No other way to put it, last night was totally a worse case scenario, for Spartans that is. For Town, last neet truly was best case scenario and a great advert for them.
A packed out crowd with it only being a fiver to get in, brilliant pints on tap and most importantly of all, some very good football on display from them at times. Didn’t bother testing out the bait as sampling pints was a bit more important, and became essential as the game went on but our resident fat lads all said ‘it was canny’.
Make no mistake about it, Spartans were sloppy, uncoordinated and well off the mark but, take nothing away from Town. They were up for it from the get go, well organised and played some entertaining football as the game grew on. Apart from the goal from the corner, they needed no luck at all as they did well and truly thrash us.
Line up wise we started off with about 6 trialists, Rhys, Dev’s, Rio, Harrison Clark and 2021/22’s top scorer JJ O’Connell.
Whilst in the opening exchanges it was a pretty balanced affair, we created the odd chance but the only decent attempts on goal came from about 25 yards out. Going forward though we looked poor and just simply lacked ideas before they went 1-0 up with a decent header.
At this stage Town became more confident and started to play some good stuff, and probably should have made it 2-0 before half time.
The second half started off much like the first half ended, with Town looking much more up for it and grafted a lot more than most of the Spartans team did. After the goal directly from corner from Harry Sawyer (who ironically is a Spartans fan) that was it. Some players seemed to switch off and Town deservedly, smashed us.
As for some of the lads we had playing as trialists last night, fucking wow. You’d think as trialist the idea would be to put a shift in and graft ya bollocks off to try and impress the management, fans and potential new team mates to earn a move.
Alas, some of the lads who featured last night were miles off it. The odd one not even bothering to put a shift in. I don’t like to use terms like ‘you’re not fit to wear the shirt’ and such other phrases lightly, but some of those lads last night came close.
Yes it’s early in pre-season, yes there’s still a while to go until the lads fully fit but fuck me… we need some bodies in sooner rather than later. Of course the budget will only stretch so far, so Graham and Jon Shaw have to be economical when it comes to bringing the right players in.
Anyway, if for whatever reason Spartans don’t have a game are you’re not up for an awayday, I’d recommend checking the odd Town game out if you get chance. Canny set up at Gateway and they’ll likely have a very good season.
