a tight game and seems unusual for us being the side not chasing for once.

I’d expect this is first game we drop points but we know how to frankly play most of the better sides away last season so it’s f we can keep that going we’ve a chance.

 

[Kenneth Dodd]

I don’t disagree you had a horrid start but as I say it’s usually a tight game and seems unusual for us being the side not chasing for once.

I’d expect this is first game we drop points but we know how to frankly play most of the better sides away last season so it’s f we can keep that going we’ve a chance.

They do love a throw in

 

[Bottega Don]

Not a great start - but H to Scunthorpe and A to Chester and Kidderminster... it's a tough opening. Kidderminster and Scunthorpe probably favourites for the league?

Don’t think I saw really anybody tipping us this year, this forum and on social media. We’ve had a good start but played two promoted teams

Chester and Brackley were the two tipped the most

 

[Darlo On Tour]

No pussyfooting about tomorrow for us against Leamington we definitely need a win under our belt.

Might have a battle on our hands like with Sir Cedric missing.

 

[Harrier94]

Not sure what to expect from Warrington, our first time ever playing them. Looks like we're still missing Morgan-Smith as his initial concussion injury is 7 days minimum.

Looking forward to my first visit, a new ground to check off. Hoping to keep the 100% record going

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Looking like I’d say game over for us already, fair play on great start for Brackley, usually our games end with winner 2 goals up so doubt we will come back.

A good test to see if we have shrugged off that ‘counter only’ style of attack, got to just go for it really have nowt to lose

 

[Bottega Don]

Poor performance from us today, Chorley more than deserved a point

Still unbeaten though at least, can’t win them all

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Got our asses handed to us from looks of it.

Seems like we got a few chances but we’ll beaten need to improve our defending on that going forward

 

[Bluandwite]

Couldn't quite get the job done today but not a bad point at Alfreton. We're starting to look better now.

Willoughby off the mark with a curled effort from range and Caton with his second this week.

 

[Darlo On Tour]

Saturday August 24th 2024 National League North Results

Att. 682 - Alfreton Town 2 Chester 2
Att. 574 - Brackley Town 4 Curzon Ashton 0
Att. 1,382 - Darlington 1 Leamington 0
Att. 1,185 - Marine 0 Kings Lynn Town 1
Att. 510 - Oxford City 1 South Shields 4
Att. n/a - Peterborough Sports 1 Buxton 0
Att. 1,005 - Radcliffe 1 Needham Market 1
Att. n/a - Rushall Olympic 2 Spennymoor Town 1
Att. n/a - Scarborough Athletic 2 Farsley Celtic 1
Att. 3,927 - Scunthorpe United 1 Chorley 1
Att. 1,322 - Southport 1 Hereford 4
Att. 1,107 - Warrington Town 2 Kidderminster Harriers 1

 

[Prodigal]

Delighted to have got a point at Scunthorpe especially after being a goal down, general concensus seems to be it was well deserved.

 

[Swedes]

We had our pants pulled down by Hereford. We were just about holding on until 75 minutes, but once the got their second goal (a pretty much identical set piece as their first) we started making stupid mistakes and fell apart. They there generally stronger, faster and better organised than we were, and deserved the win, but the scoreline was harsh on us.

 

[Quakerz]

Darlo finally get a win against a very poor Leamington. I don't see them finishing outside of the bottom 6 based on that performance. It should have been 3 or 4-0 really but the main thing was getting the 3 points. We'll need to be much much better in front of goal against anyone half decent. We were missing 5 players and it's killing us.

Not looking forwards to facing Curzon on Monday and they'll surely be looking for a reaction to getting smashed yesterday.

Avoiding defeat at Curzon and getting something from our following 2 home games has to be the plan.

 

[Lucky Bobble]

Don’t think I saw really anybody tipping us this year, this forum and on social media. We’ve had a good start but played two promoted teams

Chester and Brackley were the two tipped the most

You are full time with 4000 fans behind you... if you were not one of the favourites something must be very very wrong!

 

[Bottega Don]

You are full time with 4000 fans behind you... if you were not one of the favourites something must be very very wrong!

We're one of the favourites but we're not the clear cut favourite like we were last year.

Like I said, nobody on this forum has tipped us to win the title. I didn't see anyone on social media either. Chester and Brackley are the two that were tipped the most by far

 

[Lucky Bobble]

We're one of the favourites but we're not the clear cut favourite like we were last year.

Like I said, nobody on this forum has tipped us to win the title. I didn't see anyone on social media either. Chester and Brackley are the two that were tipped the most by far

I think 6 of the last 8 winners have been full time sides, so my money would always be on them.

PS does anyone know what's happened to Shepherd Murombedzi. Signed on again as our key midfielder and then seems to have 'disappeared'. Our updates are so flaky that players can move on and there's no update... but he's been such a good servant for him to be 'ghosted' seems odd.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Hope to get to game today but have my two year old so will have to see.

I don’t j is what to expect on this one have been praising Curzon’s defence for over a year but it got crushed on Saturday for first time in a long while and question is how do they respond to it.

Darlo usually fair better at curzon and curzon fair better at Darlo that could be the advantage for them.

 

[Railway Blue]

Delighted to have got a point at Scunthorpe especially after being a goal down, general concensus seems to be it was well deserved.

How did Kole manage to score. I think he only scored 5 or 6 for us in 2 seasons. Always injured.

 

[Bottega Don]

Not confident about today, think it will be our first loss

 

[GTFCfish]

Poor performance from us today, Chorley more than deserved a point

Still unbeaten though at least, can’t win them all

Play poor and still don’t get beat is a good sign though, looks like you could be the real deal this year maybe?
By the way I know you think I have this obsessive hatred towards Scunny but I only started being like that after I first signed up to the other forum and Scunnymadandy was on at me taking the piss after every post which made me start to be like that, but I’ve actually nothing against Scunny except for being local of course so there will always be that rivalry and wanting you to lose but nothing more than that.
I feel that you lot have suffered enough now to be fair and wouldn’t mind you getting back up the ladder, as long as you don’t overtake us of course.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Well that was a weird first half so far, atrocious for 40 minutes and sublime for 7 minutes…….draw fair in regards to chances each had bit Darlo were so much better than curzon for large spells of the game but when we did click we created as many chances in the last 6-7 minutes as they had done in the previous 40.

We were so utterly negative today, Christ I thought we had re hired Lakeland to go back to everyone in own half stuff, I hate just mass keeping players back because it never works because no one takes responsibility for any runners and Darlo exposed this time and time and time again with our 7-8 players in and about box unable to mark someone runnning in or behind them.

Going forward Almost non existent so so utterly slow and plodding and players so desperate to get rid of ball to run back towards our half they numerous times gave away ball.

There is talent there and finally clicked in 40th minute when we create 4-6 great chances back to back but before then Darlo we’re better tactics worked and had a good 4-6 chances themselves.

Saving grace is still 0-0 and we may learn lessons that the ultra defensive b*llocks was just that……b*llocks