I resigned myself to the fact that I could not afford to travel to Coventry last Saturday and was happy enough to be glued to SkySports News come 3PM. However a phone call at half past 9 on Saturday morning from my good friend Luke presented me with the chance to hitch a lift with him.
Obviously I jumped at this chance and we left Scunthorpe at half past 11 travelling first to Sheffield to pick up our friend Will and then straight to Coventry.
We made it to Coventry with about an hour to spare which was plenty enough time to grab a subway and some cash from the Tesco’s situated next to the ground. The price for the match day ticket (despite me trying and failing to get in for an under 18) was £22. If I had to pay £22 to watch us play away from home in a poor stadium then I would most definitely be miffed, however the Ricoh Arena is a beautiful stadium and by a country mile the best in League 1.
On to matters on the pitch and we started well and pressed Coventry whilst also reducing the home team to a limited amount of good opportunities. This was up until a free kick which flew past Steve Mildenhall in the 35th minute from Carl Baker. Before the Coventry man had even struck the ball me and my fellow Iron fans were screaming to cover the gaping gap which the 2 Coventry men in our wall would leave open. That is the exact gap the ball was curled around. 1-0 down in previous games has been met by a quick succession of goals for the opposing team so you can forgive me for fearing the worst at this point.
8 minutes later a hopeful ball was lofted over the top of the Coventry defence and Leon Clarke managed to use the best of his strength to get into a position to shoot, however, the trailing Covenrty defender tripped and on his way down to the ground he clipped the back of Clarke’s heel bringing the Iron frontman to the deck. Stonewall penalty and after having seen the replay numerous times I stand by the Referee with his decision because it was absolutely spot on. So a chance to level things up just before half time then who knows what could happen in the second half! Clarke dispatched the penalty with ease into the left hand corner of Joe Murphy’s goal. 1-1 and despite the Iron being by far the better team for the half you would still be happy with this being the half time score. That would have been until we had a goal disallowed for a supposed shrug on Joe Murphy from Clarke. There was no push from an Iron player and thus we were robbed of a half time lead. I don’t care how much the Coventry fans complain about the ref making the game stop-start and being biased
towards us as they are wrong.
Coventry free kick that led to their goal – Soft.
Leon Clarke penalty – Spot on. Could have been a sending off for their man so a let off for Coventry.
Disallowed goal – Wrong decision. Let off for Coventry.
I sat at half time and felt the confidence ooze through my body, this was our game for the taking. We started the second half very well with Duffy and Barcham doing lots of hard work on the wings whilst Clarke and Hawley up front were untouchable for most the game. A special mention to the Iron defence who depsite being renowned this season for conceding a silly amount of goals held strong and played superbly.
In the 76th minute Clarke was sent through on goal. He had 3 Coventry defenders closing in on him but he kept his composure to slot the ball past Murphy and give the Iron the lead. This sent the 400 Scunthorpe fans absolutely mental! 15 Minutes to hold on, could we do it?
Well despite the digraceful diving techniques that only Tom Daley would have been proud of from the Coventry players in and around our box in the final 10 minutes we did hold on, but you have to give a massive amount of credit to Mildenhall in the Scunthorpe goal as he pulled of some saves that were nothing short of pehnomenal.
So then that makes it 2 wins from 2 games for the new boss Brian Laws. Our next 2 games are at home against Notts County and Bury.
I believe 4 points from these 2 games could be seen as a great achievement and most importantly keep this unbeaten run going.
As always, Up the Iron!!
Any Old Iron 