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

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...

Defeat at Orient

I’m always wary when your manager says that we are going to win the next game, it’s usually a case of coming down to Earth with a bump and so it proved at Leyton Orient. The thing was, in the press box most of the Orient commentary team thought that Chesterfield were the best opponents they had seen at Brisbane Road, however since we were defeated it’s probably worth sticking your money on the O’s to go up.

Getting vertigo on the camera gantry at Brisbane Road

In effect Chesterfield ‘s demise mirrors that of Leyton Orient only we appear to be a season or so behind them, when they dropped out of the league due to having an eccentric Italian owner who kept on sacking the manager, they found it a real struggle in their first season in the National League. Slowly under Justin Edinburgh they have turned things around and now sit pretty on top of the table by playing some half decent football, unlike the majority of the sides in this division, although agreement in the press box was unanimously that there isn’t a single team that you’d call a consistently good side in the National League.

At Orient the new stand certainly is impressive

On the pitch, I personally though Chesterfield made things too easy for Orient at the start of the game not putting in enough tackles and making it alarmingly simple for the home side to go through our midfield and score before ten minutes were on the clock. Once Martin Allen made a tactical switch and put Alex Kiwomya on the right, Chesterfield suddenly looked the better side and scored an excellent goal.  The key moment for me was once Kiwomya went off with a hamstring problem Chesterfield stopped moving the ball as well as they had done and Orient took the initiative. The home side’s second goal came from a corner that was never cleared properly, even though the opportunity to put the ball out of play was missed by the Blues a good Orient cross still could have been defended, but slackness cost us and the game was effectively sealed at 2-1 to the home side. Despite some controversy, for my money the third goal was a correct penalty decision, although needlessly conceded by Joe Rowley.

So, onto the Christmas fixtures where Chesterfield must gain wins to take us away from the dreaded drop, in a throwback to times past, we play the same side Solihull Moors twice in 6 days home and away sandwiching in a fixture against Hartlepool. Solihull are 6^th in the National League and put up a very good televised display against Blackpool in the FA Cup, it pains me to say it, but they won’t be easy fixtures especially with our ever-growing injury list.

Chesterfield faithful queue up to get in the old stand

From bad to worse, to oblivion for Chesterfield F.C.?

Chesterfield’s inexorable slide continued with yet another one all draw this time away at Eastleigh, a good result on the day, but one where our lack of firepower now sees us in the bottom 4 of the National League. Another one-all draw at home to London suburb Bromley didn't improve things much either. Now we hear that Tomlinsons, the club's sponsors, are pulling out, things are dire, on and off the pitch.

Compare and contrast our fortunes with those of Wigan Athletic if you will, a team from a similar sized town to Chesterfield, yet one which has to compete for support with Rugby League. Wigan did not even get into the league until the 1980s and after that, rattled around in the lower tier until local businessman Dave Whelan came along in 1995 and bought the club, built a new stadium, and won 3 promotions in 10 years to take them into the Premier League and an FA Cup final victory. 

Whelan has just sold the Latics to a Hong Kong based firm International Entertainment Corporation for £22 million. Wigan currently sit 17^th in the Championship, just above Rotherham and Sheffield Wednesday. 

The Press gantry  at Eastleigh

Their manager is a bloke called Paul Cook and their main midfielder, is one Sam Morsy.

In an almost mirror image of Wigan is Chesterfield, also owned by a local businessman called Dave who sends packing potential suitors, from China, Sweden and closer to home, by declaring that they are tyre-kickers and time wasters.

Roberto Martinez who managed Wigan to their greatest ever triumph at Wembley was recently quoted as saying “Dave Whelan is, the reason that Wigan achieved what they achieved. He had an incredible vision, he was a winner and everything he did was done properly and that was contagious.” Our Great Leader avowed that his vision was to “Get the club into the championship and flog it.” Perhaps he could take a tip from Dave Whelan on how this can now be achieved; although to be fair we do have a contagious culture at the club, but one which involves a rather more downward trajectory than we’d hoped for.

At the time of writing, time must be running out for Martin Allen, upbeat in press conferences and very proud of our unbeaten run, which is also a non-winning league run of 18 games. Allen was actually previously sacked at Saturday’s opponents Eastleigh after not winning for 7 matches and guiding them to 15^th place in the National League a spot which would now be regarded as success by most Spireites. 

Eastleigh was an awful wet afternoon, somewhere in Hampshire the supporters bus arrived 5 minutes before kick off. I was filming for the club website and had to climb up a scaffold in the rain set up the camera and get the best pictures I could manage. With rain on the lens and on my glasses I am surprised I got anything on camera at all.

I recently had the misfortune to drive past The Darlington Arena which used to be home to the local football team, who now don’t play there anymore but first ground shared with Bishop Aukland and are now at a much smaller ground in the vicinity, their fans recently clubbed together to make new improvements to the ground. 

Darlo now sit 16^th in the National League north, 2 places below Alfreton, frankly we have more chance of ending up like them than Wigan. Here we go, we could end up a fan owned club desperately looking for someone to buy Chesterfield FC, same thing as happened when Darren Brown took over and ruined the club. Or maybe the club will just be run into the ground and never sold? Ashley Carson wants to know who threw a bottle onto the pitch at the last home game, probably someone who wasn't very pleased with the rubbish they paid to watch.

Getting better or not as awful?

Well apparently, the team are getting better, but are they? The midweek draw against Sutton was slated by Martin Allen as being awful, but at least we got a point through virtually our only clear-cut chance of the match thanks to Jonathan Smith scoring. On Saturday we got a one all draw thanks to Jonathan Smith scoring with virtually our only clear-cut chance of the match. Mind you we had lots of chances against Wrexham in the one apiece result; good job Jonathan Smith grabbed our late equaliser in that one.

Having said that the team is improving is OK but more than one point a game is needed otherwise relegation and the end of the club as we know it looms large. I think in the last 3 league matches we have seen players give it all they have got it’s not as if they aren’t trying, I think we have to be honest and say that one or two of the side haven’t really got it. We’ve played “top” teams in this division and they are hard-working and well organised and that’s about it, there’s no outstanding teams, but on Saturday we should have won.  

Plastic Pitch at Harrogate

We who wait

For me the turning point of the game against mighty Harrogate, was Martin Allen making substitutions straight after we’d scored and Chesterfield went from an attempt to play a passing game to a long ball hit and hope. Doing that handed the initiative to the opposition, I hate to say it but putting Binnon-Williams in front of Muggleton made our left side an easy option for Harrogate, 

meaning our opponents were firing in crosses every time they got the ball into that area of the pitch.

Sorry but Sam Muggleton getting a game must be the most glaring example of "Jobs for the Boys" that we have ever seen on the pitch at the club, sorry but he's got a long throw and that's it, if his dad wasn't on the sidelines he would never have been signed.

he could not stop Harrogate from getting  crosses in, and that's what he is there to do, Binnon-Williams wasn't good enough defensively either and neither of them could get to the ball to stop the ball coming over.. 

Lee Shaw who we signed from Grantham Town has not scored yet and doesn't look like doing so either, he's got some pace but that's about it.

Stadium Approach

The referee found 7 minutes of injury time which wasn’t unfair as 30 seconds are added on for every sub, there were injuries and our keeper decided to have a sit down and a rest to slow things up, however since Harrogate scored in the 98^th minute and then the ref immediately blew for time, one would have to question his timekeeping.

For many fans of the Blues the long throw from Muggleton routine has passed it’s sell by date, every team in the league knows what is coming and the ball virtually never goes to a Chesterfield shirt. So it’s really a dilemma that the manager has placed himself into, with player selections and purchases, which type of game does he go for?  It’s also not great to hear an opposition manager such as Paul Doswell on Tuesday at Sutton saying that frankly our tactics are poor and they were by far the better side.  Oh well onto the magic of the FA Cup, who knows if we can fashion a couple of chances against Billericay?

http://www.thecfss.co.uk/forums/index.php?showforum=3

Amazing tackle at Halifax

It was one of the greatest runs I’ve ever seen on a football pitch from one end to the other with no opponent able to get near him, with an amazing body swerve, he was certainly my Man of the Match; no not Zavon Hines, the streaker at Halifax!

For those foolish souls who pay to watch their football on the TV, rather than actually go to the match they missed the highlight of the season so far, as I believe the powers that be decided to avoid showing the amazing tackle on display at Halifax and cut to other scenes, such as football. Now we’ve all seen exhibitionists encroach on the field of play at sporting events, which schoolboy of my generation could ever forget the magnificent Erica Roe, who flaunted her assets at a Rugby Union game?

But this guy, the Halifax Streaker, has taken the art to a new level with the game at 0-0, he sprinted out of the home end wearing nothing but a broad grin and put up a fair pace, slowed down a little near the half way line, did an aeroplane gesture, and with no stewards looking like they wanted to intervene, clambered on to the top of the turnstiles, saluted the crowd and made his exit over the wall, completely starkers onto the streets of Halifax accompanied by a round of applause from the Grandstand.

I only hope he had an accomplice armed with a spare set of clothes and a getaway car, woe betide the impromptu streaker who forgets to leave any spare togs near the scene of his indecency. But who was that unmasked man? Surely someone in West Yorkshire must know him? Perhaps he could liven up subsequent fixtures in this division

It’s been a long time since I went to Halifax Town as they used to be, these days ground sharing with rugby league the place has been spruced up, street signs advertise the fact that you are going to Shay Stadium, I thought that was in New York? Didn’t the Beatles play Shay Stadium once? Anyway, bad puns aside, I paid twenty quid to nearly see a football match, yes the delights of the tv crews turning up meant that we were on one half of the old main stand, with a camera gantry right in front of us and the main one on the halfway line blocking out one corner of the pitch. 

You could nearly see both goals if you strained your neck a bit, surely a bit of stadium management could have solved this, why didn’t we just get the big terrace behind the goal? 

Anyone got any hedge clippers?

It was a good header by Tom Denton though, 1-1 fair result, I thought.

Zavon Hines was clearly our best player, he's obviously coming back from injury, Joe Rowley is playing well back in his midfield role, and the rest well they worked hard. We nearly scored with a header against the bar in the first half and an early kick off the line by Halifax, both from our long throw routine, but apart from that, the first period was forgettable. With fresh legs in midfield Chesterfield could turn draws into wins, but its going to be a long, long season.

Did you see yourself on TV?

https://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/sport/football/local/streaker-livened-up-my-barely-adequate-view-of-chesterfield-draw-1-9397007 

http://www.thecfss.co.uk/forums/index.php?showforum=3

Crazy Ref

You know you’re in a rubbish league and your team is hopeless when….

your player gets sent off and then the decision is rescinded by a linesman. The most exciting thing from the game against Fylde was the “dismissal” of Weston. It had many in the stands either scratching their heads or laughing at the referee’s antics.

The decision of the referee Joe Hull to overturn his own red card was bizarre and not something I’d seen before, for me it was handball by Weston and a foul, although it was outside the box

The infringement actually happened, before the linesman had even put his flag up for offside, so if the linesman hasn’t put his flag up how does the referee even know that there was an offside? So the referee overturned his own decision based on something that he did not even know about, with that sort of foresight or hindsight he should be on Blackpool sea front telling fortunes rather then trying to be a referee. I can’t see the assessor giving Mr Hull a glowing report

You also know you’re in a rubbish league when…your long ball team looks like it’s never going to score and its only tactic is to try and find the head of your giant striker. The opposition knows this and simply fouls Tom Denton by shirt pulling at every opportunity, the referee simply ignores the fact that the blatant shirt pulling and wrestling is going on. This leaves Tom Denton with only 2 options;

A Learn to dive, yes England got penalties at the World Cup, but Harry Kane still had to go down in the box when being wrestled from a corner

B Get the club to cut the seams of his shirt and stick it back together with Velcro, so as soon as an opposition defender grabs his kit it will come off and it will be fairly obvious that shirt pulling was going on. Mind you even if that happened, referee Joe Hull might have called it offside, who knows?

Yes Martin Allen was right to go nuts because we really should have had a penalty or maybe two, but with only 3 chances created in 90 minutes of football, we aren’t going to win many games. The midfield looked more stable playing in a different formation, Joe Rowley put in a good shift and we didn’t suffer an embarrassment like in the last 2 home games, but the crowd is starting to dwindle and even season ticket holders aren’t attending anymore. The official attendance was just over 4,000, but many fans are expressing doubts that this was the true figure inside the ground, oh for a win….