Tooley’s Take

Phil Tooley takes a look at the game and its context

Carlisle United 0 Chesterfield 2

League Two Game #20

Sylvia and I stayed for a couple of nights in Kendal, so on Saturday morning, an easy trip up the A6 rather than its motorway counterpart to Carlisle. On the journey we passed through a village called Clifton, whose sign proclaimed ‘last battlefield on English soil, 1745’. Intriguing. Bonnie Prince Charlie (who had been stopped a couple of weeks earlier in Derbyshire, the anniversary of that is on Wednesday) was retreating and got into a skirmish with the Duke of Cumberland’s forces in the aforementioned Clifton. I’d never heard of it.

A quick look up on Saturday night showed that ‘Battle’ was a bit of an exaggeration, and the more I read into it, the more Carlisle United (14 fouls committed) v Chesterfield (nine fouls) at Brunton Park could lay claim to being more of a scrap than Charlie versus the man known as Butcher Cumberland (did he invent a sausage?) who did a bit more battling and butchering at Culloden (in Scotland) four months later.

As at Swarkestone Bridge, when the guys from Derbyshire were too strong for them from t’North, Chesterfield got more things right than the Cumbrians, who whilst not butchered, clearly didn’t have the right tools to cut through Spireites defences, nothing sharp, no cutting edge, and their own rearguard wasn’t fast enough to cope with Dilan Markanday and Armando Dobra. They both linked up with Will Grigg to deliver the two killer blows.

Grigg laid the ball to the Blackburn Rovers man to score with some pizzazz and some help from keeper Gabriel (a good seasonal name) Breeze in the first half, and then in the second, Armando beat Aaron Hayden to a header, burst forwards, again got the better of Hayden to squeeze the ball to Grigg to make it 2-0. Tenacious D’s run was persistent, determined, relentless and worthy of Jack Black & Kyle Gass’s comedy rock duo’s song Wonderboy.

Hayden, who was a Hollywood star, the man who frequently got on the end of Ben Tozer’s Exocet throws, slumped to his haunches in a sort of ‘I surrender’ position, acknowledging just how much he’d had his mind and body toyed and twisted by the Albanian Wizard. One of the moments of the season.

The goals came at the perfect times for the unchanged, from the Tranmere win, side. A lack of goals and no particular goal scorer has been Carlisle’s problem this season, but they worked incredibly hard, were always in Town’s faces, and forced a decent Thompson save at 0-0. Whilst they rarely looked poised to score, they frequently looked poised to deliver, but didn’t as the back four and midfield of Chesterfield hassled and tackled non-stop.

Late on sub Bailey Hobson somehow scooped one off the line from a corner. Despite being substantially less easy on the eye than against Tranmere a week earlier, Chesterfield had remembered exactly what to do when in a good position.

It was never a passing game, never a thoroughbred game, there were a couple of #Cookball moves, but it was always more a skirmish than a football match, a definite battle with some full-blooded tackles, a few off-the-ball moments and two fully committed sides. Never a dull moment, rarely a flowing movement.

United were unbeaten in five, they have some excellent players. There was a Scottish FA Cup finalist, two League Two play-off winners, a centre-half who scored 11 goals as Wrexham won the National League, a 19-times Northern Ireland international, a former Premier League player with Bolton, a two times Scottish Premier League winner who also has a Scottish Cup winners’ medal, a 50+ Championship appearance man for Millwall and two on-loan from Premier League Bournemouth who have both appeared in Cherries’ first-team games. That’s the ten outfield players. Admittedly, the keeper is a youngster with only a handful of appearances, and he should have saved the opener, but he didn’t, a bit of Spireites luck.

We need a bit of luck on the injury front. Tyrone dislocated his shoulder and Lewis was withdrawn at the interval, fingers crossed that they’re okay, whilst it was great to see Tom Naylor back, slotting in at the back to replace Williams.

The win means PC’s team has again accumulated more away points than home ones, but that could be put right next weekend when fourth-placed AFC Wimbledon come to the SMH, a position they’ve reached after three wins and a draw in four games, Doncaster Rovers were beaten 1-0 on Saturday. Maidenhead and Solihull nightmare Josh Kelly is a Womble, as is John-Joe O’Toole, a man Cookie was desperate to sign in his first spell here. Former Charlton player and manager Johnnie Jackson is in charge of the London-based side.

A couple of stats to end on. First of all, Harvey Araujo has now started 13 times in all competitions, eight won, four drawn and just one (at MK Dons) has been lost. That’s pretty decent. And secondly, the last time the Spireites won at Carlisle United in the EFL, the team won promotion! I’ll leave it there.

Phil’s Positive: Back-to-back league wins for the first time this season. Last three EFL Big W’s on the bounce? Spring 2015, when PC was here last. Hardly a surprise!

Next Match: It’s wear your Santa Hat Day against AFC Wimbledon (H) in EFL2, Saturday, December 21, KO 3pm. Full commentary for subscribers on the commentary platform (find details on Chesterfield FC website). Build-up from 2pm, half-time and post-match remains on the 1866 Sport App.

Chesterfield (4-1-2-3 to start): Thompson; Sheckleford, Williams (Naylor 61), Araujo, Gordon (Grimes 46); Banks; Mandeville, Dobra (Berry 78); Markanday, Grigg (Drummond 78), Colclough (Hobson 66). Unused Subs: Boot, Horton.