The 1967 number one from Procul Harum is this piece’s title, as the chorus has the line ‘as the miller told his tale’, and today’s visitors are known as ‘The Millers’. Which until I started writing this piece always seemed a strange nickname for a club in such an industrial town. Only for it to dawn on me (I can be a bit slow at times) why they were, with both their former ground being Millmoor, and all the steel mills in the town. It never even dawned on me when I had a five-month sojourn living nearby in South Yorkshire back in 2001. I even went to one of their games at Millmoor back at the start of the 2001-02 season, but being a dark time for me I had no idea who it was and had to look it up. I was surprised to find it was the first game of the season and against Crystal Palace. I must have been distracted not to remember a seemingly exciting 3-2 win for Palace.
Two weeks on from our last home game against Huddersfield Town we have the visit of another side who were relegated from the Championship last season, and who are from Yorkshire. There have been two away games in between, but it has been a full week without a game since the entertaining game of two halves away at Bristol Rovers last week, where all the goalmouth action was at the end we were behind. I still don’t understand what xG is, but surely both sides would have had much higher xG than the 0-0 the game finished.
The visit of Rotherham United sees the return to the Broadfield of former exalted boss Steve Evans, who is in his second spell in charge of them having moved there from Stevenage this year. He originally went there after leaving Crawley back in 2012.
We go into the game four points and four places behind Rotherham in the league, as they aren’t doing as well as many pre-season predictions had them to be doing. It’s all the fours this week, after last week’s game saw us start the game on all the fives, five points and five places behind our opponents.
With injuries and suspensions, any steel in midfield protecting our somewhat threadbare backline is non-existent. I’m not sure who is going to take on the mantle of habitual yellow card and starting a fight in a phone box. I’m sure it will be a great quandary to the referee as to who to book to ensure we end up with an unproportionally high number of yellow cards compared to the opposition for the exact same offenses.
I had to dig back into the sixties A&BC card archives to find any Rotherham United cards, and it happens the only year they had any, was the same 1964-65 season I dug the Bristol Rovers card out from last week. Ken Houghton.
This will only be out fifth game against Rotherham, with all previous meeting being league games, the previous two back in 2013-14 were in Steve Evans previous spell as their manager. And with the second of the two games we played against them in the 2011-12 season being less than a fortnight before he left Crawley to take up that role, all games played against Rotherham have seen Steve Evans as one of the managers involved. We have two wins, a draw, and a loss, with the home games being a win a side (or both wins for Evans depending on the point of view).
Tickets have been secured for next weekend’s FA Cup second round tie against Lincoln City, and for the following Tuesday’s away game at Charlton Athletic, the latter just being for myself as Helen now has work commitments and will be at the opposite end of the country. Note to self, I must remember to cancel her seat on the coach. This did mean my usual Friday wander to the club shop to get the tickets (I still prefer getting them in person, even if the new online portal is a lot better), but unusually there was no additional merch bought. Well, Christmas is coming so money will be needed for that to get presents. And speaking of presents, if people are looking for ideas for something to buy for friends, family (or more likely people you don’t really like), then my books are available from Amazon, and I could be persuaded to sign copies.
We saw in the paper that Will Swan has been playing with a dead calf. Why do I have visions of him running around with a baby cow on his back? I’m not sure the Crawley Observer do much along the lines of spell and grammar checking in their articles. Whereas the two Steves look like they do.
I can’t remember exactly when the last time it was when I didn’t come directly to a Saturday home game from writing group, but I suspect it may have been the stupid half five kick off against Blackpool on the opening day of the season. With it being a non-writing group week, it should be a nice easy going slow amble to the ground, but with the rain it is more of a quick scuttle. And I do remember to head into a packed Redz bar to sort out the coach details.
It is properly wet, glad of multiple layers top and bottom because the outside layer is soaking. The pitch looks good though, even if there are a couple of puddles around the apron of the ground. A sure sign the squad is down to bare bones as we are starting with two strikers, and there are two keepers named on the bench. When I got to the ground just before two there were already three Rotherham fan coaches, which swelled to five before kick-off. A large, if somewhat subdued following.
Both teams were out ‘warming up’, but on a day like today with it pissing it down with almost horizontal rain blown across by bitter winds, I don’t think anyone is getting warm out there.
Rotherham are in an all-fluorescent yellow kit with some kind of blue pattern on the front of their shirts. No one is going to miss those kits even in the dreariest of weather. There is a minutes applause before the game following the death of the long-time club cameraman.
The early pressure is from Rotherham, but our first attack down the left is worked across the front of the penalty area and Panutche Camara’s shot is just over the bar. Rotherham attack and get a corner, the shot is saved and then the flag goes up for offside before the follow up comes in. Back to us attacking, this time down the right, but Camara’s cross is easily cut out. We get a free kick on the left-hand corner of the penalty area after a foul on Will Swan. Ronan Darcy takes, but it hits the wall and is cleared.
After some sustained pressure, with attacks down both flanks, a ball is half cleared and picked up by Toby Mullarkey who plays a beautiful curling ball into the box along the floor and Swan gets onto the end of it to steer it into the net and we lead 1-0.
The wind is not helping anyone when the ball goes up in the air, and even six rows back in the east marquee I could do with windscreen wipers on my glasses. With the rain and where the wind is coming from, it is likely the only dry and relatively warm place will be the old codgers southwest corner of the terrace.
There is some back and (mainly) forth play and we get a free kick on the left-hand side, thirty yards out. It is headed clear, and then crossed back in from the right, which is blocked for a corner, and from that Tola Showunmi’s shot goes over the bar. Still attacking we work the ball to the left, Darcy cuts in and his low cross/shot is deflected wide for a corner. The next attack sees a ball played out of defence and put through to Darcy by Jeremy Kelly, he passes to Swan and his shot is saved. Rotherham get a late attack, and have a striker in the box, but the low shot is comfortably saved by JoJo Wollacott.
There is one added minute shown, and the lights come on, but it would appear the wind and the rain is playing havoc with the tannoy system, as there are no announcements coming over (at least in the marquee).
The second half starts with a booking for Max Anderson for what appeared to be a fifty-fifty challenge in midfield. A ball is put through to Swan in the box and he goes past two players, both of whom are attempting to foul him, and the ball runs away from him before he can get a shot off and Rotherham clear. Mullarkey gets a yellow for a pull back on the left wing. The free kick goes all the way across the box and is put out for a corner.
We clear and break and a Rotherham player picks up a yellow card for an attempting (but missed) chopping down of Darcy. Showunmi is subbed off to be replaced by Tyreese John-Jules. An attack down the left sees neat work between Darcy and Kelly, and the ball is passed to Swan on the edge of the area, and his shot is saved.
Rotherham have an attack down the right and win a corner. That is hacked clear for another corner on the other side. That one is cleared for another corner, and that one goes out for a goal kick, and we can relieve the pressure. We attack and the ball gets to Swan, he plays it on to TJJ in the box, it is crossed, and Ade Adeyemo gets it on the right and he can’t get a shot off and it is cleared, and we win a free kick on the left in the middle of the half.
Some of Darcy’s play and control is just sublime. There is lots of decent play from the team and plenty of hard work from all the players. We use the rest of our substitutions over the next couple of minutes, with Adeyemo being replaced by Benjamin Tanimu, and then Darcy limps off to be replaced by Rafiq Khaleel, Swan is replaced by Jack Roles, and Camara is replaced by Gavan Holohan. It seems that the time taken to make the substitutions has drawn the ire of Steve Evans and the cheers from the west stand as the ref goes over to the bench would suggest he picked up a yellow card.
Roles is fouled in midfield, and then pushed back down when trying to get up twice, which really should have been a yellow. Another attack and the ball is in the box on the right and crossed over to find Khaleel in loads of space on the right. His first time shot doesn’t go as he might have wanted, spiralling off over the Eden Utilities Stand for ball loss number one of the day. Wollacott picks up a booking for timewasting.
The next attack down the right sees Tanimu’s cross put out for a corner. It is cleared and played back in and held up well by TJJ, he lays it back to Holohan, and his shot goes over. Rotherham pick up a yellow for clearing out Roles in midfield. The lights in the stands go on. The board didn’t go up to say how much added time there would be. I could see the board held sideways at ground level but couldn’t work out whether it said two or five minutes (ended up being five). There are no announcements coming over, so no mention of the crowd figure or the sponsor’s man of the match. A late left wing cross from Rotherham eludes everyone in the box and skids out for a much-needed goal kick and the final whistle goes.
A 1-0 win, well deserved, and a good all round team performance. It sees us crawl out of the relegation places, up a solitary place to twentieth, and leaves us a point behind Rotherham. In fact, there are three teams now just a point ahead of us, with Blackpool and Wigan also on seventeen points.
Post match curry was good, especially after a win, and the warm pub after the cold and rain was most welcome.
Teams around us have games in hand and most are catching up on games missed with games on Tuesday night. We don’t have a game and are next in action next Saturday afternoon with the FA Cup tie against Lincoln City.
Come on you reds.