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BLIND, STUPID AND DESPERATE
 
96/97 review:
December
 
Brighton to Bristol for a midweek game? I rather think not. Gifton scored again, Gary Penrice conceded a rather iffy penalty, we got yet another draw.

Sticking five past non-league Ashford will hardly rate as our greatest achievement of all time but we did the job, David Connolly coming off the bench to net a late hat-trick. Perhaps the most notable incident was the most blatant penalty in the history of All Things Ever - Stuart Slater was up-ended by the keeper as he was about to slide the ball into the unguarded net for his first Watford goal and, incredibly, the referee decided that he dived.

More refereeing controversy at Walsall, comfortably the worst display by an official that I saw during this campaign (those who were at Preston might argue otherwise). David Connolly won and missed a penalty, was roundly abused by various opposition players as the referee scampered away to the half-way line and was then involved in an on-going fracas for the rest of the game. What started as an entertaining, competitive match ended with fury and chaos - considering all of that, we did quite well to get a point.

The Christmas games against Gillingham and Notts County, both struggling towards the bottom of the table, were only marginally more interesting than the alternative festive pastime of spending three hours talking to Mad Aunty Beryl about the good old days before the war. Finding anything to say about them was difficult enough the first time around, so I'm certainly not going to try again...