It was definitely a case of never mind the quality feel the first away win of the season after a scrappy encounter at one of Arnold‘s numerous bogey grounds in the Central Midlands league. On balance the Eagles pretty much deserved the three points on offer from a contest which began after the announcement that club skipper Adam Clift had decided to call time on his Arna playing career following 62 games wearing the arm band. 

Two changes in the starting line up this time for the travelling maroons with Craig Taylor moving back into midfield in place of departing Lewis Radford and Owen Taylor taking up the number eleven shirt from the unavailable Tyler Cobb. A three man bench of Billy Bradley, Darnel Beeson and new signing Dylan Humphrey would be left uncalled upon for this one. 

Ending a three match losing skid would clearly be cause for celebration for the Arna but in truth the actual game today was not the most riveting of encounters with neither side managing to get into any sort of meaningful rhythm. 

With the benefit of playing down the slight slope at Holbrook Park the visitors had the better of things in the early going. Dan Chambers sent in a rather speculative shot from way out on the right wing on 5 mins with the keeper beaten but the ball flew a yard or so wide of his right hand post.

Later a decent advance by Trem Lindo on the left led to him feeding a decent ball into the path of Owen Taylor who connected well from 30 yards out but again the ball just failed to hit the target. With Holbrook unable to make any serious headway towards the other end the next chance again fell to the Arna on 18 mins.  A high ball from midfield dropped invitingly for Jake Ogden who controlled the ball expertly in the Holbrook box only for an alert St Michaels keeper to smother Jake’s goal bound shot with his legs. 

The home side’s first real scoring opportunity arrived with 24 mins gone when a sudden counter attack down the right produced a high cross over Piotr Strycharz’s six yard box. A waiting Holbrook striker was handily placed to launch a well struck effort which needed Kyme Mason’s timely intervention, throwing his body into the firing line.

At the other end a busy Dan Chambers began causing problems for Holbrook’s defence. Firstly by being brought down in a central position on the edge of the area to give Owen Taylor the chance to test the home keeper once more with a tricky gather  just beneath the crossbar.  Then on 34 mins Lewis Neville danced his way into the area before glancing up to find Chambers in a yard of space. A simple sideways pass led to an almost inevitable clatter from behind from a Holbrook defender to send Dan crashing to the floor and the ref immediately pointing to the spot. 

Chambers, electing to take the penalty himself, drove in a decent shot at shoulder height but the ball wasn’t heading for the right hand corner enough to really test a keeper guessing the right way which the St Michael’s custodiam did and was thus able to parry the ball away with relative ease.

Clearly Arnold’s recent goal drought was intent on continuing with the toothless Eagles perhaps not having as many opportunities as they had conjured up at Mayfield the previous week but nevertheless the chances of finding the net still looked pretty remote as a rather tame goalless first half petered out.

Images courtesy of Arnold Town FC Supporters Club

After the break a role reversal came for the first ten minutes or so with Holbrook now making decent use of their slope. Firstly a rare corner for the home side created some panic in the Arna defence and a point blank range hook towards goal appeared to be diverted from going into the net by striking a handily placed Eagle on the goal line. On 55 mins a direct free kick from the edge of the area brought about a fine double save from Strycharz who having half stopped the initial delivery did well to save again at the feet of an alert follow up from the Holbrook forward line at the base of his left hand post. 

A game with few highlights was being played in quite a niggly fashion and for once Arnold’s opponents were finding themselves in the book more than the Eagles. With an hour gone Holbrook’s centre forward seemingly couldn’t take it anymore and whilst out of ear shot for the Arna faithful on the opposite side of the pitch his outburst was unsavoury enough for every single player from both sides to turn round as one to stare at the offender.

The referee, some ten yards away, also turned round instantly whilst deftly producing a straight red card from his pocket. Whilst we half expected a bar of soap to be produced from the changing rooms the doomed number nine was clearly determined to extract maximum value for his fine. The lad basically went on a four letter farewell tour of the pitch cursing at anyone and everyone before opting to launch a particularly random rant towards the Arna bench. His choice of words left a few heads scratching for a while. Suffice to say he made rather a meal of his long drawn out flounce towards the showers.

Thankfully such theatrics provided scope to pad out a threadbare report for what continued to be a pretty drab affair as Arnold struggled to gain any noticeable boost from their numerical man advantage. Another lengthy delay ensued with Holbrook’s number two going down with cramp which together with the earlier drama would later result in almost 12 mins of added time. 

The balance of possession undoubtedly continued in eleven man Arnold’s favour but they still looked miles away from mustering up any real threat. They needed some help and Holbrook’s centre-half duly provided it with six minutes of normal time remaining. 

A fairly speculative punt from the right wing into Holbrook’s crowded area looked fairly innocuous upon its arrival but then the home number five opted to nudge the ball into the air rather than clear it away from danger. Basically he’d only managed to tee the ball up a treat for the inrushing Jake Ogden who gleefully prodded it home to give the Eagles a most unexpected lead. 

As indicated Holbrook would still have a good 18 minutes in order to rectify the error. Pressure was indeed applied as the lengthy period of added time slowly ticked by. However, a resolute Arnold defence aided by some excellent handling by Strycharz managed to navigate themselves through a nervy final period.  

Well, it certainly wasn’t pretty but a first victory away from the Valley this season is more than welcome and from what I can tell a first ever win against Holbrook since our relegation to Step 7.

As the well worn saying goes “every little helps.”​