Easter Bank Ollie Dav

Easter Bank Ollie Dav

If someone had asked me what I wanted for Easter a couple of weeks ago, I would have replied chocolate eggs and lots of them.

But having looked in the mirror it was not a Good Friday, as I realised I now had more Chins than a Chinese phonebook.

But underneath, what I REALLY wanted for Easter was not liposuction but six points from two games and the return to the pitch of a trimmed down Ryan Prosser, duly healed from his persistent back injury.

Luckily, I got both and having rolled away a stone, the Prossiah promptly 'rose' again at Redditch this afternoon.

Now competition for places is what makes a good side into a great side.

Luckily, at the business end of the season, we are seeing a return of lots of players to different positions and SuperGav and Clarkie are now faced with a different problem- who to play and more precisely where do they fit into the Merthyr jigsaw.

With the Chippenham embarrassment consigned to the history books, fortunately, whilst still not playing at its best the resilient Martyrs have taken a leaf out of a Jo Brand lookalike beauty contest and learned how to win ugly.

Now Redditch have a multimillionaire backer called Roman AbramDroitwich and he has to his credit card installed a 3G pitch, revamped the stadium and installed the best burger van I have ever been too.

As I munched down on my pre-match beef burger ( a long lost relative of Josh Bull) in doing so adding another jowl to my collection, I admired the £300k McClaren orange sports car that the owner had left on site.

It would have had Ownes drooling ( like his new granddaughter) at its design in a fetching shade of 'Jasper' Carrott'.

The pitch was newly laid and much better looking than last season's quagmire.

What tickled me was the sign warning 'no pyrotechnics' and after watching the Redditch paint dry in the goalless first half - I think he needs to point out to his players that the sign isn't to be taking literally by them.

Merthyr were missing their influential winger Ian Traylor following a cut that needed stitches against St Ives on Saturday.

Let's hope he doesn't have a ticket for the Owen Money show on Saturday 29th April 2017
( that was a different Club Plug) as we need him for the play-offs.

For anyone who hasn't seen him play in his 300+ games for our Town, he has been the Cynon Valley's greatest export since anti-venom was invented.

Now you can only play football when you are allowed to play football, and Redditch's plan was to become the Midlands version of Imodium.

Block up the channels and constipate on stifling our creativity.

Shouts of 'You're supposed to be at home' rang around the ground but more worryingly they came from their own Manager, Darren Byfield, who lived up to his name standing on the sidelines.

Now there is negativity and there is negativity and there is also Redditch United.

They refused to a man to leave their own half, under any circumstances and I began to wonder if the newly laid pitch had been booby- trapped with land mines or something.

Even their number 9 striker didn't 'Luke Keen'.

Now having so many people in one space was like trying to play football on the London Underground during Ian Rush hour, and such overcrowding was bound to lead to trouble.

Trouble that is for our young centre-half Scott Tancock, who has week-on week added to his transfer value with no-nonsense defending straight out of the Peter Kay school of soccer.

Defenders defend - that's what they do....ask Man City's John Stones every time he gets caught in possession and concedes another goal.

With Tancs you can almost hear the 'Ave it' cry, when he hits the stanchion roof or launches the ball over the top for Corey Jenkins ( the reincarnated Balleyregan Bob in a former life)  to run on to.

He has recently filled the boots of Curtis McDonald or Jarrad Wright when asked to deputise and to his credit deserves his current run in the side.

Unfortunately, today after a mistimed tackle by the Redditch 8, who thought he was Sylvester Stallone in an awful arm wrestling film of the 1980s he went 'over the top' turning the promising Swansea youngster into Scott TanCROCK.

Even then the brave soldier limped on till half-time but eventually came off to find a message of sympathy from Prince Harry for him in the Away dressing room.

Now the Red Wall had done its job for the first 45 minutes and despite the Bull runs of Blaenavon Josh and the guile of seasoned veteran McLaggon, Merthyr were not getting the break their 100% possession deserved.

With the Home line-up resembling a bar football formation, I soon began to realise why Redditch is known as a dormitory town.

If I had to watch such negative tactics week on week,  I would have to take up a more exciting pastime like fishing, train spotting or stamp collecting.

Although poor Scott Tancock collected a stamp of his own today and illustrated why this period  of the season is known as 'crunch time'

It was such a bad tackle, even Matthew Harris sat on the subs bench winced.

Now on a narrow pitch with more second hand rubber flying about than the back of the Kirkhouse Night Club on a Bonk Holiday weekend, it was difficult for our wingers to manoeuvre.

Corey Jenkins barely broke 98mph on that recycled bouncy castle and a change of plan was called for by the Management.

Off came the right winger 'Helmet' Cole and on came the seasoned unkempt bearded Holy Prossiah to partner the clever young Josh up front.

The old Bull and Bush combination was soon to reap its rewards.

They have only played together twice and already they have a great understanding and a sense of timing that is bettered only by 1970s double acts.

Little and Large, Canon and Bull ( think about it) or even Lesscombe & Wise ( groan) pick what you want- but these guys are gonna score the goals to get us up to the Promised Land.

With a change of personnel, Redditch 5 'Jordan' Brown now had an hairy aerial threat to deal with too and his Nike's couldn't cope with it.

A hirsute rebound fell to to Captain Marble on the edge of the area and like an episode of Broadchurch it was no mystery that he would be the one to bury it.

And then bizarrely, once Merthyr scored, we then began to go into glacier mode, retreating further up the Bromsgrove Valley and into the Sally Swan Stand as the game went on.

True, Redditch were less potent than a North Korean missile strike,  but it still took a titanic effort from the Merthyr defence to keep a clean sheet.

Adam Davies produced the finest last (Red) ditch tackle I have ever seen, picking the pocket of their sponsor's man of the match Duane Courtney like he was the Artful Dodger and cheekily giving him his watch back afterwards.

Now with Scott Tancock (207- no this is not his shirt number or Twitter handle but the number of bones he now has after THAT tackle) on the treatment bench, up came the human iceberg Jarrad Wright.

The Growler filled the channel left by his partner and returned any header with more interest than a High Street Bank, ensuring that he afforded maximum protection to the unemployed Ollie Davies.

Last Saturday, I was asked by a fan who had watched Merthyr last in the glory days of the late 1980's who our current goalkeeper was.

I replied with a deadly serious face that due to the physical resemblance that he was
Gary Wager's son.

He believed me too, until I added he was called 'Bet Fred'.

Ollie must have believed he was in for a quiet day , as for most of the half, he had his binoculars out watching Redditch defend like ....Redditch.

And then in the final few minutes,  he had to make two saves from free kicks right on the edge of the area.

They were given for no apparent reason- only out of pity- by the shrunken referee Abbas Khan.

He was no Cerne Giant I can assure you, as with his diminutive stature it made him looked as if kit and all, he had been placed in a washing machine on boil wash.

Honey I shrunk the referee.

Anyway, two remarkable one handed saves later tipped up over the bar and the steep rubber banking and our keeper had the clean sheet he deserved.

Which illustrates a point:

You can't beat Bank Olly Dav Savings.

With the rest of the results going Merthyr's way- we climb to third.

Hold our nerve and we get a Home Play-Off.

Easter will not just then have a Good Friday but a 'Great Saturday' too.

Boz

Brilliant as usual no !!! by the way there's nut wrong with fishing

Sorry boz the No after brilliant as usual should not have appeared , say it again Brilliant as usual ( ground day !!!!

Thank you Doug,

It must be worrying for you when you start laughing at my humour.

You are now on a slippery slope ( fishing joke).

Boz

Yes definitely, over the next generation of exiled Merthyr supporter in the big smoke. How did you get permission for another away trip within a calendar month. Did you cast my postal vote.

The answer Ownes is a combination of begging, cajoling, crawling, bribery and modern slavery too.

Besides 'Lady Penelope' was the chauffeur and Mother-in- Law riding shotgun.

The last minute u-turn came after a suggestion that Redditch had wonderful shops that not even Mrs Ownes couldn't resist.

Call it charm, call it smooth-talking, sex appeal....or Granville's fifteen bottles of Old Spice...but I wangled it.

See you Saturday ( unless you are on 'crèche' shift again)

Boz

Yes, there for the run in wherever it may be.