So. it turns out that it WAS a good time to play Norwich

Probably like most of us I had not noticed how bad a run the Canaries were on before coming to Oakwell. They may still be in the top part of the table but that is only because of their good start. Since beating Rotherham on the 15th October they came to us having only won one game in eight, and that was at home to Brentford last Saturday. Of course, in the normal course of events, that would mean an automatic win against us but no.....it was finally our turn to beat them. In my long years of watching Barnsley I might have only seen us beat them once before. I can't remember when though, so what a tonic it was to get the three points on Saturday.

I've missed the last three home games due to some recently acquired employment which unfortunately means some Saturdays are working days. So it was with a great deal of anticipation that I made my way down the A1 on Saturday but, at the same time, a bit of trepidation as well due to our abysmal record against them. I really didn't expect us to win and, with that in mind, I didn't bother putting my usual few pounds on us at the betting shop under the ESL. That was the only blot on the day though. Well, that plus witnessing yet another edition in the long running series of "Great Referees That Have Been at Oakwell". I know that some have said he did ok because he let the game flow. Well I saw it as he didn't have the courage to penalise the "big boys" against the "minnows" so let them get away with everything while occasionally giving decisions against us when it was our player that was fouled. As for his pacing out ten yards..........well, that was a new thing in referee ineptitudiness!

I've only watched the first half back on Player so far but that incident where he quite plainly measured out TWELVE paces was a cracker. I wish our defensive wall had just taken the initiative and stepped forward two yards in protest. Maybe the skipper could then have marched ten yards himself towards the ball to show the ref he had got it wrong. Of course, then, he would have been booked for dissent but the point would have been made. I wonder if the ref would have had the courage to book all of the wall if they had stepped forward? None of that happened though and that just set the tone for the rest of his lack of professionalism. He allowed the Norwich players to engage in heated debate with him all through as well and I'm sure that referees were supposed to be clamping down on that this season. A prime example was when Yiadom handled in our box and the black gloved Oliveira complained loudly and long about it. He may have had a point, but then again we should have had a blatant penalty later on when Scowen was dragged down quite obviously.

Anyway, you could say that none of that mattered because we won but he was the kind of ref who loses teams matches when they deserve to win so we did well to battle against him as well as a pretty slick Norwich team. They showed their pedigree all the way through, despite our domination of the first half. It's a shame that they had to resort to the gamesmanship stuff as well, but we have to expect that playing teams like that. I'm so glad though that we got the early goal because I think that made them come out and attack us without resorting to time wasting, like most teams do when they take the lead at Oakwell. What a fabulous goal it was as well! Despite our home commentator thinking, at first, that Scowen's cross had gone straight in (where were you looking Matt? ) It was a superb cross right to Bradshaw's feet about eight yards out and he didn't break stride in sweeping it home at the near post. THAT is what we have paid a lot of money for and, for me, THAT is why he should be in the team on a regular basis.

Super Sam then contrived to blast over with most of the goal to aim at but let's not criticise him too much for that. He had another good game and all that was lacking was a goal. But then the skipper finally found his old shooting boots again (they must have been at the bottom of his wardrobe). He launched one into the top corner to make it 2-0 and even some of the Norwich fans were clapping that goal. It was another sublime goal from his list of many since joining us but it could so easily not have happened. Scowen was chopped down at the start of the move and the ref ignored it. Then Bree was chopped down as he motored towards the bye line - ignored again. A poor attempt at a cross was then half cleared to Hourihane who did what he does best. Cue delirium in the stands! 2-0 up against Norwich? Must be some mistake.

One more mention of the first half action has to be that comical throw in saga near the ESL half way line. The player was stealing yards (again) until finally the ref told him to go back. He did so and then, unbelievably, decided to repeat the yards stealing. Howls of protest from the stands perhaps made Mr Woolmer give the throw in to us as a punishment. A better decision would have been to give the player a yellow card, if only for being stupid. Of course we then promptly gave it back to them, but that's our normal throw in routine. We hardly ever make anything of them. Anyway, despite all the ref's best efforts, he couldn't get them anything so we deservedly 2-0 up at half time.

I won't say much about the second half for two reasons. We were hanging on for a lot of it and a good job we made of that too, so they won that half really, without getting as many goals as us obviously. The other reason is that I haven't seen the second half replay so I can't check what happened. So, from memory, all I will say is that some of our tackling was out of this world and some of their finishing was shocking. Like Brum last week, the result could have gone either way but they only had one goal to show for it. Speaking of throw ins, this came from one of theirs. That man Oliveira received it, turned inside and moved forward unchallenged into a shooting position. You could argue that Davies could have saved it - he seemed to dive over it - but it was well hit and had some dip on it. That was sort of inevitable and I feared the worst, but we stuck with it.

That tackle from Marc Roberts was possibly the stand-out moment of the second half. He won it brilliantly - some have said like Bobby Moore might have done - and came away with the ball. Amazing the ref didn't see it as a foul though, but it clearly wasn't. Then of course we scored again following a good Ryan Kent run which ended up with the goalscorer offside. That would have settled the nerves for the rest of the match but, fortunately, 2-1 proved to be enough. It almost felt like an old fashioned cup win to me - lots of noise and excitement and us through to the next round having beaten a "bigger" team. Let's hope that we rub a few more money-ed noses in the dirt between now and May. This is a really good time to watch Barnsley and I will be disappointed if we don't finish in the top half.

January is the key to the rest of the season. We could end up boosting the bank balance and weakening the team. Or......we could keep what we have, pay them a bit more and make one or two more good signings. I hope it's the latter, then we can look forward to a good second half of the season and another good one next year.

 

I hold my hands up on that one, very poor! Floodlight glare or summat, it happens once every 5 years or so

Great goals, excellent win and we're showing we have what it takes to compete with the best at this level, which is brilliant to see

 

Ahhh, that old floodlight glare chestnut. I can see that, with the ball being played all along the ground - that might have been an issue

Not having a go, really - another good commentary (what I have heard of it, that is). A bit low on the co-commentator's mic again though. Is there nothing we can do about this? I had to turn up the volume so that you were shouting just to hear what he was saying.

 

I had him on full volume on the mixer and he was wearing the headset he uses for hospital radio broadcasts but the pick up was still poor for some reason. I'm going to try and see if it's possible to put the summariser mic output onto a 2nd track on the recorder/mixer in future, so that I can boost the signal afterwards if required.

 

I've seen the second half on Player now, and it was pretty much how I remember. We could barely get hold of the ball could we? When we did get a kick it was mostly a misplaced pass to the opposition or a hoof to no one in particular, with one notable exception. The one criticism that I have of Marc Roberts is his distribution and on Saturday he was his usual self. Great at defending, hopeless at finding a red shirt with the ball. But.....when he made that GAME WINNING tackle in the 86th minute he then played a sublime long ball for Payne to run on to. It came to nothing but it was probably his best pass of the season.

What about that tackle though! Had he got that wrong two things could have happened. Oliveira could have gone down dramatically and got a free kick in a dangerous position. Or he could have skipped the tackle and had a clear run into the area for an almost certain goal. Roberts timed the tackle to absolute perfection and his momentum got him the ball and the chance to immediately get up and play the ball forward. As I said, that intervention won us the match. After that it was backs to the wall for another nine minutes or so but somehow we survived.

Great performances all over the pitch. Great result and wouldn't it be marvelous if we beat our Hillsborough hoodoo tomorrow night? We've seen the Norwich bogey off so why not add Wednesday now?