Padiham Saints J.F.C

You were always up against it today lads playing again a man down, it really isn’t fair and I sympathise with you enormously. That said you put on a brave display and had them rattled a bit in the early stages and then were cheated out of a perfectly good goal by a biased linesman. The ball had crossed the line, no doubt about it, their team knew it, we knew it and the ref looked to the linesman to confirm it. That was not forthcoming and because I have no official standing with the club I can say what I’m going to say.
Mr Ossy linesman, you’re a cheat and your team knows it. So do two of your supporters who also said it was well over the line.
Enough of that, I’ve had enough of linesmen and most of you know my feelings on them anyway. Just as an example I heard spectators talking at the Rooks game who were watching the other pitch game and one of the so called ‘footballs knowledgeable’ made a comment to his mates that ‘If you’re offside you’re offside as simple as that’. Well Mr know it all it’s not as simple as that, you can be in an offside position but not be given offside. It’s a load of goolies for my two pennyworth. Amateur linesmen, I just love to hate them.

Back to the game, you were no way outplayed and although under a lot of pressure in the second half you defended as well as could be expected. You all ran your legs off again and being a man down that couldn’t have been easy.
Some of the tackling was first class and some of you must have been watching videos of Norman Hunter and the likes, in hard, get the ball and to heck with getting hurt. Well done to all that put some of those challenges in and for the most part they came from our lads somewhat shorter in stature than the opposition. Well done.

Can’t finish this without giving Crabby (Beast) a mention in goals, another solid performance from him got him man of the match again. Two of the goals I think he was a bit mad at in that he didn’t get down quick enough to the second one on one goal, well Crabby, it happens to the best keepers in the world. Think the free kick they scored from was also one that might have been stopped Crabby getting a hand to it but not strong enough to put it over.
One that did puzzle me was the header they scored in the first half; everyone just seemed to stop, even Crabby didn’t move, anyone shed any light on that one?

It’s been a long hard season for you lads with not that many games, not quite over yet but almost, you’ve had some disappointments and I hope you’ve had some fun. That’s what it’s about, enjoying yourselves despite the results. You acquit yourselves well in defeat and you have improved from last year. Well done to all of you.