Men of iron

I woke up at five for some reason and I stayed awake until I got up at ten. The snow has now nearly all gone. . . .

Robert arrived late morning for the match, and at two, me and Andrew and him set off for Cardigan Park, and Athletic’s first league match for a month, against strugglers Scawcroft Main. The steady, unrelenting drizzle made things pretty dour and the crowd was pathetically small.

Scawcroft played better than I remembered from last year and at times looked quite dangerous. Yet Athletic were always in control and apart from a few dicey moments – Ackroyd saved on the ground and another time a Scawcroft shot ricocheted off the post – Athletic never looked in danger. They strung some good moves together and after half-an-hour a free kick by Wild sailed into the net without their ‘keeper even moving. The game got scrappy midway through the second half but Athletic were always cruising. Goal number two came fifteen minutes from time, a superb Broome header. We went home happy.

Andrew packed for most of the evening and the atmosphere was good humoured. At ten we watched Wajda’s ace Man Of Iron which we thought was brilliant, although it was horrible and frustrating to watch Big Brother wielding authority supposedly in the peoples’ name.