Good article from a Wendnesday point of view

[Ldr]

http://owlsalive.com/477.html?


I was up for this game and very confident that we'd win...It wasn't through any mindless things like 'Oh it's onny Donny', nowt like that, I wasn't underestimating them at all... I just thought we were unlucky at the Keepmoat in the reverse fixture and since then we’ve suddenly learned how to win a bit, even if it is how to win ugly so spirits and confidence were high on the way to the game and losing wasn’t even on the radar. Another good omen was that whilst sat in traffic I managed to spill pie down meself…THAT must be lucky…it was certainly messy and the floor of my car is starting to look a bit of a state these days…

We get into the ground just as they’re playing ‘Waterfront’ for the players to come out and rush into our seats..

At least it wasn’t as cold as last week, it must have been around one degree tonight….I’ve heard that’s considered a heatwave in Denmark.

       


         
THE MATCH
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We got of to a really good start and really early on forced Rovers keeper Sullivan into a fine save but it didn’t take Donny long to settle in and slowly but surely they began to take a firm grip on the game and settle into a nice confident rhythm…even so we still forced Sullivan into yet another save and then hit the post with the rebound but these were snatches and against the run of play.





 There seemed to be a pattern forming as Donny enjoyed the possession but we tested the keeper the most…and they were proper tests to be fair but we just couldn’t squeeze the ball home…there was a bit of a pinball action, again in the Donny box which had me, and no doubt every Wednesday fan in the ground, kicking out and twisting in an effort to help the team but we just couldn’t get hold of the ball…eventually it fell to Tudders who DID hit it goalwards only to see Sullivan yet again somehow palm it away onto the post…I couldn’t believe it…it was an excellent stop and he’d no right to save it TBH.Kudos to him though…he DID and he’d kept Rovers in it so far.
 



Sure enough, they’d had pretty much all the possession but had Sullivan not been at his very best up to now all that fancy football would have been wasted.


Shortly afterwards Billy Sharp got Donnys first real attempt in when he headed goalwards with an incredible looping ball that looked for all the world as though it had beaten Grant but he back-pedalled just in time and tipped it over…

I gave Sharp some right abuse as he stood there wondering how he hadn’t scored and he just eyeballed me back smiling all the time…we had a bit of a moment there and then…we connected…Owl and Blade…we both knew what that look meant…it meant that if he scored I was gonna have it…OH FOOK!

Perhaps it wasn’t one of my best moves or bits of abuse seeing how we were being battered…and that’s no exaggeration. We were second best all over the pitch and chasing shadows most of the time, when just before half time Donny finally made the breakthrough…fortunately for me, it wasn’t Sharp that scored.

       



We were defending again and the ball yet again wasn’t cleared right when it fell to Elliot Ward on the edge of the box...the on loan Coventry defender, with his back to the goal, does an audacious overhead kick…the ball thunders in off the underside of the bar…the Donny players all run away to celebrate in front of the kop…fortunately for me the opposite side…I’d braced myself for some Sharp abuse too…thank fook they chose the other side…

It was a stunning goal TBF but HE’S A FOOKIN CENTRE HALF FFS!
Where does he get THAT skill from?

Absolutely any centre forward would have been proud of that goal, kudos to him…as much as it hurt, it was a belter and the least they deserved.
 



We couldn’t really argue with the scoreline, they’d been all over us and everyone in the ground saw it coming…except maybe Grant as it whistled past him.


As the half came to an end we were just hoping to hang on to this narrow losing scoreline and maybe get in so that Irvine could give them a right roustabout, get them fired up and ship em out again to turn the game around…Well just before we got to that point Gray put in a reasonable shot but Sullivan dived and managed to hold onto the ball…I guess it can’t have been THAT good.





 Almost straight after that we get a corner right before the whistle and we somehow manage to turn a very promising attack into last gasp defending….




 Not for the first time we do nothing with the corner only this time the ball comes out to Sharp who gets on his bike and pedals like fook up the other end of the pitch…He kept on running…OH FOOK….no one wanted to bring him down…SHIT…Frankie let him go…OH FFS!….I braced meself…this is it…I’m gonna have a face full of pig and I’ll have to take it….he’s gonna score the best goal since Matty Hamshaw against Watford and he’s coming over and giving me some grief….he looks up and he shoots from the angle in the box….FOOOOOOOOOOK!…..it’s coming straight at me…it fizzes just high and just wide…

THANK FOOK FOR THAT!
 


I come out of hiding from behind me gloves to give a bit more abuse….just for good measure like.

TBF to the little piggy bas**rd it was a great bit of skill and pace and in that one move, that one single piece of individual flair, it had everything we lacked on this night. Pace, skill, determination…it had it all…fortunately for me, all except a finish.

We limped into half time just that goal behind and prepared for Irvine to work his magic.

         
HALF TIME:


 Gary Bannister and Paul Sturrock were the special guests this time around and it was a lovely reception for the big fella. There is so much affection for the man at this place and I doubt that will ever go, it was lovely to see and it was lovely to see him again. Mindst you Banno got a decent reception too and even from my poor view he looked as good now as he did back in the day.  
       



         
The teams come back out and right from the restart we show our NEW intentions…Tudgay almost brings us level! A cracking header…I say almost because once again because Sullivan has no right at all to save the fooker…but of course…HE DID.
The header was as low and perfectly placed as you could ever wish for, right in the bottom corner, only a Toblerone shaped ball would have fit more perfectly, but Sullivan got his considerable frame right down there and quick as ya like to push it away…FOOK RIGHT OFF!

So just as we think RIGHT! THIS IS IT! We’re gonna have a go at em and show em that first half was a blip…just after we’ve given them a proper scare and we think we’re on our way…the whole fookin thing returns to how it was…Donny passing the ball about us getting nowhere near it and our passing game when we DID have the ball…sweet baby Jesus…it was dreadful, truly dreadful…we couldn’t even pass the ball 2 yards….we couldn’t find our own players and when we tried to put it into the path of a player to run onto it was always short…woefully short.

Michael Gray was top of the list for poor passing and bad decision making…he’s usually so reliable but tonight he was off…all the way across the middle players were putting their worst shift in at the same time and because Donny were playing so well the gulf in class was made even wider.

We rely on JOC but tonight he was non existent and Potter was doing some of his ratting, not his strong point, which had the knock on effect of us losing out on anything Potter DOES bring to the game….


Eventually we took off Soares and brought on Leon and later Gray went off for Esajas…TBF to the big lad when Leon came on he did lift us momentarily but that’s all it was, a brief glimmer as we quickly reverted to type, but at least he put himself about…


 It seemed only a matter of time before Rovers got another and it was…we seemed to have done the hard work and kept the ball out as it hit a couple of players and pinged about all ower the shop. There was a bit of confusion in the defence as the ball somehow found it’s way to my new arch enemy Billy Sharp, who hit it more out of hope and frustration than any real skill, just a hit and hope type thing…how he hit it it had absolutely no hope of finding the net and I have no idea how he did it but the ‘shot’ went to O Connor and he somehow managed to squeeze it between Grant and his near post…not a classic, very lucky even and obviously not intended but it was enough to seal the points if they really needed another goal to do that.


Of course Sharp celebrated like it was his goal…it wasn’t…though I’m still pleased it wasn’t at our end…even though expected him to tear arse down our end just to laugh at me…t**t!

In all honesty though we could have been there another week and we wouldn’t have got the ball past the impressive Sullivan, when we did have another shot on target with Sullivan actually, for once nowhere to be seen, there was a Donny player on the line to boot it clear….

The whistle blew and it was a relief TBH…we’d been put out of our misery.


       


         

The Donny fans celebrated with their players like it were the cup final and fair play to em they earned it.

OK, we had a lot of players who really underperformed tonight and in key areas….the midfield especially and we DID go close to scoring when on another day they might have gone in and those shots were kept out at key moments in the game…but let’s not make any mistake about this the best team won.
The best team by a country mile.
There can be absolutely no argument about that.

As it says in the headline at the top of this pageit, there was a lesson in football handed out tonight and it was Donny Rovers doing the teaching. Pretty much from start to finish we were given a lesson in every department on the pitch but I was impressed by their left back amongst a lot of other good performances.
Donny played a good passing game, they played well as a team and had some very good individual performances, full of passion, commitment and skill…as I said, pretty much everything we lacked tonight.
They look a proper football,team, we looked like a cobbled together pub team.
Not at any time did we look as though we were going to wrest control of this game from Donny.

We trudged home in the cold evening disappointed with our teams performance more than the actual result.

Good luck to Donny, I don’t think they’ll reach the play offs but if they do I genuinely wish them well, whatever happens I hope the fans enjoy the ride…mindst you, we’re gonna need a bit of that luck ourselves over the coming weeks.

How big is the Ipswich game now then?

[Superspy]

that was a brilliant read :D

[mushRTID]

I enjoyed that too!

[RobTheRover]

and actually based in fact too!

[DonnyNoel]

Brilliant - I like the thought of Billy haunting his dreams in the future...

[TheRev]

superb read - very enjoyable

[BillyStubbsTears]

I thought an article from a Wensdeh point of view was \"duh\" or \"uh\" depending on whether it is definite or indefinite?

Very good read, mind. Some o dem darn deer ar decent uns ant di?

[Mark DRFC]

really enjoyed that read, made me laugh out loud a couple of times to myself here, best bit about it is my lass was in the home end, for her sins shes an owlbut she was full of praise for how we played
The only thing im gutted about last night was not getting 2 or more extra goals to totally banish the memories from belle vue.

But ill take that

[BobG]

I even had a Swindon supporter tap me on the shoulder in the office today to tell me he'd heard we played \"chuffing brilliant\" last night. Even better, he said we're sneaking up on the play off spots! I'm still smiling. That was a result I've waited half a century for. And to read the article in the first post just makes it even better. Good read, and well done that man.

Cheers

BobG

[DonnyBazR0ver]

The only thing im gutted about last night was not getting 2 or more extra goals to totally banish the memories from belle vue.

I'm still being reminded that they are still winning on aggregate !