Leek Town (A) .. Northern Premier League - West

[Del]

Match scheduled for: Saturday 02 December - kick-off time: 3:00pm
Venue: The F. Ball Community Stadium, Macclesfield Road, Leek, Staffordshire ST13 8LD
Link to opponents official website: https://www.pitchero.com/clubs/leektown

Admission prices:
£10 Adults
£7 Concessions
£3 Under-18s

[Perton Pitman]

Luckily the artificial surface will ensure that this game goes ahead. I doubt our pitch, and many others, will be playable at the weekend given the cold snap we are going to have for a week.

[sheriff]

I will be happy with the festive spread , four pints and a 2-0 defeat

[Glyn]

Worth noting that even plastic pitches aren't immune from freezing.. watch for updates..

[Del]

Match preview here: https://www.hednesfordtownfc.com/2023/1 ... ord-town-2

[sheriff]

little bit of a cockup on the official match preview, the only way we can get out of the bottom two is Northwich and Trafford game is called off
and we win obviously !

[Lee K]

Worth noting that even plastic pitches aren't immune from freezing.. watch for updates..

We should be ok. There’s a Mickey Mouse game being played there tonight which is still on.

[J shez]

Chasetown replied to one of there fans asking if they were having a pitch inspection that the pitch is fine down to -8 so as cold as it is i think we will be fine !

[Lee K]

According to NPL site there is a pitch inspection at Leek at 11:00, although nothing on either club’s Twitter.

[Del]

LEEK TOWN 3 - 0 PITMEN

: Niven

Official 584

[jackiemaund]

We’ve now had two managers and the results are still the same so the common denominator must be the players so apart from Harris’s two signings and Griff of course I’d show the rest the door and start again it can’t possibly be any worse that it has been and will continue to be.

[Perton Pitman]

As people know I did defend Danny Glover as I always thought it was the players. the next month will tell us whether getting rid of Danny was the right thing or not as the games against Northwich, Newcastle, Trafford and Nantwich are huge. Get 8 or 9 points from those and we will have turned the corner and have given ourselves a great chance of staying up. Some of those are 'six-pointers' so we have to win them. Danny got the boot on the back of two crucial losses at City of Liverpool and Vauxhall Motors.

I went today and we competed well in the first half with Verma outstanding, ably supported by Kelly. Nothing came from Morley and although Niven worked hard he isn't able to create much on his own as he has no real discernible attributes as a number 9. It was clear that if we to get anything out of the game we would have to have a good second half and either hope Verma put something on a plate for someone or Leek made a mistake.

The second half was poor and the 3-0 loss, which many predicted before a ball was kicked, came to fruition. We have far too many passengers and Boucher was left exposed as Leek ran through our midfield and defence at will. Leek hit the woodwork twice and it could easily have been 5 or 6.

A real shame today as I reckon there were around 100 Hednesford fans in the ground, if not more. A great turn out, but the football and results are dreadful. the rumour is that there is no more money for reinforcements unless we can ship players out. Trouble is many of them aren't up to step 4 so we are in for a difficult period until the takeover is completed. We appear to have one centre forward on the books (fit enough to play at any rate) and the whole things is as shambolic as it has been all season.

The funniest part of today was the hissy fit from a couple of our fans who made their displeasure known to all and sundry as they stropped off to the bar at 2-0. I'm not sure what they were hoping for / expecting at 3pm.

I was glad to get in the car, warm myself and ignore the satnav which sent me via Cellarhead, Wetley Rocks and Cheddleton on the way up. A grim afternoon on the moors in all respects...

[PitmanKeith]

As people know I did defend Danny Glover as I always thought it was the players. the next month will tell us whether getting rid of Danny was the right thing or not as the games against Northwich, Newcastle, Trafford and Nantwich are huge. Get 8 or 9 points from those and we will have turned the corner and have given ourselves a great chance of staying up. Some of those are 'six-pointers' so we have to win them. Danny got the boot on the back of two crucial losses at City of Liverpool and Vauxhall Motors.

I went today and we competed well in the first half with Verma outstanding, ably supported by Kelly. Nothing came from Morley and although Niven worked hard he isn't able to create much on his own as he has no real discernible attributes as a number 9. It was clear that if we to get anything out of the game we would have to have a good second half and either hope Verma put something on a plate for someone or Leek made a mistake.

The second half was poor and the 3-0 loss, which many predicted before a ball was kicked, came to fruition. We have far too many passengers and Boucher was left exposed as Leek ran through our midfield and defence at will. Leek hit the woodwork twice and it could easily have been 5 or 6.

A real shame today as I reckon there were around 100 Hednesford fans in the ground, if not more. A great turn out, but the football and results are dreadful. the rumour is that there is no more money for reinforcements unless we can ship players out. Trouble is many of them aren't up to step 4 so we are in for a difficult period until the takeover is completed. We appear to have one centre forward on the books (fit enough to play at any rate) and the whole things is as shambolic as it has been all season.

The funniest part of today was the hissy fit from a couple of our fans who made their displeasure known to all and sundry as they stropped off to the bar at 2-0. I'm not sure what they were hoping for / expecting at 3pm.

I was glad to get in the car, warm myself and ignore the satnav which sent me via Cellarhead, Wetley Rocks and Cheddleton on the way up. A grim afternoon on the moors in all respects...

Danny Glover didn't lose his job on the back of two poor results against Vauxhall and Liverpool he lost it because of this record over 10 1/2 months.

P37 W 7 D 7 L23.

[Perton Pitman]

No money and no players for a fair chunk of that time - back end of last season and start of this. Doesn't hurt to add context and I doubt anyone would have done much better. Harris knows we need a clear out as I'm sure Danny did.

[Lee K]

Decent first half performance as we more than matched them, defended well and restricted them to very little. We had quite a bit of possession but did nothing with it.
Second half was completely the opposite as Leek took us apart and we were poor all over the pitch.
I feel sorry for Niven (and anyone else who plays the lone striker role for us). He was on his own up front, given no support, had no chances created for him and had not even scraps to feed off.
There are players who start games who do nothing and this needs to change. Joe Thompson jogs around all day and does nothing. Joe Morley does his best to stay as far away from the ball as possible all game, what a fluke that hat-trick at Bootle was. These two need replacing immediately. Thorley and McQuilkin still don’t do enough for me, Kelly isn’t as good as Armitage was at left back (what’s happened to him?), Yeomans isn’t good enough either in defence or attack. Boucher had no chance really with the goals but will probably be a decent signing, Verma will create and score goals on better days and all in all Harry has a tough job to get us out of this mess because he needs better players all over the pitch.
We have 4 games coming up against teams that we need to catch so wins are a must especially the next 3 against Northwich, Newcastle and Trafford. Anything fewer than 9 points over the next 4 games and we are really going to be up against it.

[sheriff]

to play in this league you need strength and be organised, we have neither
lot of people putting money in this club by attending with no reward
well i will wait for new owners to hopefully turn this club around before i return

[PitmanKeith]

viewtopic.php?t=5488

I'm not best placed to comment fully as I have only seen five games this season, but what I have seen, heard on commentaries and picked up on what others are saying, if you look at the squad list (link above) there are ten or eleven probably not good enough.
I am not going to name them but we would probably all pick the same names. Spiers I would assume has gone back to Alvechurch.
You could remove those ten or eleven and bring in six or seven better quality for probably the same money and have a better balanced squad.

One can only assume Harris is strenuously trying to sign better players but how successful he is depends on whether players are willing to come given the recent uncertainty with the club and funds available. The man does not have an easy job and I don't envy him, I think he had a lot of bottle to take it on and I take my hat off to him. But I do believe he is the man to turn things around.

[sheriff]

most disappointing thing is, we were told the two had great contacts, yet we have been without a decent striker for weeks
Saturday is a must win, but where are the goals coming from?????????
most of these players will be at home next season at step 5

[pitmanpipe]

most disappointing thing is, we were told the two had great contacts, yet we have been without a decent striker for weeks
Saturday is a must win, but where are the goals coming from?????????
most of these players will be at home next season at step 5

They may have the contacts, but we may not have the budget in place to bring in the required players.

I'm assuming both Verma and Boucher took up alot of the budget, but no one really knows if there is a budget still for further players. These 2 are the type of signings we need to be making, but if we don't have a budget then bringing in quality players to get us out of the relegation zone is going to be hard to come by.

Rumours that we need to let go before we can bring in, but who really knows.

We're all hoping for good news on the takeover front to hopefully boost our budget.

[Chris]

little bit of a cockup on the official match preview, the only way we can get out of the bottom two is Northwich and Trafford game is called off
and we win obviously !

So if we'd have won on Saturday we'd have been out of the bottom two

[Arrows87]

Match highlights

[Lee K]

most disappointing thing is, we were told the two had great contacts, yet we have been without a decent striker for weeks
Saturday is a must win, but where are the goals coming from?????????
most of these players will be at home next season at step 5

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got Erling Haaland up front, if you play him on his own, completely isolate him against two centre backs, provide him with no passes, no chances and no support, then he ain’t gonna score.

[sheriff]

Wednesday and no match report, and no new strikers !

[Perton Pitman]

Good to see some highlights being put up. Standing behind the goal we attack is a real test for the eyes as most of the action takes place at the other end of pitch so thanks to Leek for this. It would be nice if we could do something similar. Do we still have that camera by the dugouts? We were told that the club wouldn't post footage from this at the start of the season as it would give future opponents an insight into how we play.

The cat's out of the bag now!

[Lee K]

Good to see some highlights being put up. Standing behind the goal we attack is a real test for the eyes as most of the action takes place at the other end of pitch so thanks to Leek for this. It would be nice if we could do something similar. Do we still have that camera by the dugouts? We were told that the club wouldn't post footage from this at the start of the season as it would give future opponents an insight into how we play.

The cat's out of the bag now!

I’m fed up of hearing that there’s no footage because other teams will see how we play and the suggestion that there’s no mention of any injuries in the match previews because other clubs will find out. It’s about time the club and the manager realises what we are - a bottom of the table team where the opposition won’t give a toss who is injured or not or how we play or not because we’re the worst team in the league and all they’ve got to do is play their game.