'What will you do, when the war is over, Tender Comrade?' once asked Billy Bragg. The answer to his question could have been answered by the assorted boys and girls of the assembled cadets to the left of the pitch. They must be mad! Who in their right mind would go running and crawling across mud on a Sunday morning, dressed only in a thin uniform, getting soaked to the skin in the pissing down rain. Oh yes, us.

The Dale is a seriously weird place to play football. Firstly the tanks and armoured vehicles parked just by the changing rooms. Not forgetting the bullet shells found by some of our kids in the trees by the pitch. And better we forget the fact that we were 20 seriously scruffy individuals, driving cars into the middle of a heavily populated military facility in the North West of an officially 'at war' country, without so much of an ID check. As I said, strange. Saying that though, one look at the Gamekeeper's skinhead centre half (Johnno I think he was called) would be enough to make Osama Bin Laden, Gadaffi and Saddam Hussain shite themselves. Not dirty, just massive.

Ally that to the fact that we witnessed possibly the most bizarre refereeing performance EVER, a fact agreed on by both teams. This hapless individual put in such a poor performance that both lines wanted to string him up at one stage. I know they do it out of good heart, and without them we couldn't play, but this guy took the piss. A couple of bookings and a sending off in a game played in good spirits, offsides that never were, penalties that should have been, and worst of all, the unbelievably irritating blowing his whistle five seconds after an incident to award something. Mad. Five out of ten, only to avoid the hassle of a report. This guy would have been subbed after ten minutes if he had been a player.

The game itself? Well, first half we were outstanding. With Andy Johnson and Rob Reay both out injured, and with Steve Painter having been up at a fire in Runcorn until 5am the night before, to come in at half time at one all was a credit. Unfortunately, half time came at a bad time. We had gone down to an iffy goal (not only a hint of offside, but the non-penalty for handball before the home side broke was unbelievable) which was well taken, but levelled when Stu Musgrave, playing possibly his best game in a Blue and White shirt, was upended after beating 3 men in the box. Tommy Hollinger sent the goalkeeper the wrong way with a lovely penalty. One each. 

We then proceeded to concede five goals in the first twenty five minutes of the second half. The main differences in the sides being a couple of bad defensive errors, and Steve Rowlands. This lad is quality, and tore our right hand side apart time after time. At six one down the lads really rallied. The scoreline was VERY unfair, and when Brian Potts, on for the impressive Hollinger, crossed into the danger area, Neil Howell scored with the outside of his right foot from six yards. This is practically akin to someone else scoring from thirty five yards, as Howell Juniors efforts are usually from six inches out. When MOM contender Musgrave (a toss up between him and the outstanding man of the match Graeme Reynolds, deputising for Rob Reay at left full back) played the ball into the box on 85 minutes, Paul Brazier took the ball off Neil Howell's foot for the ISA third, his first of the season. 

The goalkeeper, annoyed to be letting goals in against a side four Leagues below, kicked Brazier as he went to get the ball out of the net. The referee, seeing this, sent him off when a yellow card would have sufficed. The kick was more a joke rather than malicious, and the referee should have taken it in the context it was meant. Never mind. The game ended 6-3, the home side magnanimous in their praise of the Section D side, who could not help but be gutted in the Eight Rights after. Still, the chip butties and good beer helped erase the depression, and in the brighter light of Monday morning a glow of pride was felt about how we had gone away to a top drawer side, and held them for 45 minutes. If only we had been on form at the back, well, who knows?