Sunday 17 February 2019

Spireites on the up


Chesterfield are now finally heading in the right direction, with a very welcome 3 points away at Fylde. Since Boxing Day when the wheels came off the team under Martin Allen against Solihull Moors, Chesterfield haven’t lost and the sequence of results reads DDDWDWW. John Pemberton put together a side where Robbie Weir sits in front of the defensive line and breaks up the opposition play, John Sheridan continued this and in his first 4 league games we haven’t conceded a goal. OK we lost at home in the Cup against Brackley, but the less said about that the better.

AFC Fylde away















Fylde had their chances on Saturday and we had the woodwork come to our rescue on 2 occasions, but with 3 more points on the board Chesterfield sit in 17th place. Four or 5 more wins this season and we will be safe and right now the team sit only a mere 19 points off the playoffs, although only the most optimistic fan would place a bet on that happening.


One of the few things there is to like about watching your team in the Vanarama League is the away day experience of going somewhere completely new and experiencing the quirks and eccentricities of the home team. I was rather fond of the stadium announcer at AFC Fylde, yesterday who was a breath of fresh air in these politically correct times. He cheerfully broadcast to the entire ground that someone attending the match had parked their car across a woman’s drive way and if they didn’t remove it within 15 minutes it would be set on fire. I'm not sure who was gong to set it on fire, the club or the woman, but we didn't see the Fire Brigade anywhere round the ground, so maybe the car was shifted. Also a nice tribute to Gordon Banks before the game, who was credited as having started his distinguished career at our club



Also, leading team Solihull Moors, are going to have to build an extra stand or two if they get into the league, to bring their capacity up to 4,000.
Solihull Moors
Their club has said that plans are in place at the formerly named Damson Park rugby ground to do just that; if so, it’s hoped that the seating arrangements will be rather more permanent than the oddly appointed temporary stands currently in place.

Good away following from the Blues
















Round the league it looks like the bottom 2 of Braintree and Maidstone might be set adrift and be odds on to go down, but at the top only Wrexham won at the weekend and Solihull could only draw at home to Barnet. It’s still up for grabs as to who will emerge champions in May, but right now Chesterfield have nothing to fear from any of these sides, we play Harrogate next at home then it’s Barnet and Wrexham away. A few weeks ago, Spireites were wondering if we’d get any results in this current run of fixtures, now it looks like a case of hoping we don’t drop any points against beatable teams.




www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk
Fylde website

Sunday 10 February 2019

Scott comes back to save Chesterfield




Chesterfield are out of the drop zone for the first time since Boxing Day, 1-0 at home to Halifax may not seem much but it was a huge result, but the most important thing is that with Scott Boden returning to Chesterfield we do actually look like scoring.


 His movement off the ball is something we’ve not seen from any of our strikers all season, in this division he looks like a complete player with a scoring record of 12 goals in 30 matches for Gateshead and now Chesterfield.

Of the other players making their debuts Josef Yarney looked comfortable in a back 3 and Ellis Chapman certainly had a good first half and proved that can take on the full back and put in a cross, which is something we have been badly missing all season. John Sheridan mentioned in his post-match interview that he’d shouted at Lee Shaw just to take one touch on the ball and get the ball into the box. Having taken this on board, Chesterfield immediately got their penalty from the next cross that came into the area.


 John Sheridan has proven himself in management, getting players to do the simple things well and cut out the mistakes. He also commented in his interview that he doesn’t need players to run 10 or 20 miles per match if they can’t keep hold of the ball, as we didn’t look like losing to Halifax but at times in the game, we were watching two sides kicking the ball at each other rather than playing to any recognised plan.



Also of note is the fact the Marc Antoine Fortune seems to be instructed to turn with the ball and try to get a shot off, which nearly paid dividends at the end of the first half with the ball going agonisingly wide. For many, a formerly high-profile player like Fortune ought to offer more to the side than simply playing with his back to goal and trying to feed the ball to others, he should score more goals. I know he's never been prolific in his career, but he should get more shots at goal per game.

Round the division, Ebbsfleet got involved in more trouble, with 4 players being sent off against Solihull Moors, 2 from each side seeing red. One would hope that the National League might now ask questions about the conduct of the side from Kent

Next week we go to a motorway junction between Preston And Blackpool to play AFC Fylde, a side who we beat quite convincingly in the FA Cup 3-1 earlier in the season. The key to that victory was that Tom Denton played in the middle with Kiwomya and Shaw running either side of our him giving the home defence a torrid time. Here’s hoping for a similar result next Saturday.


Meanwhile at the final whistle some children supporting Halifax thought it would be a great idea to behave like football hooligans and decided to throw a flare onto the pitch and also launch a firework. The flare landed near a disabled fan, but luckily there were no reported injuries. The Police did make arrests.

 A statement from FC Halifax says;
"We’re appalled at today’s incident involving one of our disabled fans and a flare from our OWN supporters. We’ll be investigating this matter and requesting all ground CCTV from Chesterfield. Behaviour such as this will not be tolerated."


https://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/sport/football/chesterfield-fc/match-report-ice-cool-boden-earns-chesterfield-vital-win-over-fc-halifax-town-1-9585682

Friday 1 February 2019

Top Tuneage and transfers at The Proact.

We don't have a transfer window in this division but John Sheridan's been wheeling and dealing and at least 3 new names on the team sheet should brighten things up and get us away from the drop to oblivion. 

Gateshead finally parted with Scott Boden to bring him back the Chesterfield, our former understudy to Jack Lester has a goal tally of one in every three games in this league and that's what we really need to get wins on the board. 

Louis Dodds has come back from his loan spell at Port Vale although he’s not really made much impact at Vale Park in his second spell there starting only 6 games and usually being a substitute, whether he can make the difference up front for Chesterfield remains to be seen, as he has a career record of one goal every 5.7 matches.

Striker Jack McKay is set to move on loan from Cardiff to the Proact, it wont be a long term move but anyone who has played 10 times in the Premier should be looking to bag a few goals for the Blues, Josef Yarney comes in from Newcastle and rumours were abound that we may have a new left back soon. Phew!




As for last week it's a big shout out to whoever plays the tunes before and during the games at the Proact, National League fans were impressed with our tannoy selection of the Alarm, the Jam, The Skids, Killing Joke, AC/DC, Orbital, Blur and many more favourites. Just stay away from the boy bands and most fans will be fine with that although a little Northern Soul wouldn't go amiss.


Saturday’s home game was one of those “nearly” matches we nearly scored early on with two great chances, which should have been put away. We nearly lost it second half when Barrow put on a bit of pressure and nearly scored one second half after what was a crazy game of head tennis in front of the Barrow goal. Although we really should have had a penalty when the Barrow keeper Joel Dixon blatantly pulled down Curtis Weston in the box.

In truth though there were too many mis placed passed by both teams and Chesterfield are obviously in real need of a striker who can partner Denton or Fortune. John Sheridan’s 4-1-4-1 line up has had the desired effect of not conceding a goal in 3 matches and we can hopefully banish memories of recent defensive disasters against the likes of Solihull Moors and Ebbsfleet and look forward to watching a team who are hard to beat and can pressure the opposition. The majority of our drawn games this season have come from conceding the first goal and then having to play to catch up with a squad that has previously found it difficult to score more than one goal a game.


With 7 wins roughly, required from 16 games to save us from the dreaded drop there’s an awful lot still to play for at the business end of the campaign, we do still have to play most of the teams around us. 

Anyone can put together a decent run to get out of it, a few weeks ago Dover looked dead and buried and most fans had them down as relegation certainties, however they now sit 2 places and three points above Chesterfield, they look to have turned things around in December and recently secured a morale boosting away win at Wrexham.

In other news Ebbsfleet players have some concerns revealing that their wages are hardly ever paid on time and are worried about pension payments, interesting times in Kent...