A fine “hello” to you, fine readers of Last Word On Sports – welcome to “My Old Man’s Footy Report”. Allow myself to introduce… ehm… me. My name is Ed Crane and here is your weekly take on football (yes, football, not soccer) in England! Let’s Go!!
As England are on international duties in tidying up the qualification for the World Cup, this past weekend of English league football left those in SkyBet Leagues 1 & 2 to take the limelight for once. So, first up was a match I attended, as I’m a home town boy, it was Shrewsbury Town v Gillingham. Not the tastiest of matches on paper, and for the traveling support, about as dull as dish water. My boys, Shrewsbury, recorded their second win of the season with a well deserved 2-0 win with a Joe Jacobson bullet header on the back post in the first half, and a well delivered goal by Liam McAlinden on loan from local rivals, Wolverhampton Wanderers. In truth, Shrewsbury were running Gillingham off the Meadow, so much so that Martin Allen, who was in charge of Gillingham, was promptly shown the door the day after. And it couldn’t have happened to a better manager. Yes, that was sarcasm.
The other big game in League 1 was homeless – yes, you read that correctly – homeless Coventry City’s match with Sheffield United. Again, not a top level clash, although 20 years ago that was the case. Oh, how times have changed! However, Coventry seem to smash them in for fun at the moment, as well as concede for joy. The more English of us know how this went down….yes! Indeed you are correct, as Coventry scored a few and also conceeded only a couple this time out. The score line was 3-2 with a brace of goals each for Clarke of Coventry and Taylor for managerless Sheffield United, who are now rooted to the bottom of the table.
And the last significant mention for this week goes to not a match result, or even a club in England, but to a bunch of “Ultras” in Bulgaria’s league, most specifically CSKA Sofia who had their new manager, who used to manage their cross city rivals (not that that should make any difference at all) resign a few hours after signing on. Fair play to them standing by their roots, but you’d rather have no success?! Okay, your club!!
This has been Ed Crane, not the newscaster from America, but the lesser known one from Shrewsbury, UK. Next week, the Premier League is back and I go to Anfield, home of Liverpool FC!”
Thanks for reading. Be sure to follow me on Twitter – @edjcrane, and follow the site while you’re at it – @LastWordOnSport.
