[Div3North]

Accrington Stanley

V

Mansfield Town

2014/15 Prediction League; Game 46 v Mansfield Town (home)


Congratulations, firstly, to Phil “Sunbeds” Edwards , now of Burton Albion, who was included in the PFA League Two Team of the Season; also to Barnet, who won the Conference despite Brizzle R winning 7-0 on Saturday ; what price the Pirates to come back up on the bounce through the playoffs, with Forest Green as their semi-final opponents (Brizzle having won the away leg 1-0 ) and Grimsby or “We Buy Any Old Strikers.Com ” Eastleigh waiting in the Final (Grimsby 2-1 ahead after game 1 )? ……..There weren’t half some goals in the Conference on Saturday; as well as Brizzle’s 7-0 thrashing of Alfreton there was also Chester 5 Nuneaton 3, and in the Conference North (won by Barrow by 2 points from AFC Fylde) there were AFC Fylde 6 Gloucester City 4, Stalybridge Celtic 4 Gainsborough Trinity 4, Worcester City 3 Colwyn Bay 5 and Tamworth 5 Hyde 0 ….Fylde play Guiseley (and lost the away leg 1-0 ), Boston United play Chorley (0-0 after the first game), and North Ferriby United, who took the FA Trophy off Wrexham a couple of weeks back, may apparently go into “voluntary relegation” - I think the club’s owned by relatives of the bloke who owns “Hull Tigers” - which would spare Colwyn Bay from dropping off the perch.

As well as Barnet, we already know that we’ll be playing Yeovil in the League next season; aside from them, it’s any three from 6 –Leyton Orient (48 points, -10 GD), Colchester (49, -20), Crawley (50, -25), Notts County (50, -16), Crewe (52, -31) or Coventry (52, -12); Colchester pulled out a draw against Swindon (4th) on Monday, going 1-up after 37 seconds , and they finish the season against PNE (2nd) at home; they’ll do well to get anything out of that, especially since, if PNE drop points, MK Dons – who are at home to Yeovil – will pounce with great glee ; Orient are at Swindon, Notts Co are at Gillingham, Crewe are at home to Bradford, and Coventry go to Crawley. You’d expect out of that mix that Colchester and Orient are odds-on to drop, Crawley should perhaps beat the Sky Blues, and that maybe Notts County have a more difficult task than Crewe; that said, if Colchester do it unto PNE, then they may well stay up (better GD than Crewe) and PNE will be playoff-bound; unless the Glovers simultaneously do it unto the MK Dons………Seemples! Apart from the Railwaymen, nobody from our neck of the woods is in that melting pot anyway ………….. More Southern Softies in League Two!

We beat the Stags (whose Ladies’ team appear to be called “Stagettes”) at their place on 4th October by the odd goal in one, with a 10th minute Luke Joyce penalty after Marcus Carver (remember him? ) was fouled. Adam Murray – now the manager – was sent off as well (not for the foul). That was our 5th win in 6, and we stood 11th (and dreaming of going up ) …… in our last 13 games, though, we’ve won once (Carlisle 3-1), drawn seven and lost five …..now we stand 17th …….and not dreaming of anything!

They were quite busy in the Transfer Window, flirting as they did with the trapdoor; MF Fergus Bell (24) went to Yeovil – well, if you’re going to be relegated anyway it may as well be from as high up the League pyramid as you can get – and ex Wigan striker Rakish Bingham (21) went on loan to Hartlepool on 2nd January for the rest of the season, to be recalled a month later; they ProperSigned four – Fleetwood winger Matty Blair (25), defender Michael Raynes (27, ex Stockport, Scunnie and Rotherham) from Oxford, 33-year old MF Ricky Ravenhill, once of Barnsley and Notts County, who signed on from the Cobblers, and Junior Brown (25, MF) who was already on loan with the Stags, who made that a permanent move from Oxford ……….who Senior Brown plays for I have no idea!

Five on loan; winger Terry Hawkridge (from The Iron); ex-PNE AMF Jeffrey Monakana (25) – now with Brighton, where he’s awaiting his debut; Foxes’ GK Adam Smith (22); Foxes’ Australian Youth international Callum Elder (19, LB); and, don’t forget, one Billy Kee , who did ok at Burton, did rubbish (so far) at Scunthorpe, getting only limited sub appearances, and signed on at the One Call in January for 3 months …….best information seems to be that he’s gone back, although he doesn’t seem to have featured at either place during April …..injured, maybe?

Current record is P45 W13 D9 L23 GF37 GA60 for 48 points and (a safe) 21st place ……….60 conceded explains a lot (certainly when you’ve got less than 2/3rds of that number yourselves), and their -23 GD is exceeded only by Hartlepool (-31) and Cheltenham (-27) ; even Tranmere – bottom of the heap – have only “achieved” -21 ! Their last 10 games have resulted in two wins (Tranmere 1-0 and the Wombles 2-1, both at home) and eight defeats ; in those ten games they’ve scored seven (two goals once, one goal five times and nul goals four times) and conceded 17 ; they went out of the CapOne 2-1 at the Blades, the PaintyThingy 2-0 at Meadow Lane to Notts Co, and the FA Cup at home 1-0 to Cambridge in a replay (after a Desmond), having taken two games to see off Concorde Rangers (who just finished seventh in the Conference South) 1-0 away after a Half-Desmond (1-1) at home …….. six games, five scored, eight conceded. In all, then, 42 scored in 51 games ……leading scorers are the above-mentioned Rakish Bingham and Crewe’s on-loan striker Vadaine Oliver (23), each with a "Goodman ” (“Seven! ”), and Bermudan international MF Reggie Lambe, currently with 5.

Deadline for entries, as always, is scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 2nd May. It seems, now, that the best way to get a permanent job as a manager is to go short term to a club about to be relegated, fail to save them, and then you get appointed – presumably on the basis that you’re about the only person around who isn’t responsible for going down ………well, it just worked for Gary Johnson at Cheltenham and Neil Harris at Millwall! …….and Terry Butcher’s apparently in the frame for the Newport job, which Jimmy Dack (who?) turned down …….. Who’s up for the Tranmere hot seat? Wonder if Mark Palios really fancies a “Buy One, Get One Free” management team? ………and I wouldn’t give much for the future careers of those Cheltenham players of whom Gary J said, after the loss to the Shrews which relegated them;

• “Unfortunately the losers are less than professional sometimes. That's generally why a team gets relegated. There's a fitness level that professionals have to maintain. They have to live like professionals and act like professionals, and some of them found it very hard to do that”

Finally, I wonder if the Home Office will put Delroy Facey (2 ½ years for match-fixing) in the same prison as Chris Zebroski ? Could be the makings of quite a decent team …………….

And so another season draws to an end; 42 more weekly (or twice-weekly) chunks of irreverent , and often irrelevant, drivel , balanced only by the sanity of my co-conspirator Chimer in his analyses of why he and I can’t even get into the top ten of our own Prediction League …….. Huge congratulations to AngeB on winning the PL – you could dine out on this win over Himself for YEARS , Ange – and commiserations to Nige ……and to the rest of you barmy enough still to be playing along ……Thanks for the craic , thanks for your company , and – Deo volente – we’ll see you again in August ……….assuming, of course, that you want us to see you in August!

Have a good summer ……… Good luck to everyone! ……..Keep the Faith and buy an ice cream (a Walls’ Brick , for choice) …………and thanks for playing!