Thinking outside the Boxing Day

Thinking outside the Boxing Day

At Christmas, it is customary to invite your neighbours over for a festive meeting and a few pints.

Today was no different.

In the last match of 2016, the 'Crawshay Derby' saw the visit of Forest of Dean outfit, Cinderford Town to the Loadlok.

This year has seen an exodus of talent from the Earth, both sporting and in the fields of entertainment, television and the Rock World.

Johann Cruff, Paul Daniels and George Michael to name just a few.

Fortunately, whilst we have lost the Barcelona and Ajax legend amongst others, we at Merthyr have own special talent in the form of Keyon Refell, who was able today to combine the quality of all three artists.

There was one move in particular that brought the crowd to its feet, as he did his own version of the Cruyff turn, using his 'magic' which resulted in a 'different corner'.

It was therefore no surprise that his enterprise was the Keyon to 'unlocking' the Forester defence for the first goal.

It came on around 12 minutes, after the aforesaid winger led his marker a merry dance and crossed from the right hand byline to provide a wonderful 'skirting board' height header for Ian Traylor, to glance the ball beyond the reaches of former Martyr Cameron Clarke.

This season, Ian Traylor has found the net more regularly than a Google search engine and is a 'front runner' to 'top the charts' at Christmas for Merthyr.

Cinderford almost equalised straight from the restart, in their best move of the game, which resulted in a shot on goal which had the board of sponsors rattled- well their advertising hoardings near the corner flag that is.

The Foresters despite playing on the 3G for third time this season, found it difficult to get any pattern to their game and found it hard to penetrate the Merthyr defence with Ashley Evans bullying Jay Bowen off the ball.

There were more shin kicks than a Cumbrian Festival, as the Gurnos boy went toe to toe with the Port Talbot Tiger, and the pair swapped Navy bruises like they were Panini Stickers, as the battle of 'Mid-Way' was re-enacted but without ships.

The Smart Trio of Avon Officials were happy that the contest was 'all ship shape and Bristol Fashion' and tried to let the game flow, despite the unnecessary impressions of Norman Hunter and Billy Bremner by both midfields.

However, enough was enough when the Cinderford 8 with the Alf Garnett haircut took out from behind Captain Marble with a tackle that was so late it was from a different time zone.

On the half- hour mark, another cross from the by-line by the free-running Barrow saw Ian Traylor knock home his second from a bouncing Barnes Wallace style ball.

2016 has seen the Merthyr Legend with more braces than a Cyfarthfa Park Madness Concert.

With a two goal half-time lead (now known as the Mario) -after the curse of Station Cafe Owner Viazzani declaring this to be a dangerous lead against both Slough Town and Chippenham- Merthyr went in happy that this advantage was unassailable against a side that had threatened less than 'Soprano' Aled Jones.

There was 'something in the air' in the Second Half - but it wasn't the pint size Cinderford attack which was missing the height and power of Gethyn Hill - as our destroyer in August had been sold recently to Weston Super Mare it was the hum of garlic -which emanated from Webley's which drove away any Cinderford vampires from the stand.

Once again, the smell of the food was tantalising and distracting for fan and player alike.

There was something missing from the Merthyr performance second half- which has dogged us all season.

We seem to go off the boil after the hour mark, resulting in leads slipping and concession of soft goals.

Perhaps today it was down to the too much 'Bootiful' Bernard Matthews Christmas Turkey.

It was almost as if the match ball sponsored by 'Slimming World' was half the size it was in the first half.

It was time for the return of Player/Manager to be reintroduced to the Merthyr Faithful, after all over 700 souls had come to the game to witness his class either that or they didn't want to watch 'It's a Wonderful Life' for the 85th time again.

Sadly, the much lauded return of SuperGav proved more of an anticlimax than a Mary Whitehouse approved Blue Film, which was only livened up by his late challenge on the aged Cinderford 8 which took out his false teeth, zimmer and bus pass.

He received a yellow card for his troubles and a caution from the referee not to accept a lift home from Liverpool Striker Roberto Firmino.

The second half petered out to a dull hum ( like the garlic from Webley's) only livened up by one sliced clearance from former James Bloom which hit one Festively clad Merthyr fan with a 'Wham' and nearly made it his 'Last Christmas' just like uber-talented song writer George Michael.

In the dying minutes, Cinderford produced one shot from distance which produced a classy 'film star' save from our slumbering keeper Davies, who tipped the ball onto the bar -
'Ollie Wood' style.

The result lifted Merthyr up to third, whilst Cinderford - just like George Michael- are rooted to the bottom.

If the Town can get three more points against Redditch United on New Years Day then 2017 looks bright.

But if we are to achieve Conference Status we need to think 'outside the box' and invest in a creative midfielder or ask Kris Leek does he want me to give him a lift across the Bridge every other Saturday?

Boz