Hargreaves comes back to haunt Town

Torquay United 1-0 Northampton Town
Saturday, October 31st 2009
League Two

Sometimes it’s just in the script. Try as you might, no matter what you throw at the opposition, it’s just meant to go another way. When Chris Hargreaves joined Torquay United with the team in the Blue Square Premier League and with the Cobblers safe in League One he could have no idea that this season he would be in the same division as his former employers let alone scoring the winner against them.

Hargreaves is one of just a handful of players that you can just about forgive for a winning goal, his battling displays in midfield winning the adulation of the claret faithful during his time at Sixfields. It was still, though, a bitter pill to swallow as Ian Sampson’s unbeaten run came to an end at Plainmoor.

The day began full of optimism and with the return of the silly boy game reserved for extra anticipated away trip. It’s become a tradition between myself and the honorary Cobbler, Jamie, as we head to random spots around the country to follow the town. This time, he’d prepared a Halloween themed “Zombie Cobblers” quiz game that I spectacularly failed in as I answered questions on past Cobblers. Little did we know that another old face would signal the biggest disappointment of the day.

The first half was disjointed to say the least with neither side getting a foot hold in the game. Torquay stuck to their programme of playing for set pieces and despite a couple of scares we were standing up to the test. Perhaps tellingly, we were most in trouble when the hosts tried to play their way through our back line and an early cross shot forced Chris Dunn into a fine save as he clawed the ball away before it could creep in following Chris McCready’s header.

The Cobblers only had snippets of opportunities at the other end early on with Adebayo Akinfenwa, booed throughout for his Gulls past, going close with an angled shot across the body of former Town loan keeper Michael Poke that went just wide.
Kevin Nicholson, another former Cobbler, tested Dunn with a late free kick but the edgy first half ended with a deserved goalless score line.

Cobblers fans had every reason to be optimistic at the break with some strong second half performances over the past couple of weeks and we came storming out of the blocks at the start of the second half. Poke was in sublime form to keep out a close range header from Bayo that looked a certain goal before Steve Guinan controlled the ball well before slamming a left footed effort onto the under side of the bar.

Ben Marshall was brought off the bench in place of John Curtis as Sammo looked for the winner and Marshall was to be involved in the most controversial piece of play in the game. The loan man took on the Gulls left back but was brought down with a cynical challenge. The defender in question was not booked and we later realised that he’d already been shown a yellow and another one would have had him off. The referee bottled it, plain and simple and you can bet your house that he would have been booked had it been a first offence.

The fact that the home side went on to win the game summed up a frustrating afternoon as Hargreaves, of course from a set piece, nodded home from close range. With Bayo now off the park in Sammo’s first strange substitution of his reign so far, we had little to threaten an equaliser and we handed Torquay an end to their run of five league games drawn in a row.

We will hopefully learn lessons, particularly in how to deal with sides like that, teams that play for the set plays and launch long balls towards our area. Two home league games follow the FA Cup tie against Fleetwood on Saturday as we look to get back on track. As long as there’s no upset at Sixfields on Saturday we should bounce back from this set back.

It’s a new test as Fleetwood come to town looking for a cup scalp but hopefully we can use the game as a means of letting out our frustration at this one.