Daylight Robinry

Daylight Robin-ry.

Who said Non-League Football was predictable?

Today, saw the visit of the Robins of Frome Town, lowly perched in the relegation zone with a difficult away game against high flying Merthyr Town from the upper echelons of the Evo-Stik Southern Premier League.

On a Bank Holiday, it should have been more of a dead banker than Roberto Calvi ....
shouldn't it?

Frome Town have form and that isn't just a cryptic anagram clue in the Somerset County Gazette.

They rode their luck last season and sneaked home with a late winner and three points.

Let's hope they don't make an Alex Monks habit of it.

But Robin Hood could have been a much different story if only our keeper Joe Perry hadn't developed a mystery injury early on with just 20 minutes on the Frome Chairman's Rolex wristwatch.

Was it Perry-tonitis?

Either way, it made SuperGav feeling sick to his stomach, as he doesn't like to reshuffle his pack so early in the game.

He looked at the list of names on his subs bench and had to make a tough choice.

With Wunderkind Ed Hewitson having gone to the dogs at Ton Pentre - he was stumped.

Nautilus?

Yellow?

Hydronaut?

Or Thunderbird 4?

Did he bring off Hunt for Red October?

In the end, he just asked Mr Versatile Jarrad Wright if he would step up to the plate and the Rhondda Juggernaut duly obliged.

After all - up until that point in the game, Frome had moved forward as a unit less than the Terracotta Warriors.

They had come to defend and played the first half of the game as if the Home Penalty area was full of land mines.

Perhaps Kitman Barry Thomas' ruse of putting a sign up of 'No Trespassers' had confused the avid viewers of Countryfile into submission.

Whatever the reason they ventured out less than Anne Frank invited to a Labour Party Convention.

Anyway, the first half ended goalless with the Away side proving more difficult to break down than an AA rescue vehicle.

Despite the best efforts of the hard running Kerry Morgan and Corey Jenkins, it seemed that the game was heading towards two duck eggs because of the defensive effort of ' Teale' at the back for the ornithologists.

Cash strapped Merthyr need to raise as much money as possible to stay afloat and we could have had a major boost if someone had thought about putting a swear box in the Away Managers enclosure- as I heard more Fromes and Jeff's than Chris Kamara reporting back to Sky Sports Soccer Saturday.

But then again wearing an inverted baseball cap sponsored by the Tourette's Society- I suppose it was bound to happen.

As Corey Jenkins limped off (still faster than I can run) to be replaced by Craig McDonnell -Merthyr Town now had a new formation never before seen at Penydarren Park.

Four Centre Halves in the line-up.

Two at the back, one upfront and one in goal.

Now in the circumstances, you would have expected Merthyr to be more swamped than Hawaii.

But despite the Martyrs having their half-time oranges and the Robins their mealworms - amazingly they weren't.

In fact the Honolulu Tide only turned after a schoolboy error (from one of the children of our supporters) who gave the ball back too quickly from the sidelines, allowing the ever dangerous winger Dan Demkiv, a swift throw-in to put Captain Adam Davies under pressure.

He nonchalantly played the ball back to reserve, reserve, reserve keeper Wright who revelling in his new role for not being penalised for handball, promptly picked the ball up.

Referee Dale Winton couldn't believe his good eye- as the only protest from Merthyr was that Frome must be playing a 'ringer' instead of a winger, as Dean Clark suggested that Dan Demkiv must be an alias for someone on a Witness Protection Scheme.

And whilst Frome had a Simpson in their line-up, this referee was definitely no Homer.

He awarded an indirect free kick and the frustrated Ashley Evans on the sidelines put
'Das Boot' into the keeper-less sub's bench that had caused the woe.

The plaque 'In Loving Memory of Clint Eastwood' fell off with the sudden impact.

Merthyr's own privet hedge of Smurfs and Borrowers could not stop Frome 4 Ollie Knowles from rifling in a shot that would have beaten Gordon Banks let alone a carbonised centre half, who went down in more stages than the Heads of the Valleys Road at the Black Rock in Clydach Vale.

With Merthyr's side holed below the waterline, it took only a further minute for them to sink fully, after Sharpshooter Baker fired home the Somerset sides' second, after a Malaysian dagger in the heart from 'Kris' Scott with a peach of a pass from midfield.

With SuperGav cutting a frustrated figure on the touch line after his recent lengthy ban, he looked apoplectic with rage but strangely silent, after referee Winton turned down a stonewall Terracotta Army penalty after Keiran Lewis was upended in the penalty area- but gallantly went all Trappist to the surprise of the crowd.

It turned out that Chairman Webb had taken financial precautions at half-time and strapped up SuperGav's mouth.

Thank Heavens for 'Gaffer' Tape.

With nothing further to lose, Merthyr surged forward and got their reward in the shape of a goal for the efforts of full back Joe -to keep us in the Hunt.

His neatly looped header on 79 minutes over the outstretched fingers of keeper James Carey ensured that the Robins goal had finally been breached and gave Merthyr a glimmer of hope that they could salvage something from the game.

With Craig McDonnell putting himself about in the box, it seemed that the Martyrs would sneak an unlikely point, as the Away side started to tire from running backwards for most of the game.

Time and again Kerry Morgan and Joe Hunt ball slid across the Robins nesting box only awaiting a peck off one of the Town forwards to level the playing field.

But just like the installation of a flexi-time clock at a Council Office, they were caught on the break, when Baker fired home his second ( his Ma taught him to handle his guns) and Frome's Third to settle the match.

3-1 to the Robins and the previously glowing Martyrs looked as down in the dumps as Hinckley Point Nuclear Mud off Cardiff Bay.

If nothing else today's result has taught us a valuable lesson.

With our 3G pitch, we may not need a groundsman anymore, but if we are not to get 'the bird' off our league rivals every week, we most definitely need more than a  green keeper.

Boz