#corbytownfc

It was a typical rainy bank holiday Monday in August and I was at Steel Park to watch Corby Town entertain St Neots Town. Unbeaten Corby proudly went into this fixture top of the Southern Premier League having taken 13 points from 15 with gritty victories vs Hitchin, Dunstable, Arlesey, Chesham and a draw with Cirencester helping their cause. Today’s visitors residing from the non metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire and bookies favourites for automatic promotion were St Neots Town. The general consensus was that they would pose the most competitive challenge for the Steelmen so far this campaign and the game was set nicely for an entertaining affair.

The first half kicked off and Corby found themselves behind after 5 minutes from a diagonal cross and a tap in to boot. However, Corby were able to quickly pick themselves up from this disappointment and turned it up a gear or three. Corby were rewarded for their pacey and composed attacking play after 13 minutes when Greg Mills turned sharply from close range to slot the ball past the opposition keeper. It has to be said that the opposition keeper was extremely poor, you wouldn’t think he was semi professional. He had a touch of a poor Charles Itandje impersonator about him and he didn’t know whether he was coming or going, flapped hard and kicked the ball like a poorly trained Kung fu fighter. However, who am I to talk? I always fall over when I play. A highlight of the first half was when Mills fired a free kick into the back of the St Neots’ number 9 who winced in pain and the crowd went oooo, lucky for him it was August and not January. Corby continued with the pressure but couldn’t convert the copious amount of chances they created. For lack of a better word, Corby had shat all over St Neots but were going into the break at 1-1.

Half time entertainment came in the form of the Corby Chairman undergoing the ice bucket challenge for charity and he nominated the rest of the board to undergo the challenge at the upcoming game vs Truro on Saturday. Hip hip hooray for charity. The Corby side that emerged for the second half resembled nothing of the team that departed in the first half. It was flat, lacked urgency and there seemed to be a lull. It was similar to a New Year’s Day hangover. The referee was called an “f’ing plum” often as Corby frustration grew. I thought the St Neots number 6 looked like Danny Gabbidon, when I took note of this on my iPhone it corrected it to ‘Gay Bison’. St Neots went ahead when Lorenzo Ferrari raced away eh eh eh from the Corby defenders to slot past Paul Walker. Corby’s frustration was compounded when St Neots were rewarded a dubious penalty near the end. However, you can’t give the opposition player the opportunity to go down when he’s heavily looking for it.