Barnsley FC Reports & News
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25th October 1997 : Manchester United 7(4) Barnsley 0(0),
Watson, / Thompson, Krizan, De Zeeuw, Eaden, / Barnard, Sheridan, Redfearn, Bullock, / Hristov (Hendrie), Ward
Gifts Gifts Gifts, Goals Goals Goals. Bloomin eck. Why oh Why do we not do ourselves justice in the big games? Are we not good enough? Perhaps, but it doesn't help giving the current premier league champions one goal start.
They weren't on top for the whole game.... Andy Cole had a guilt edged chance but blasted over. Then we all sang "He gets the ball he does f*** all, ANDY ANDY COLE", from that moment he regains his form I just knew he was going to get a hat trick, and didn't he delight in ramming it down our throats. The dreadful first goal came just took 17 minutes. Sheridan made a pass without looking at who he was passing. Quick as a flash Cole was onto it, one touch and we were 1-0 down. The second looked in the finish much as the first, 2-0 down in the space of two minutes. We seem as if we are most vulnerable just after we have let a goal in. Damn.
At this point we just had our one glimmer of hope for the whole match. Hristov received a pass in acres of space inside the United penalty area, instead of taking his time and bringing the ball down he just tried to volley it and the shot just looped the ball to Schmeichel. We so nearly had something to cheer other than a corner. But it wasn't to be.
Ryan Giggs got the third goal just before the break with a magical run of thirty or fourty yards before powering the ball past Watson. As for the rest of the goals, I couldn't really care. The game was over but for the record, Cole to got his hat-trick just before the break. The second half brought another from Giggs, one from Scholes and to finish it off one for the bloke with the best old ladies perm Poborsky.
Highlights of the day were once again the Barnsley faithful outsinging the home fans, this time 52,000 for United. My favourite chant of the day was the "We all come form Barnsley We all come from Barnsley, na naa naaaa na." Sadly it was lost on the United fans. Showing there true colours by only replying to our Yorkshire Yorkshire chant midway through the second half when they realized they were in Manchester Lancashire, not Surrey.
On reflection visiting Old Trafford seemed somewhat like being robbed in large nice surroundings. From about a mile it looks like a greyhound stadium. (Just like Leeds) Then outside the queues to get in were huge people just didn't seem to move through the turnstiles at all. Thus by the time kickoff came around a few hundred fans were still outside through no fault of their own. My seat at £21 was a complete ripoff. No way on earth is it worth that much. We were really low down. Just two seats to my right the cheap seats at £19 had a better view than I did by about 6 foot in height. I suppose that I had just better get used to it seeing as though "WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE SAY WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!" And 12 months ago I never thought I would get the chance to visit. A few more points wouldn't go a miss though.
20th October 1997 : Barnsley 2 Coventry City 0,
Watson, / Thompson, Krizan, De Zeeuw, Eaden, / Barnard, Sheridan, Redfearn, Bullock (Moses 80), / Liddell (Hristov 45), Ward.
Another sad defeat for the reds...... Hang on a minute that's not right. It's as though I was a proper writer for a national newspaper then, writing my copy before the game. Bloody hell we've won again. We have life, we can do it. COME ON YOU REDS! Pace, defiance, running, hounding and even a bit of skill was all in evidence. Brilliant teamwork form the Reds, we didn't give City a chance to do perform to any level, they just didn't have the time. All credit to the training and work the team have been putting in over the last few weeks.
The one man which seems to be behind the mini revival that has happened over the last couple of games has been Bullock. He seems to have decided that he can run at the Premiership defences and that belief for the moment is paying dividends. After 11 minutes he crossed and Ward held onto the cross in more ways than one and powered the ball into his near post past the diving Ogrizovic.
Throughout the first half the forwards created problems causing City into errors chasing down lost causes. The defence never gave an inch either a number of tackles a little on the strong side so we may have been a little fortunate with the choice of referee. The leniency of the ref didn't help later in the first half when a strong penalty decision was turned down after Bullock was brought down by Shaw.
The second half saw us start well , Bullock continued to cause problems, on one occasion though he lost his head and was very lucky to stay on the pitch after he lashed out wildly after being brought down. Fortunatly the Ref just booked both players. Bullock was the one brought down in the penalty area to win the penalty when he ran past a lunging Burrows. Redfearn superbly tucked away the spot kick powered into the top corner in much the same fashion as against Chesterfield. It gave the keeper no chance.
Coventry were by no means spectators during the game, this fact born out by the Sky TV watching public . They gave the man of the match award to David Watson in goal and it was well deserved with the defence not completely shutting down the Coventry attack. Time after time he came to the rescue with finger tip saves parries, blocks and unbelievably cross catching and punching. Keep up the good work Dave, but to single just one person out of that performance would be an injustice. Ward caused a myriad of problems, Sheridan didn't shirk from any tackles, Krizan and De Zeeuw looked difficult to beat and Thompson looked calm. So I think the word i'm looking for is we played well as a TEAM. Good on ya.
Something strange was in the air all night and it wasn't just the football. Fireworks went off just outside the ground for about five minutes during the first half. Who the hell has that amount of money to waist! It wouldn't have been inappropriate at teh end of the game or just after we had scored, so next time folks, get it right. For as we all know by now were professionals you know because "WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE SAY WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE". We can't be seen to put on a bad show.
14th October 1997 : Barnsley 1 Southampton 2,
Watson, / Thompson, Krizan, De Zeeuw, Eaden, / Barnard, Sheridan, Redfearn (Marcelle 95), Bullock, / Liddell (Hristov 95), Ward.
You just would not believe. What have Southampton done to deserve a player of the class of Matt Le Tissier, can we have one please. He's lazy, can't tackle and not all of his shots and passes reach their targets but bloody hell when they do it's amazing.
Within the first ten minutes Bullock had beaten his man 3 times and that set the pattern for the rest of the game. Attack, Attack, Attack, Attack. Southampton started surrounding him with three of there own and he still managed to create some problems. Was he having a blinder or were Southampton that bad? Balls flew across the box he even managed to hit a cross too long which I thought was impossible for someone of his stature.
Le Tiss scored the first goal for Southampton and it was magnificent, it was another one of those that you can just do nothing about. He received the ball thirty yards out and knocked it over the top of the Barnsley defender ala Gazza against Scotland in Euro 96. It looked like the defender had just got in the way enough to stop the shot, but no. Matt managed to muscle his way through that extra yard and got a blinding right foot to it. Like a rocket it was over the top of Watson stood four yards out and it hit the back of the goal dipping at the last moment so it just went under the crossbar.
For a few minutes our heads seemed to have gone again., Matt had a curving free kick deflected wide well by a quick Watson, but we regrouped and again pressed for a goal. It came from another run by Bullock who pulled the ball back to Redfearn who had a shot. The ball seemed to richocet and bounce around in the area for a few seconds as others tried to put it away but it landed at the feet of Liddell who put it away. We hadn't given up and we did come back. Yes. for the rest of the half chances came and went but we didn't manage to make one stick.
The second half we looked even better creating loads of half chances that just wouldn't fall our way. Dropping off a Southampton player here, hitting a leg there. If only Bully would shoot when he's in a good position and not when he was in a bad one. He had one of the best games of his career here but still he just doesn't have the best final product. On one occasion following a quick free kick by Liddell he was racing clear one on one with the keeper but nothing happened, he waited for the following players and crossed it. NOOOOOOOO. SHOOOOOT. I know he hasn't got the best shot but as they say "You've got to be in it to win it."
Our profligusness (If that is a word) in-front of goal cost us dear very late on as we may have had a few but Southampton made us pay with a late late finish from summer signing Kevin Davies, he ran through and beat the offside trap to be one on one with Watson and he left the Barnsley keeper sprawling and the ball rolled past him into the goal, now that is what we need. Finishing. AAaaaaaaahhhh. How could this happen? I can't see us having any luck this season. Where is our 95th minute winner?
Just over 9,000 for the crowd not that brilliant and I just cannot believe that some were booing off the players after the game. They played there hearts out, ran themselves into the ground and just didn't get any reward. Liddell, Ward and Bullock all were dead on there feet at the end so perhaps one of them should have been substituted earlier, but for all the world it had looked like extra time. You could perhaps say that it was one of our best performances of the season so far. We always looked lively and always created problems but we just couldn't put it away. Take heart from it lads if that bunch of jokers can stay up anyone can. Because at the moment there is still hope for us to be singing "WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE SAY WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE" next year.
4th October 1997 : Arsenal 5 Barnsley 0,
Watson, Thompson, Krizan, Tinkler, De Zeeuw, Moses (Eaden 64), Sheridan (Bullock 58), Redfearn, Barnard, Liddell (Hristov 67), Ward.
Highbury is one of the grounds i've been waiting to visit for quite a while and now i've been quite frankly i'm not botherd about going back. It isnt exactly a temple of football more an oversize first division ground. It isn't even in my minds top 5 grounds anymore. They made me wait that bit longer to get in too. The coach pulled up beside the away fans entrance, stood there five minutes and then drove off through the Aresnal fans to park five minutes walk away. Well thankyou Mr Policeman. Don't you think 4 .5 hours is enough for us to be on a coach.
The best thing about the place is the big screens at opposite corners of the pitch. Those screens also seem to be the cause of its biggest faults too. Instaed of the crowd getting involved in the game and getting behind there team they all seem to sit back and watch the replays on the big screen. The only time they got bits of chants going through the ground was when they were 5 up and they were singing something uninteligable between the clock end and the north bank.
Oh yeah the game. We started brightly with DeZeeuw having our best chance heading low and Seamen saved well. Liddell also came close to setting up ward but he just coundn't put the ball infront of him. We held out for a massive total of 24 and a half minutes and at that point I thought we might keep the score sensible. Bergkamp showed his class by pulling a little away from the defence took the ball, turned and shot a brilliant goal into the far corner. The bloody barstard. Why do the stars always seem to pull it out of the bag against us.
Bergkamp wasn't finished there either for the first half. He recieved a through ball in a hole about as big as a ship in our defence, ran clear and slotted it passed the advancing Watson. He then setup Parlour who should have done better but Waton pawed it onto the post and Wright could only blast it over the bar. Then just as we thought it wasn't going to be that bad the ref was late with his half time whistle, Bergkamp raced clear again this time passing it forward for Parlour to make no mistake this time. Where did he get those two minutes from?
The second half saw the arrival of ex England captain Platt. He blasted a shot which lifted off a Barnsley boot and rose up over Watson and fortuneately over the bar. From the resulting corner he rose above and infront of all our defenders and powered a downward header past the flailing Watson. Wright made it five when Tinkler fell over his feet trying to clear outside his area and Wright took the ball on 5 yards and planted passed Watty. 5-0, we didn't really play badly and they didn't really break sweat. eeek.
Our substitutions once again didn't turn the tide in the game. I think we would have needed a Moses like performance to help us and unfortuneatly our Moses was taken off and he looks nothing like Charlton Heston. He only looks like a carpark attendant at Everton. Hristov looked lively again when he came on as a substitute, he created a good chance for Ward but all he could do was blast over the bar. Bully also impressed but we didn't make an impression on the scoreline.
Give Give Give, Goals Goals Goals, that's what we seem to get every game following Barnsley. Come on lads lets start being a mean and stingy team. I won't hold it against you, although I enjoyed singing "It's just like watching Brazil" again I wish it would have been when we were infront or at least only about 3 goals behind. I think we should sign a couple of tradesmen and either nail or brick up our goal. Maybe that would stop the opposition. At least it was still single figures and that's all I was worried about really.
