Posted 'high noon bells' Sunday 22nd August 2021
"CAT ACLYSMIC EVENTS IN BORMINGHAM!"
A torturous fower hour train jorney to the black country from 'The Central' (station) woz wor profored mode of transport for wor forst competitive away game in one and a half years, due to the 'bat out of hell' pandemic!
On arrival it woz off to The Wellington real ale boozer up the hill from New Street station (Bormingham), az this iz wor usual 'haunt' when we are in these parts!
The bar woz packed az we arrived at 'high noon bells' with one occupant of the seats the boozers tabby cat which woz corled up on one of the chairs!
Az there were nee spare seats it woz quickly 'shooed away' by 'Big Al' (NOT the sheet metal workers son!) so that he could sit doon, to loud groans of disgust from the other punters, which included several Villa and Toon fans!
Anyway!---after a few 'gargels' it woz time to heed for the groond, which iz a 10 minute train ride to Witton station, a 5 minute waalk from the away tornstiles!
And I'm afraid to tell yoo that it woz the same old story az we huffed and puffed wor way through the 90 minutes of 'non futbaall' from the men in dark blue(wor away strip)
Callum Wilson had a great chance orly on, when he woz clean through, but missed the target to a load of sarcastic cheers from the Villa fans in The Holte End, the end where we were kickin' towards, in the forst period!
And that woz it I'm afraid, az we never had another chance like that again in the half, even though we dominated the forst half of the half!
Villa wornt any better eethaa, but they took the lead bang on half time with a spectacular 'ower heed sizzers kick' from an unmarked Danny Ings, which gave Freddie Woodman in the Toon goal, nee chance, az he woz rooted to the spot! 1-0 to 'them' at the break!
The 2nd half woz dominated by VAR decisions, which went against us, az Lascelles woz deemed to handle the baall in the box and after a lengthy VAR check a penalty woz given to the home side, much to the disgust of the 3,000 away followers in The Doug Ellis Stand on the side of the pitch! El Ghazi took it and sent Woodman the wrang way, to put us 2-0 behind!
Az we hadn't had a single shot on target til this point, it didnt look good!
It got even worse when Callum Wilson woz hauled doon in the box and a penalty woz awarded to 'us'
After wot seemed like half an hour, the decision woz owertorned, az Wilson woz deemed by VAR to be offside and a free kick woz given to the home side instead, much to the anger of the Toon fans, some of whom started fightin' with the Villa fans, next to the segregation fence!
We DID have one shot on target in the 2nd half, by Saint Maximin in the 73rd minute, but it woznt to be and VAR and wor own shortcomings won the day and the game for Villa!
VAR aside, this woz a terrible performance by NUFC against a very average Villa side and of course Brucey had hiz ready made excuses for the post match press conference! (See below)
After the match we heeded back to 'The Welly' to droon wor sorrows, before catchin THREE trains back to The Toon!---On the train we bumpted into 'Simon from Whitley Bay' and 50 of hiz party, who had came doon by bus, but the driver 'p*ssed off and left them stranded in the coach park next to the groond!
They didnt have any train tickets of course, but luckily for them, there were nee ticket checks on the entire jorney back and the ticket gates were open at 'The Central' when we arrived at '11:11pm bells'!
Attendance 41,964 includin nearly 3,000 Toon fans