Fans are out in force for derby double
GRESTY Road on a Tuesday night, it’s one of those fixtures we, of a certain age, have sorely missed over the past decade.
In our history we’ve played against Crewe more times than we’ve played any other club and always travelled in numbers, last Tuesday was no different!
Over 2,200 of the travelling faithful filled the two stands we’d been allocated while the empty seats in the home section were there for all to see.
The game was feisty, it usually is, due in large parts to the referee’s strange view of the laws of the game.
He let so much go, especially the shirt pulling on Kyle Wootton but then he became whistle happy for no reason and continually stopped the flow of the game.
Now, as I said earlier, we turned up and did our job but it was a pity that, especially in the first half, the team didn’t.
We seemed content to play the ball backwards, several players, when presented with an open pitch, simply stood on the ball, allowed Crewe to get back into their shape and then found themselves under pressure, or we went long-ball, a tactic that the Crewe defence just loved, they deserved their half time lead.
The one truly great moment in the whole game came early in the second half when we played football for 30 seconds.
A brilliant passing move saw the ball at the feet of Wootton whose pace, strength and precision provided some cheer on the short journey home.
The second Cheshire derby of the week saw Tranmere at EP on Saturday AND County got well and truly back on form.
I thought we were superb from start to finish and in front of a packed ground; over 10,000 of us created a great atmosphere, there was even a bit of noise from the Rovers in the Railway End.
There was plenty of action, unlike at Crewe, with some great goals and some comedy goal keeping.
Kyle Knoyle opened the scoring with a great looping header, Tranmere equalised from the penalty spot after some bizarre refereeing as he overruled the linesman who was flagging for offside!
We re-took the lead just before half time when the visiting keeper had a moment to forget as he allowed Kyle Wootton to deftly head the ball over his outstretched arms.
We increased our lead in the second half when Will Collar capitalised on another error by the under pressure Hewelt in the Tranmere net.
They pulled one back to leave us all feeling a little nervy for the five minutes of added on time but in the end it was three points valiantly won.