Monday, August 15, 2022

Thoughts From Scarborough

Jack Evans Gets Away From Two Scarborough Players On The 4G Pitch

Harwood Bull watched Hereford lose 1-0 at Scarborough last Saturday.

I really don’t like artificial pitches. Not at all. Not one little bit. While I understand that they may be installed for economic reasons, or for low maintenance, or to be hard wearing given multiple uses, I don’t think that they are good for football. I’m not saying this to excuse the Bulls’ uninspiring performance on Saturday, but the ball really doesn’t behave the same. So many high bounces resulted in games of head tennis in midfield and often the ball bounced away when players tried get it under control - Storey seemed to be the only one who could control it consistently. Hereford’s groundsman maintains a decent playing surface on grass throughout the season, so call me old fashioned but I think that’s where football should be played. On grass.

There are already mutterings on the forum about Gowling not being good enough, omens of doom, oh my god it’s all going wrong and so on. He is still relatively inexperienced and will make mistakes but we’re only two games into the season. We started really well yesterday before Scarborough pulled themselves back into the game, and then it all went pear shaped, with passes being over hit, under hit or jut totally misplaced. Some of this may be down to the surface (did I mention that I don’t like 4G pitches?), who knows. Let’s see how it’s looking 6 or 7 games in before we press the panic button.

In the first half we had a good look at Jack Evans as he was patrolling the left flank just in front of the visitors’ stand. I like his speed and combative approach, and he certainly has all the tricks: the subtle nudges to put the opponent off balance, getting a handful of the opponent’s shirt on the blind side of the ref, the “what, me ref?” gestures. Not all of which is admirable but given how so many people said we need to be a bit more streetwise last season maybe this is a step in the right direction.

Of the other players, Barnett is a powerful player who sees things well but couldn’t impose himself. Thompson-Sommers showed good skills early on but drifted out of the game later. Maclean and Storey both still have terrific pace and I’m sure will be a threat on a different surface (oh please shut up about the pitch will you!). Gowling said that he brought Klukowski on to “get forward well, to marshal the team better” Hmmm…..interesting.

The first time I saw a picture of the new shirts with the barcode pattern I wasn’t impressed but having seen them in the flesh I think they look pretty good. I was going to order one for my granddaughter but as she’s only three months old it will have been superseded by the time she gets to wear it. The club claims not to make that much money out of replica shirts – if that’s the case why keep changing? We’re not fooled.

Scarborough itself was a fine town. Standing near the appropriately named Grand Hotel looking down on the South Bay and harbour it was easy to imagine it in the splendour of its Victorian heyday. A good place to have a nice weekend away and it seems that quite a few Bulls fans were doing just that.

I usually like to provide tasting notes on the meat pies but in the blazing sunshine the last thing I wanted to eat was a hot pie. I can however recommend the draught stout from the Scarborough brewery, on sale in the local Wetherspoons. So much better than Guinness.

Our return train journey passed through Leeds, Bradford and Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, picking up large numbers of well refreshed people at each, presumably heading for its final destination of Blackpool. You can imagine the anguish when it turned out that the only toilet on the train was out of order. To her credit the train manager arranged for the train to make a special toilet stop at Blackburn. That’s good service.

All in all, a good day out. Onward and upward, but please no more 4G pitches. Oh, but Bradford PA have one don’t they?