North Ferribeaten at Home

"... yet stands the church clock at 4.03, and is there any sugar for t'tea, love?"

Halifax won the flags-and-banners contest too

James Dean (9) prepares to be a nuisance in the box again

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 29 January 2011 at the Rapid Solicitors Stadium
Result	North Ferriby United 0 Halifax Town 3
Competition	Northern Premier League (step 3)
Hopping	Venue #369, I am here because of a lucky roll of two dice, lucky because many of the other fixtures on the shortlist were postponed.  This is the second time I have seen Halifax Town win without conceding this season.
This match in one sentence
Halifax scored at the right times to secure a very impressive and straightforward result in a potentially tricky fixture.
This match summed up in the alleged style of: Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull
The locals received a ranning, er, I mean a right tanning … and I would like to congratulate the honourable gentlemen from Hollyfox on their victory.
So what?
Halifax Town take another purposeful step towards this title and the Conference North on their road to recovery.  Their 15-point lead looks unassailable, especially with a game in hand over Colwyn Bay and many more goals in the “For” column than anyone else.  North Ferriby remain in the play-off zone in fourth position and they still have plenty to play for this season.
The drama unfolds
After a delayed kickoff to allow the long queues of spectators to get in, Halifax took the lead in the first minute.  A cross from James Dean was put away by Jamie Vardy.  0-1.  They went on to dominate most of the first half, in the manner of this first clip. North Ferriby had a couple of half-chances but Halifax’s Lee Gregory was also very close to scoring.  James Dean was a thorough nuisance to the home defence throughout the half. The second goal also came at a vital moment.  In first-half stoppage time, Gregory was able to turn and shoot for a deserved goal.  0-2 at half time. The second goal is celebrated in the traditional manner The goal of the day came from Vardy in the 56th minute as he finished superbly at the end of a great run.  0-3.  North Ferriby’s Ben Morley picked up a second yellow for an attempted tackle on Vardy and the game petered out with the visitors in the ascendancy.  Plaintive despairing calls of "Deano, set .. set" were heard periodically as the otherwise impressive #9 sometimes tried harder things when he had teammates in space.  Vardy was man-of-the-match - again.  Final score 0-3.
Alternative activity of equal excitement for tourists in North Ferriby
Trainspotting … Halifax supporters won’t agree, of course – they turned up in large numbers and were delighted with their team’s dominant performance.  For me as a passing neutral, this was an anti-climax of a match, and the result was never in doubt.  North Ferriby had been by all accounts the best team seen at The Shay and the only ones to leave Halifax with the points.  They had won their last home fixture 4-0.  The early goal killed the gameplan and the 46th minute goal ripped up the half-time team talk, I guess. By the way, the train is an oldish DMU (diesel multiple unit) of some description, but I am resisting the temptation to find out exactly which sort in case I get terminally interested.
A snippet from the programme
Good job I arrived early – they ran out!  The home fans definitely needed the “Half Time Humour” page.  It included an alleged quote from Bill Shankly which is always worth repeating: “Of course I didn’t take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present.  It was her birthday and would I have got married during the football season?  Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves.”
What I learned today
From “You are the Referee” in the programme: “It’s a last minute penalty to the away side who are 3-0 down but none of their players are prepared to take it as they say you have been so biased there is no point.  What do you do? – Call the side’s captain to you and ask him to tell you who will be taking the penalty kick.  If he refuses to do this, show him a yellow card for delaying the restart.  If he still refuses, show him a second yellow, followed by a red.  Abandon the game and report the full facts to the authorities.”
Something random
The name Ferriby derives from a Danish word, ferja, meaning what we now call a ferry.  The ferry in question went to, wait for it, South Ferriby, on the other bank of the Humber estuary.
What Next?
Something on Tuesday night, but too early to say.