Opponent : Home to Barnsley

Date : 13/12/08

Result : W 2 - 0

Game :

Report : This was one of those ‘family for £40’ matches, where a family of 4 can get tickets to the game for just £40. This offer obviously does not apply to the vast majority of Punjabis in Wolverhampton as the rules state 2 adults and 2 kids. I thought the whole family (all 20 of us) could get in for £40, and although I tried very hard to get us all tickets for this price – the small print meant that I wasn’t able to take the offer up, especially not with Christmas, the Credit Crunch, tight mates who don’t buy drinks, etc… Anyway, there were many others who took this offer up and it meant that we had a crowd of 22,399 – which as it turned out was the biggest crowd – by a long way – in our division this weekend. The next highest was Reading who only managed to get 16 thousand ish. The game started at a fairly even pace and their midfielder should have been booked, in the opening minutes, for a deliberate foul on SEB, but the Ref gesticulated at his watch and let him off scot free – indicating that because it was so early in the game he was going to let him off! Thank goodness we didn’t have him as Ref on Tuesday against Derby - he probably wouldn’t have given us that 1st minute penalty! We began to dominate the possession and were pushing them back into their own half, and then we got the break through after about 20 minutes when they conceded an own goal. From where I was sitting it was difficult to tell who scored, and the PA geezer didn’t help in clarifying the mystery, all that he came up with was “Goal to Wolves!” Cheers mate! After the goal we restricted them to long range efforts, although our central defenders were giving me cause for concern by playing the ball around a bit too much for my liking. We did have another chance to score, but their defender made an excellent, acrobatic clearance off the line with the goal keeper well beaten – in fact this reminded me of my youth and my days as a left back! After the break Barnsley upped their game and were dominating possession, but to be truthful they didn’t really look like scoring. Hennessey made a great save from a diving header but their player was already flagged for offside. We were pretty much playing break-away football, and in one move I saw Kightly ‘lick speed’ (it’s a phrase we used to use in my youth and means going ‘extremely fast’ for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about) and run past defenders like he was Usain Bolt! Eventually Vokes came on (for a lethargic Keogh) and Kightly set him up beautifully but he fluffed the chance. Late on in the game, Man of the Match, Kevin Foley got the crucial second goal and the reaction of the Barnsley players summed up the game for me. They were devastated, holding their head in their hands, because up until then they were still in with a chance of getting something out of the game.