Just back

Yes Chris I was level with the box definitely a penalty came right through Lenny, the assistant running that line looked straight at the ref then ran off smiling as if he knew he'd got it wrong.

The flare came from Telford side from supporters taunting the town fans. The culprit and his sidekick in a bright red coat coolly laughed and joked behind the group of Telford fans.

Am I the only one who thought we played pretty good football today, we deserved to win, created chances but fell foul of a pretty good strike .

I'm not sure what else hurst could have done today. The side looked balanced, attacked with a bit of pace and on a different day we would have smashed Telford off the park. No one near me thought we would lose at any stage and tbh we thought it was only a matter of time till we scored. How we didn't get a pen at the end is amazing.

Compared to the tripe served up at Altrincham I thought it showed a bit of promise with a little tweaking.


O and I dislike hurst massively!!!!!!

Did anyone see PH giving any touch line instruction or encouragement  today? I rest my case.

Quoted from WappingMariner

Just back... On the train to London Euston. Today was incredibly frustrating. We started the game so negatively. Yes 4-4-2 worked at home in midweek but today, in the first half, we looked tentative. Disley and Brown played far too deep while Arnold seemed to be the only player who tried to run into space. Lenny probably should have scored when he lobbed Hall but put the ball into the stand. Their goal was a bit of a fluke but should have been prevented. Parslow, who at right back, was wasteful, gave the ball away and Parry gambled. His shot, from about 35 yards, swerved, took a deflection off Magnay?, before defeating McKeown.

You expected a reaction after that but it didn't come and we went into half time 1-1 and wondering what on earth was going on.

Second half we started unchanged. Mackreth's goal came against the run of play but was a superb, instinctive finish. Typically he was taken off because Hurst had already made up his mind who was coming off before we drew level.

After that you expected Town to press on and get the winner. Indeed, Town did press on, but no winner came.

I will always cheer Town but today I was bitterly disappointed. We knew that when presented with an attacking side Telford fold. In fact, even a Telford fan, who I spoke to after the game, said that "Telford usually lose after conceding the first goal" (the one that is usually the first in the match).

For me, that summed it up brilliantly. We did not take the lead and that was again our downfall.

I must have been to a different game than you, I thought we started the game well and for the first time for quite a while we looked up for it and in the first 25 minutes we could have had at least three goals. We played some good passing moves with Disley well involved.

However we soon lapsed into our usual unproductive mode and a dreadful pass by LJL to Disley led to their goal. Never been a fan of LJL since he signed but have to admit he has played well recently but for me he was back to his woeful worst today, kept giving away daft free kicks and moaning like a girl looking for fouls.

Arnold had his couldn't be bothered hat on and Mackreth was shockingly bad, until he scored that is then looked a different player till Hurst decided to meddle. I couldn't understand JPP going off as he looked like the only player who might get the winner.

Magnay had probably his worst game in a Town shirt with Parslow not much better all of which still leads me to believe we aren't good enough to get promoted especially struggling to get a point against the worst team in the league.

Back and a bit downhearted to be honest! However contrary to what other contributors have said I thought we started quite brightly attacking-wise. Firstly Pittman played LJL through and the keeper spread himself to make a good stop. I too thought the chip over the keeper was Pittman and then the best chance fell to LJL from another excellent cross but his effort "hit" the keeper as he was diving-to call it a save would've been stretching the bounds of reality but it had the desired effect.
The malaise that seems to affect the midfield from time to time-that of the dreadfully misplaced pass-struck quite early on and after riding our luck on several occasions we paid the maximum penalty as LJL sold Disley well short and their guy belted in a worldie. Some at the game seemed to blame McKeown but it moved a fair way in the air. The goal rocked Town back and for the remainder of the half I'd say they were on top. Mackreth was totally anonymous first half-saw quite a lot of the ball but absolutely no end product. Disley seemed destined to cover for Brown more than he should have needed to because the latter was having trouble getting into the game.
I'd have to disagree with Big Chris's assessment of Toto as well. I've read others thinking that he is "an accident waiting to happen" and for the first time today I could see where they are coming from. Everytime he got the ball when he had time he seemed to dither before hurrying his pass/clearance as he got closed down.
Town started the second half brightly and, at last, Mackreth got some joy down the right-actually taking on and beating his man although delivery was somewhat patchy. He did well for his goal being in the right place but much of the credit must go to Pittman for a fantastic cross.
I haven't read any of the other threads yet but would expect them to be full of criticism for the substitutions. For once I listened to Hurst's post match interview where he said it was his intention to substitute Mackreth anyway even before his goal and you actually wouldn't have found many fans around where I was stood to disagree. The shame was Pittman's substitution. Although I can fully understand his reasoning as given in the interview the sad fact was that with his departure any craft Town had all but disappeared. The guy stood next to me called it craft replaced by graft. Actually I'm struggling to remember any decent contribution made by Hannah or Neilson during their time on the pitch. The latter gave a masterclass in tying himself in knots without even the redeeming factor of playing not over-elaborate passes.
True we did fashion some late chances as we went all out but a flashing drive from Neilson and a poorly controlled free header from Pearson were never really going to trouble the electronic scoreboard. The "penalty" incident happened right in front of us and I thought it was nailed on.
Surprised no-one has mentioned the farce where Telford played on round one of their players lying on the floor and then berated Neilson for not kicking the ball out when they lost possession-preposterous...
Where I agree 100% with Big Chris is on his assessment of the policing-so far over the top as to be almost hysterical. Shepherded off the bus round the back of the stand with stewards placed at roughly 20 yard intervals. No option to seek anywhere to go for a drink. Searched three times (which is three times more than I've been searched in the last 20 years). When I announced to the steward that I had no intention of going into the ground at 2 O'Clock and that I intended to go to the club shop and then to the bar at the front I was told I didn't have a hope in hell of getting there. Ten minutes later I was in the bar which was populated by a couple of posters on here and absolutely no-one else. I don't know whether Telford run that bar but if they do then they lost out on a lot of money today..sad really. After the game-more of the same but this time backed up with two of the biggest dogs outside of a David Attenborough wildlife T.V. series...    

I thought we played ok today, better football than the last few games BUT subs change games and ours did today but not for the better.
No way Pitman should have gone off, Hanna was never going to change anything. Brown should have been changed with Clay as well.
Poor in the last third Lack of quality in set pieces especially corners. we must practice against dwarfs as we never clear the first man on match day.
It was Pitman who should have done better with the chip over the goalie not Lenny , Mac should have saved their 30 yard plus shot and we should have got a penalty  at the end, Another day we could have been out of sight by half time but we move on with only a point,
Its get the feeling its going to be a long two weeks till the next game especially on here.

Quoted from Grantham_Mariner

Did anyone see PH giving any touch line instruction or encouragement  today? I rest my case.

Does that necessarily make him a bad manager? Some of the best managers ever in English football have been pretty undemonstrative on the line...

What a frustrating afternoon. A reasonably local game for me (I live in Coventry) so me and my mate hopped in the car and headed to Telford for what we thought would be a comfortable win for the mariners. Really didn't expect us to be going a goal down initially, and then struggling to keep and maintain a goal to see us out for a draw.

We've both watched our share of poor performances from the mariners over the years, and whilst this doesn't rate up there in terms of ineptness, it was up there in frustration. Just careless mistakes, clueless lumping the ball up field, passes that even Stevie Wonder could see were just going to run into a dead end. It was baffling. What is it that makes us so damn inconsistent? Why are we struggling against rock bottom Telford? I have countless questions that I guess we won't get answers to.

I refused to boo the lads off, but I couldn't face to stand around and cheer them off as I have done for virtually every game I've seen them. Just had to get out of the ground and go home.

I think seeing that performance today any notion of promotion (let alone automatic!) went out of the window. We're stuck in this league for some time yet.

Played ood/bad at Braintree and we won - everyone happy
Played good/bad at Telford and only drew - most people hacked off

Only difference is result

Winning is everything and we aren't going to win every week

That said...

13 goals in two matches (Gateshead/Alfreton) has totally skewed our goals for column; in truth we are not and never have been under S&H and now H a prolific, free scoring team; lacks of goals will kill any chance of automatic promotion

Until that changes we will IMO be a play off team only

Had time to think about it now: I live in Wellington which is where Telford play of course.

We started off very well and were passing them off the park, good flowing football on a very wet but playable pitch. Missed a couple and hit their goalkeeper with a couple as well. We over elaborate at times and back heels, little flick were not needed. Some in our team seem to think they are Messi or Dani Alves, others think they can pass through the eye of a needle: they are non-league plays FFS, get a grip!

Telford's goal did not take a deflection, the guy hit it beautifully and it flew into the net: no chance of saving it. It came about as we messed around with the ball coming out of defence, we were looking comfortable and good on the ball, but Telford were pressing for the ball and we gave it away needlessly. Telford for the first time (in 20 minutes) began to believe and started to match us all over the park, but we still looked the better side. Even when we hadn't equalised by half-time I and everyone around me were confident we would score and most likely go on and win the game. We started the second half in a positive manner and took the game to them and our goal had been coming for some time. Once we scored the game changed, the Telford lads were knackered and we looked like it was only a matter of time before Lenny got his goal: then a strange thing happened, our goal scorer and the guy who put over the cross were both removed from the park and we lost all our momentum. Game over.

As others have said, very frustrating, another game we should have won slips past us.