Whenever we start playing toward the Ponty it's always a struggle. My initial reaction is always "oh no" or words to that effect.
It's a double edged sword attacking the Ponty in the 2nd half, great when we're attacking relentlessly and scoring but bloody awful when we're hanging on for grim death and all the action is nearly 100 yards away...
When football first came back from the lockdown, didn't they change the way the coin toss works? And has it changed back again yet? (I could look these things up, but I'm still in bed and feeling lazy).
Not keen on us kicking to the Ponty first, but always console myself with the thought that we managed to cope with it on 26 April 1997
Daniel Gray's book "Extra Time 50 further delights of modern football" devotes a chapter to kicking to the wrong end first half. "The referee raises his arms and performs an outtake disco-fever manoeuvre, signifying that the teams are to trade places. There rises from the stands a gasp. Breath is drawn on this subversion of normality. A visiting teenager has entered the good front room and put his shooed feet on the settee." Later in the book he writes of "Wins in a row." "Five-in-a-row would be nothing short of preposterous." "We look up, not down, giving play off places or European places the glad eye where before the relegation zone has us in its beady stare." Prescient or what? Anyway the book is a lovely read.
This time of the year it pays in the first half to shoot towards the north stand sunshine as Millwall took advantage of at the weekend.
On twitter BarnsleyFC stats , posted that we were considerably better kicking towards Ponte End in 1st half. They had stats from last 10 years I think