Take Me to Another Place (well, after the match)

Hopperational details

Saturday 11 September 2010, Marine 1  Colwyn Bay 1 at the Arriva Stadium, in the FA Cup First Round Qualifying game between these two Step 3 Northern Premier League sides.  I am here because I rolled a 4 to choose among six tasty ties with S3 sides at home!

This match in one sentence

Colwyn Bay took the lead with a third minute own goal by Ian Latham and had chances for a second, before Marine’s second-half equaliser set up an end-to-end finish.

So what?

Marine take their 100% away record to North Wales for a replay on Tuesday and Colwyn Bay may yet regret those first-half missed chances.

Who caught the eye on the pitch?

Kevin Leadbetter (Marine) for the dipping and swerving equaliser out of the blue in the 57th minute.

This match had the same effect on my pulse rate as …

Until the 56th minute: watching the Test Card while listening to 1/1 from Brian Eno’s Ambient: Music for Airports. Thereafter: listening to a Stuart Hall match report from Goodison Park on 5 Live Sports Report.

A snippet from the programme

Mark Saunders is writing a rolling commentary on a game of Football Manager 2010 that he is playing as manager of Marine.  This is quality – such blurring between the real and imaginary world is to be encouraged.  In this issue, Mark writes a full page about his man management during a pre-season e-friendly with Weston-Super-Mare.  I really did understand his joy as his second-half readjustments after a red card led to a virtual 1-0 e-win.

What I learned today

Dave Challinor (Colwyn Bay’s player-manager) once held the record for the longest throw in football.

Modus Hopper Random Talking Point

Crosby is also home to Anthony Gormley’s Another Place, an installation of cast iron statues facing out to sea along two miles of the beach.  They are only fully visible at low tides.  Some of them were made in my home town of West Bromwich.  Wikipedia records the various controversies about the impact of the installation (possible impact on birdlife, the statues’ basic genitalia, increasing local tourism and so on) but I just love the fact that the University of Liverpool used them for a study of barnacle colonisation behaviour.  It’s good to know that our chances of getting a barnacle on the bum while swimming across the Mersey are now clearly understood.  Well, it could happen, if you miss the Ferry.

Anthony Gormley's iron men appear to be lining up 4-4-2 against the barnacles

Marine 'keeper Ryan McMahon explains to his statuesque defence that he wants four in the sea wall