To Scunthorpe with love

Ah, Scunny on a crisp autumn afternoon - a true joy to look forward to! 

Division three this year seems to be a guided tour of rough and rundown towns and cities in the north but there are grim town centres and then there is Scunthorpe.

It has the feel of a rundown seaside town. Only without the redeeming factor of the sea. We found what seemed like the only normal pub in town and took our seats for a few pre match bevies. Now, one thing that Scunny has a lot of are people with mullets. We counted a good dozen quality mullets within the hour. There were even a couple who looked like the American indie group 'Kings of Leon' with moustaches and self cut fringes. Marvellous stuff!

The game itself was pretty standard div 3 fare. Our initial excitement at what at first glance seemed a new all white Nike kit was dashed when we realised we were wearing Scunny’s training shirts due to a clash of colours! Surely Nike can run to a city 3rd shirt? The white did actually look pretty good. 

It was obvious from the off that Scunny are not as strong as they have been in recent years and city - looking more confident with Edmo returning - looked pretty solid if unspectacular. As the game wore on with good support from another respectable away following City looked the more likely to take the points.

That all changed when big Jonny Parkin took the law into his own hands and gently shoved Scunny defender Byrne aside in the build up to a city corner. Trouble being that a gentle shove from Jon is equivalent to being hit with a bulldozer and Byrne made the most of it leading to marching orders for the big man.

Despite the sending off, city remained on top with the usually dangerous Beagrie marshalled well. The better chances fell to us and we looked like coping and maybe even snatching the game until Torpey was sent off for striking Brassy (who seems to be returning to true form at last). Our famous inability to play against ten men (even when we have ten men ourselves) came back and the home team had chances to grab a late and undeserved winner.

All in all, a satisfactory 0-0 result given our recent run of form against Scunthorpe and defensively an improvement on recent weeks. The issue of goals still needs to be solved – but many Div 3 teams, Scunthorpe included, will be saying the exact same at the moment and there aren’t many 20 a season strikers loitering round waiting for jobs. 

Walking back to the pub in the freezing cold rain and darkness it was obvious that the winter has arrived. There’s some very tough games coming up but overall a young city team is still making steady progress and it could still be a very good first season for the new York City.