We had the beating of Alfreton – but not Bell strikes

IF we’d been offered three wins and a draw from the last four games, all away remember, I don’t think there’d have been too many County supporters that wouldn’t have accepted them willingly, especially when they were against Spennymoor, Altrincham, Ashton United and Alfreton. This week we continued our rise up the league starting last Tuesday night with one hell of a performance at Ashton United. If you said it was all one way traffic, you’d be right, a 6-0 win just shows how dominant the County were and we could have had more than just the goals from Warburton (2), Kirby (2), Mulhern and Turnbull. Duxbury hit the bar, Osborne had a stonewall penalty turned down while Warby had several chances to claim his hat-trick, maybe I’m being greedy or just getting carried away with the performance but a marker has been laid down for the rest of the division now, Stockport County are clicking and we’re not afraid of anyone.

Saturday saw us make the journey to Alfreton, a place I’ve mixed feelings about. We’ve both lost heavily and had dramatic last gasp wins there but this time round the most worrying factor was the Referee. Aaron Jackson has never given us anything, I’d go so far as to say he hates us and Saturday’s game just went to hammer the point home.

He awarded the home team two penalties in as many minutes; from where I was stood the first was possibly justified but the second, no chance, he then compounds those decisions by completely ignoring the assaults on Duxbury and Bell late in the game, I’d love to see the referee’s assessor report, I really would.

The Reds had a game plan, stop any wide play, by fair means or foul, they were committed to every

challenge while we looked a little jaded, we couldn’t get control of the mid-field as the home side threw every man into a tackle. The only time we found a bit of space, Nyal found the back of the net. From there we started to up our game but the referee was having none of that as he blew for anything that remotely looked like a challenge.

So on reflection it could be seen as two points dropped or a decent result away from home, we’re half way through the season and just in the play-offs and everything to play for.

Come on County 2019 could be our year.