A well known bookmaker who offers ‘bet in play’, is withholding payment pending an inquiry following unusual betting patterns and a late rush of gambling on the goal scoring sequence in Saturday’s match. Selected pre-match odds for ‘First Goal Scorer’ were – 5/1 Gutteridge, 5/1 Warburton,  6/1 Lilley, 8/1 Bolton, 8/1 Whittaker, 16/1 Dickinson, and 100/1 Hogg.  In a seemingly co-ordinated attempt at a coup, a rash of late bets were placed on ‘Dickinson to score first’, and several tried to combine in a double with ‘Dickinson to score twice’.  

The outcome of this match was far from crucial for either side, but for Villa, a victory would have leap-frogged them over a couple of teams into what would have been a fairly respectable finish, given their position near the bottom at the turn of the year.  But in a rather dour affair, Villa managed three efforts on goal during the first half and just two in the second, whilst for their part, the home side managed just the one on target in each half, both of which were well saved by Ross Baxter – yet they still managed to win 2 – 1!

Matt Conway and David Warburton were the architects of the first Villa effort, combining to set up Ryan Lilley, but ‘keeper Tebay got down to smother bravely at feet. And it was not until half an hour had elapsed before Stoneclough had their first shot, which brought a great save from Baxter.  From the resultant corner, Ross Dickinson stole round the blind side, and picking his spot, delivered a precision header past the stranded Baxter. Now, either Early Onset Alzheimer’s made him temporarily forget that he hadn’t gone up for a corner but was meant to be defending, or I refer you to the opening paragraph.

Villa pressure produced a series of free kicks from handy positions, but no-one was able to test Tebay from any of those. A Mark Swift effort Rick O’Shay’d off the wall and David Warburton was first to the rebound, but good defending blocked his double attempt to capitalise. The visitors restored the parity five minutes before the interval, when Lilley caught everybody by surprise with a fierce early shot from an acute angle, which smacked the back of the net before anyone could react. 

The second half was notable only for a paucity of chances for either side. Matt Conway had the crowd momentarily on it’s feet, metaphorically speaking, with a trademark stunning volley from fully forty yards, but though Tebay ‘never smelt it’, it was fractionally the wrong side of the post.

The game had ‘end of the season tedious draw’ written all over it, so Mr Dickinson decided to take charge.  A harmless through ball, bound for a striker clearly in an off-side position, bounced up in front of him. But, in the modern way of interpreting such situations, neither flag nor whistle came into play as said striker had not yet moved toward the ball, and when Mr Dickinson casually headed the ball past a dumbstruck Baxter, the referee had no choice but to award the goal!  Such was the deliberate nature of the finish, that I have no choice but to refer you again to the first paragraph.

So a roller coaster of a season ended with not so much a bang, more of a whimper, and on a day without many positives, Mark McDonnell will be able to reflect on the possibility of addressing the lack of goals by redeploying one of the three stalwarts whom he himself dubbed ‘the new Adams, Bould and Keown,’ but perhaps that should be ‘the Good, The Bad and the Ugly’ – I’ll leave you to decide which is which! Oh, and we all know who’s buying the beer at the presentation day!

Villa: Ross Baxter, Darren Davies, Ross Dickinson, Lee Chambers, John Salisbury, Mark Swift (Adrian Briggs 70), Matt Conway, David Warburton, Matt Conway, Danial Hogg (Tom Whittaker 63), Alex Gutteridge, Ryan Lilley.