King's Lynn Town 0 v 1 Aldershot Town

 

 

I finished university in London approaching 50 years ago, and for some long-forgotten reason, during the summer of 1974, I decided to start my working life in the wilderness of Norfolk.

And for a long time before I established my own company, I spent many satisfying years working for an organisation based in Norwich. It was a wonderful time of my life, a period that filled me up with so many skills, but most significantly, the years in East Anglia delivered many lifetime friendships.

The Chairman of my company was an awesome man, someone who gave his time to many activities outside of his business interests. One of his passions was football, and along with his support of many junior clubs across the county, he was a significant shareholder and board member of Norwich City FC, which gave me, and my best friend David, the opportunity to watch a few games from the Directors Box at Carrow Road, when we weren’t playing football ourselves. Looking back, I can remember quite a few occasions when a sending off was planned well in advance of a match, leading to the inevitable suspension and fine, the motive very simple - to secure my Tuesday night seat in the Box to watch the Canaries.

And so it was, that last Saturday, David, who now lives in the interesting village of Castle Acre, and me, reminisced after the match in the Canary and Linnet pub, an old haunt and a distinctly apposite venue to discuss the afternoon’s events. Consequently, this review of the game has been shaped by the thoughts of a Linnet and balanced by the simple Aldershot opinion of, ‘a hard-fought, poor-quality game with the Shots working effectively to secure an untroubled victory.’

King's Lynn Town's National League survival hopes certainly suffered a catastrophic wallop as we triumphed in last Saturday’s six-pointer at The Walks.

Last season the encounter in Norfolk produced eight goals (4v4) but there was no chance of a repeat this time around as Storm Arwen wreaked havoc across the country.

Aldershot scored the all-important winner nine minutes from time when Alfie Whittingham headed in Mikaell Ndjoli's centre from the right, resulting in manager Ian Culverhouse finding his P45 in his suit pocket when he got home after the game.

Undoubtedly King’s Lynn were much the better side for the first 45 minutes, but the roles were reversed after the interval, with the Shots creating the better opportunities to break the deadlock.

Early on in the first half Lynn skipper Michael Clunan let fly with a thumping effort from about 25 yards but Laurie Walker brilliantly tipped it over his woodwork – we look so much better at the back since Laurie’s arrival.

Despite playing with the wind behind them, Lynn's recent lack of attacking intent was all too obvious to see, and most of the time the Linnets simply declined to attack the ball in the box.

Lynn’s Sundire went into the book for a bad challenge on Kinsella, but without any attempt to apply a spirit of goodwill, our player did his level best to get the home defender sent-off with his pathetic antics after the challenge.

King’s Lynn’s goalkeeper Paul Jones was virtually redundant in the first hour but he did pull-off a stunning save to deny Kinsella's long-range strike ten minutes into the second half.

Kinsella went into the book just after the hour, for a bad challenge on Charles which led to a load of silliness from players of both sides.

At this point in our discussion over a pint, both David and I agreed that Aldershot were the better side in the second half….. but just as King’s Lynn looked set for their first clean sheet of the season, Whittingham powered home Ndjoli's cross to give Aldershot a third successive win and leave the Linnets deep in trouble at the bottom end of the table.