Port Vale 2 - Millwall 0 (Back to Report Lists) Very late with this report and there is nothing too onerous as to my reluctance to put finger to keyboard, the simple fact is I have been suffering from a particularly nasty viral infection that has knocked me out of my stride. And for those couple of female readers out there, no, it’s not ‘man flu’, it’s, as I said, a nasty viral infection that bears a remarkable similarity to the dreaded ‘man flu’ but clearly, not the same thing. If it was ‘man flu’ I’d be out for the rest of the season like Shanksy May or poor wee Tommy Brighton. To be honest I was as rough as a badgers arse before we got to Vale Park. But I was looking forward to the visit to Port Vale as I am keen on visiting the famous ports of England and the added bonus of a spectacular valley to boot was just too good to miss, no matter how ill I was. What a fucking con. a) Where’s the fucking port with all the ships etc? b) A poxy pothole in high street does not constitute a fucking valley. I have banged a letter off to the advertising standards committee about this. I want the name changed to Burslem United or something of that ilk because they are trading under a false identity, the pot spinning, chancers. And the ground itself? What the fuck was that all about? A half built, Algerian ruin of a place that managed to suck every inch of cold north wind into every inch of my carcass. By God it was freezing. At one stage I thought someone was tap dancing in the concourse then I realised it was my bloody teeth chattering. Huge gangs of brass monkeys were roaming all over the place looking for lost balls….Scott of the Antarctic would’ve shunned exploring this godforsaken place in these temperatures… So obviously, I was hoping against hope that the Lions would warm the cockles of my poor, frozen heart but it nearly stopped beating completely when I realised that Dunne was once again in the starting line up. Oh no, Wullie, no, Wullie, no. How could you treat the 300 odd die-hard fans that made the trip so poorly? Look, I’ll give it too you straight. Whatever Dunne has got over you, we can sort it out. If he has compromising photo’s of you in a kilt doing unmentionables to a haggis, if he has video recordings of you singing your wee Scots heart out to flower of Scotland whilst simultaneously interfering with a thistle, it don’t matter. Wullie, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the DB’s. They will not question your shortcomings. They will not flinch from going in where it hurts. No names, no pack drill and before you know it, no more Alan Dunne to haunt your life. If you wish hard enough, dreams can come true…..then we can all relax and enjoy watching Millwall again…. Pidgers, on the other hand, is beginning to get to me. He is still like a finger, twitching on the trigger of a gun when dead balls and corners come flying into the box but his shot stopping is pretty decent. Danny Senda is always worth the entrance fee and with Shaw and Robbo combining well together it leaves Tony Craig as a bit of a weak link in the defensive quartet. Brammer, Ardley, both are assets, but Elliott is not picking up at all in the presence of these two consummate professionals. He is clearly getting ready to move on and it will be no great loss at all. Bomber and Baby Boy work well together so no surprise that they were leading the attack. So that was the line up as referee Haywood got things under way and it was the home side that did all the running, with the two big lads up front, Sodje and Constantine, both looking like a handful. It took a while for the Lions to get going and it is good to report that Bomber is looking more and more livelier every time I see him play. Very busy, full of running, creating and taking chances, more like his old self. I think he has proven to be an asset now and the disbelievers can maybe shrug off their remaining doubts and accept that Bomber is not just going to a flash in the pan. However, the same may not quite be said for Baby Boy. Not one of his better efforts, he appeared to want to spend more time on his arse than he did playing football. Petulance will never win you any admirers and it was clear that ref Haywood was not impressed with the theatrics from Byfield, almost every time he got tackled. Anyway, the pressure was clearly on the defence and as I said earlier the two big lads up front were causing us problems and when, after about ten minutes, the caramel skinned Constantine elegantly skipped past the beleaguered Tony Craig, you had to fear the worse. His pinpoint cross into our penalty area was met with some venom by the inrushing Whitaker and Pidgers had no chance. 1-0. To be fair, this gave us a kick up the proverbials and we finally started to get things going. But why does it take a goal against to do this? We started playing some neat football, spreading it around, Brammer and Ardley in particular, slowly bossing the midfield despite the attempts of Dunne and the somewhat clueless Elliott, doing their best to balls things up. Senda was backing up the midfield though and sent in a couple of decent crosses that we should have capitalised on. Byfield eventually got a shot away on one occasion and Harris came the closest to getting on the score sheet with a blocked shot then another cracking effort that thumped against the bar. Brammer, getting booed every time he touched the ball by the home fans, hit another slide rule pass to Baby boy who unselfishly passed to, of all people, Dunne, who managed to miss the target with some aplomb. So despite Dunne’s input, it all boded well for the second half as the ref called a halt to the first half, with Millwall in the ascendancy and looking quite capable of not only equalising but actually going on to win the game. Well, the MISA reps were out and about for this game and Elephantman and Simba did well to spot me cowering at the back of the stand with MrsB, shivering and shaking like a pair of St Vitas dance merchants. HPS, Dubai Dan, Crunchie, Lags, The Doc and the Viking were alongside of us but some of them did look a little bit under the weather. Perhaps they had the same nasty viral infection that I had……..hmmmm…. Did I mention how fucking cold it was? It was taters!! The second half brought forward oor Wullies tactical tinkering again and see if you can work this one out. He took off Ardley, brought on Pubey, switched Dunne over to the right wing and moved Bomber onto the left wing. Well that’s how I remember it, anyway, but if I got it wrong, feel free to correct me. What has Dunne got over him? Harris, to his credit, carried on regardless and was soon creating more havoc in the home sides defence but we were not getting the final touches to get us on the scoreboard. In fact, from one of Bomber’s raids, Dunne once again fluffed his lines and his poor attempt was gathered by the Vale ‘keeper who launched a massive kick up the park which should have been dealt with comfortably by our defence, unfortunately, the bounce fooled everyone except Sodje who looped a header up and over the stranded Pidgers and into the Millwall net. 2-0. Oh dear. Cue random shouts of abuse from some of the Millwall faithful, even ludicrous shouts for oor wullie to piss off back to jockland, and our heads were down. But not the players though. It seems oor wullie has put a bit of steel into the lads backbones and they never laid over and died. They went out fighting for everything and the introduction of Loanie Smith was a welcome sight but although I applaud taking off Elliott, I still would have been happier if it had been Dunne. Smith looked very good indeed. Nippy, skilful, can pass a ball properly, cross a ball properly, yes, very good indeed. I lost count of the number of chances we had after the substitution, it really was beyond belief that we didn’t score. Bomber, Pubey, Craig, Byfield all had more than a couple of chances but we just didn’t seem to have the little bit of luck that was needed. Port Vale realised that we were one goal away from kick starting a very real comeback and so they spoiled the game wherever they could with a foul here, play acting there and to cap it off, Vale’s prolific red card collector, Jason Talbot, dropped knee first into Ryan Smith’s face, earning him another red one for his collection. What followed is anybodies guess. It was all happening at the far right hand end of the pitch and it was hard to fathom out what was going on. The home crowd were incensed over something but God knows what and the game was held up for what seemed like for ever and when referee Haywood finally restored order the 10 men of Port Vale seemed to re take control of the game, even managing to hit the post with a shot from Sonner. The game just petered out and with it went our faintest hopes of making the play offs. We didn’t hang around on the final whistle so I didn’t gauge the fans reaction or the player’s for that matter. It was just too frigging cold and I needed to get warm so we headed straight back to the Bonemobile, put the heater on full blast and bade farewell to the phoney ‘Port Vale’ which is really Burslem in disguise. Swansea at home coming up and our chance to put a spanner in the works of our sheep shagging visitors hopes of a play off place. Oh and don’t forget the bigger game earlier in the day when MISA take on MO. I’ll be there as long as this nasty viral infection has cleared up….