Roland Gent, Journalist, Comedian, Presenter and Music nut: Is the Zombie Apocalypse going to be this boring?

Roland Gent, Journalist, Comedian, Presenter and Music nut: Is the Zombie Apocalypse going to be this boring?: No football.... Football fans by nature re creatures of habit, doesn’t matter who you support you usually have a matchday routine. Fo...

Is the Zombie Apocalypse going to be this boring?

No football....

Football fans by nature are creatures of habit, doesn’t matter who you support you usually have a matchday routine. For most home games, I usually drive through the Peak District whilst swearing profusely at whichever driver is causing the log jam of traffic in front of me. Get to the ground, have a pie; and a well known locally brewed beer, then sit there biting my nails for 90 minutes. Go home, write my column, pop out to the local for a couple of drinks and then watch Match of the Day.

Seeing as the World just turned upside down, I could actually enjoy a drive through the Peak District with absolutely no traffic in front of me, then just not go to the match, not go to the pub and watch nothing on TV. People often ask me why do I go to football on a Saturday, I usually say, “What are you going to do? Spend Saturday doing DIY?” sadly this grim reality is now staring many of us in the face.

We have been discusing the forthcoming zombie apocalypse but it just seems that in a typically British way, we are all tut tutting at bog paper hoarders, is it really this dull? Maybe we could raise a lynch mob for anyone known to hoard loo roll, go round with flaming torches and chant obscenities every time the bathroom light goes on.

I was hoping me and my family could pass the hours with a nice conversation, but once that's been exhusted by 8am we could be in trouble

How will bookmakers cope? They make millions each week from silly punters like me, who nearly win an accumulator every week, if only it wasn’t for minor details like the results. Bookies need to find a new sport to get people to gamble on, how about betting on all the things you were supposed to do round the house without actually getting round to them?

We could have live online link ups to International “Blokes working out how to bleed a radiator” Pro/Am “Finally getting round to creosoting the fence” or The British Open “Taking all that stuff down to the tip that your other half has been telling you to do for months” I’m pretty good at tip runs so I think that’s the one for me, I even know which skip to chuck the general household items into. But why is it every time I get back there’s always one bag of rubbish that I should have taken to the tip that I forgot to take, do these things multiply of their own accord? I might lose points in that aspect of the competition.

On a serious not however Barnet have put all their non-playing staff on notice of redundancy in order to save the club, worrying times for every team in this non league division

Chorley away, is there a joiner in the ground?

Chorley away, is there a joiner in the ground?

From a fan’s perspective our day out on the train to Chorley, was one of those unique experiences, which will live long in the memory but hopefully we’ll never repeat. Going past Bolton Wanderers’ ground was fairly sobering as it wasn’t too long since we were playing there. Whilst I may commend Chorley for giving the world the Chorley Cake and the quality of the pies in the ground was tremendous, some of the other facilities inside Victory Park could best be described as inadequate. 

Amazing grass bank action incorporating broken fence

The toilets looked like a breeding ground for a tropical virus.The general consensus was that a decent joiner could have a field day doing up the ground and most agreed that if they’d had better knowledge of the layout of the place, they might have been tempted to clamber over the grass banking on one side of the pitch and get in for free. 

Top allotments action.

On the bright side there’s not many grounds in the Premier League where you can have a look at someone’s allotments as you walk to the match, however those are the peculiarities of non-league football.

Out of the relegation zone for the first time since November is a good place to be after everything the club has ben through, if there’s one thing John Pemberton knows how to do it’s bringing home the bacon in a relegation six pointer.

The Blues have faced a series of mini cup finals against relegation rivals, since the former Leeds United centre back took over; Chorley, Ebbsfleet, Wrexham, Eastleigh were all beaten and a draw against Fylde, have turned the club’s fortunes around. The next home game against Maidenhead is another one of these do or die fixtures and Chesterfield must be getting used to them, whereas our opponents clearly aren’t.

Ooh nearly

Dover away next week and I’d be more than happy with a point from that one. Dagenham and Redbridge play AFC Fylde in midweek, Maidenhead play Stockport on Saturday and Wrexham are away at Barrow, so there’s certainly a big hope that points will be dropped by our rivals and it is a cliché but Chesterfield’s season is now in our own hands whereas at Christmas it looked like it wasn’t.

Tyson Hat Trick gives hope to the Blues

John Pemberton Post Ebbsfleet match (click on the text)

Nathan Tyson talks about his hat trick  (click on the text)

There's more than light at the end of the tunnel after Saturday's amazing turnaround, a scrppy game being ruined by the wind and one substituiton makes all the difference and we all know what came next from Nathan Tyson. We've had 3 six pointers at home Fylde, Wrexham and Ebbsfleet, if you'd have offered the average fan 2 wins and a draw from those 3, most people would have snapped your hand off.

Saturday's result effectively condmens Ebbsfleet to the National League South, I can't see how they can get out of it now. Our opponents were one of the least effective sides we've seen at the Proact all season, their first shot on target in the 88th minute tells anyone how effective they were. Ebbsfleet could play a bit when they wanted to, tactically they came to keep things tight but once Nathan Tyson's first one went in, they had to gamble going forward and were left with gaps at the back.

Post match comments from Nathan Tyson about how hard the team trains and even pre match how competitive the warm up is tells a story, so do the comments from John Pemberton that even though the surafce at the training ground has suffered, the team are raring to get into practice early. John Pemberton also said about Tom Denton that when he arrived at the club 7 weeks ago, the giant striker "Could have walked in under the door with a top hat and tails on, he was that low"  It's comments like those that make you wonder how bad things had got under the previous regime.
Pemberton had praise for all the three centre backs post match and said it was Josef Yarney's best game for us he looked calm and assured and was doing the right things, it was certainly good to see the centre back making runs to overlap Cropper in the second half, it adds another dimension to our attacking play that we've not seen for a while.

Realistically Chesterfield need 4 wins to stay up, but after Saturday most of us hope we can do better than that
On to the Harrogate game John Pemberton says he's watched them and they are very good, certainly they deserved to beat us in the previous fixture and they hve now won nine out of their last eleven games and are pushing Barrow hard for the title. I'm also looking forward to our next away game at Chorley just to see the idiosyncratic nature of the ground, which boasts a very small stand perched a top a grassy bank on one side of the pitch

The table lookes brighter now with Chesterfield within 3 points of every team up to 15th in the table; post match Nathan Tyson was quite up beat as you'd expect, saying that teams can often find it hard when they think they've done enough only for sides in the relgation zone to go on a winning run and drag them back into the mire. It's all about momentum now and Chesterfield have the wind in their sails so here's hoping we can end up nearer half way than the bottom 4.