Beat The First Man - A Football Blog

Mossley 1
Curzon Ashton 1

Evostik Division One North

There are several reasons to visit Mossley. For one, they do seem to be the unluckiest club in England. Be it floodlights, flooding, or general off-field shenanigans, they are all chronicled in the increasingly doom-laden and frustrated Mossley 80. If you are in need of confirmation that someone, somewhere, is in a worse state than you, pop over.

But, with all due disrespect to the author of that fine blog, when a man of my stomach travels across the Pennines, he needs more than a ennui-filled blog to occupy him. So I am hear to testify, upon oath, that the Mossley snack bar is a fine, fine institution.

To avoid a descent in to cliché-ridden blogging, I shall say no more on the subject. Just take it on faith.

I've seen a lot of Curzon recently. They are effective, if undramatic. Mossley 80's reports indicate that the home team are playing pretty-enough football, but lacking any decent penetration. Brilliant. This promises much.

And so it turned out. On a bog of a pitch, for which Mossley deserve praise in making playable, both sides huffed and puffed. The visiting left back was having a mare, and Mossley got great joy down that flank. Curzon had a deputy in goal, and it showed. Edgy and nervous, neither he nor his defenders knew what he was doing. Curzon meanwhile continued to demonstrate all the lacklustre dynamism to which I have become accustomed of late.

One day, ma, I'll have my own spotlights

There is a blog out there call Six Tame Sides, which chronicles the travails of the, well, six football clubs that lie within spitting distance of each other on the eastern edge of Manchester. The author, Mossley Smithy, is a well-known face around the grounds, and takes a much better photo than me. So I would heartily commend his site for in-depth reportage of both this, and the earlier Woodley v Lairds game that battled bravely through the weather.