WHAT A DAY FOR MY STANLEY!
Little lad trumps me with spot-on prediction Beer’s a pound a pint after a famous win Biscuit Brothers don’t crumble during fab set
THIS was a fantastic day for Accring- ton, the club i turned out for as a semi-professional back in the 1960s, and one that has remained dear to my heart.
it started for me in the sports bar where BBC’s Football Focus were filming live on Saturday.
When asked for a prediction, i said we would win, but i’m afraid i got trumped by a little lad by the name of lucas Atkin, who — when put on the spot by Dan Walker — came up with: ‘1-0. Billy Kee will score.’
then it was out to the fanzone to listen to the fabulous covers band the Biscuit Brothers, who had the place rocking for the early birds wanting to take advantage of the club’s £2-a-pint pre-match offer.
After lucas’s prediction had proved spot-on, everyone piled back in for the encore (beer’s only a quid when we win). As for the game, we were excellent value for the result against one of the poorer teams i have seen this season.
i get down to watch whenever i can, around my commitments commentating on cricket, and there are some much better teams than ipswich town in league one.
Although we were down to the bare bones, with a number of loan players going back to their parent clubs and offrande Zanzala suspended, the Championship club could not penetrate our makeshift defence.
Ben Richards-Everton, our big centre half, came in at left back and played brilliantly, 19-year-old squad player Ross Sykes was man of the match in the centre, winning every aerial ball at both ends of the field, and alongside him Mark hughes — no, not that one — was his dependable self. there wasn’t much subtlety about our goal, but it was well-worked. Sean McConville flung in a deep cross from the left, beyond the goalkeeper, these three 6ft-plus monsters came piling in and the ball found its way back across the six-yard box for Super Billy Kee to knock in.
Stanley have found things tough in recent weeks, but our magician of a manager John Coleman has put together another decent team of super characters.
Not least goalkeeper Connor Ripley, whose father Stuart was a Premier league winner with Blackburn.
Standing pre-match in the directors’ box — but what you might refer to as a Portakabin — there was Connor casually having a brew. ‘Are you playing?’ i asked. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘if you’re behind the goal, my dad’ll be somewhere near you. he’s still got the blond hair, there’s just not much of it nowadays.’
For us, the same can be said about money. No club has a smaller turnover in the third tier than our £2.5-3million and so the £135,000 earned by the lads’ endeavours will help keep us ticking along. on Stanley on!