The Final Curtain

By BoroGuide

Morecambe and Wise - Curtain

Nearly there folks, nearly there. There hasn’t been a lot from the 2013/4 campaign to put on the Doovdé Highlights – it’ll be a shorter watch than Great Michael Warner Goals Of Our Time (£1.99, VHS/Betamax). And after spending a good few months somehow losing to sides doing barely passable impressions of third tier teams, we’d rather not have to go to the home of a team like Brentford. Y’know, someone good.

But those are the breaks and it’s a date’s been in the diary since being splurged out by the League’s PC back in the days when hope and optimism was a thing. There’s no use fighting it now.

It’s annoying enough to have spent the last 45 games getting relegated, but we don’t recall the clause about having to do a guard of honour for our final day opponents. Yeah, so they went and got themselves promoted, but it’s nothing to do with us. We’re not even due any thanks from them – Brentford are one of just seven teams we’ve managed to beat at home this season. But it does make the prospect of a double over ’em quite a funny one actually.

Not that it’s a likely prospect, you realise? Brentford have won six on the spin at their gaff – and that’s only the results we’ve bothered to count. Scoring isn’t a problem for them; 12 have gone in at the right end – compared to a paltry two times they’ve had to pick the ball  from their own net. If you’re made of sterner stuff than us, you could compare it with how we’ve fared on the road in the last six – but it’s not going to make you feel better.

The last day of term, then. A promotion party for them and a relegation party for us. Like the band on the Titanic, Boro’ fans will play on – out of tune and too bloody fast, sure, but play on nonetheless for that one last hurrah…

 

Match Pack:

[expand title=”WE’VE MET BEFORE…”]

12 Oct 2013 H Sky Bet League One 2-1
05 Mar 2013 H npower League One 1-0
12 Feb 2013 A npower League One 0-2
21 Apr 2012 H npower League One 2-1
25 Oct 2011 A npower League One 1-0
31 Aug 2010 H Johnstone’s Paint Trophy R1 0-1

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[expand title=”REFEREE WATCH”]
He refereed our first game in the Football League and has now been handed control of our last game in League One – David Phillips is the name and sendings off appears to be his game, this season at least. We first encountered Mr Phillips back in 2007 when a red card for Adam Miller hardly helped matters in a 3-0 defeat at Crawley Town. Since then, however, our record when he’s been involved has been steady.

If you like your quirks and stuff like that, Mr Phillips was the man in charge of our final game of last season too – a 2-0 home defeat against MK Dons. It’s also the second game this season that we’ve had the pleasure, following the 0-0 draw against Sheffield United. He didn’t send anyone off that day, but does have a chunky six dismissals to his name. It’s perhaps fortunate the last two of those were on 4 January. One more for luck? Maybe…

• This season for David Phillips:
Games: 24 — Yellow: 84 (3.50pg), Red: 6

• Our record under David Phillips:
P7 W2 D2 L3 F9 A12  – Yellow: 10, Red 2
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[expand title=”FIFA 14 VERDICT”]
Team:
Day; Obeng, Jones, Dembele, Hartley; N’Guessan, Mousinho, Smith, Henderson, Freeman; Okenabirhie

And so the final FIFA 14 verdict of the season takes us to Crown Lane where our referee Ian Lowcroft is waiting in the overcast conditions. We were happy to give a game to the young ‘uns N’Guessan and Okenabirhie after their performance against Walsall, so there wasn’t much else for us to do but to get the game started. And it’s a promising start from Boro’ that we have to report, with Okenabirhie going close early on.

But our woeful defending caught up with us from an 18th minute corner, with Tarkowski having two attempts at heading home past Chris Day to give Brentford the lead. We kept up the pressure, however, and won a dodgy penalty when a Conor Henderson shot hit an unassuming defender in the box. “Handball”, said Lowcroft; “Mine”, said Mousinho; and “GOLLLLLLLLLL” screamed the Boro’ fans who were already several pints down.

Events took a turn for the worse early in the second half when Jimmy Smith saw red (his second FIFA 14 red in two games!) for a late challenge. And when we say late, we mean it would entitle you to delay repay compo if you were on a train. Brentford failed to make a real impact despite their numerical advantage, however. And that attitude was the reason we conceded again with 10 minutes left. No danger, we thought. We were wrong.

The cross came over, and Will Grigg volleyed home. And yet still we roused ourselves to find an equaliser; Michael Doughty’s header in stoppage time crashing off the bar, falling to a defender, full time whistle, so near, so far…

FT: Brentford 2-1 Stevenage
(Tarkowski 18′, Grigg 80′; Mousinho 32′)

 

 

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[expand title=”BOOKIE BASHING”]
Want a risk-free £10 wager? Sign up with Titan Bet today and it’s yours.

Here’s a surprise for you – the bookies think that Brentford might just win this one (2/5) as they celebrate promotion to the Championship. We haven’t expected many goals either from Boro’ or in general over the past couple of games and that’s turned out to be a bit of a mistake. So it’s with tackle out that we favour Over 2.5 at 4/6 and No on the BTTS card at 4/5. Stevenage to perform like the UK at Eurovision and score nil is evens.

If you’d rather, check out what the alternatives are offering…

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1 thought on “The Final Curtain”

  1. Mr Dunne picks up a cup winners medal. Blame everyone but me Westley gets relegated. Tough one to work out. Ho ho ho. Why did Dunny get chased out.

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