Osman off but Cobblers claim point

Northampton Town 0-0 Port Vale
League Two
Saturday, November 13th 2010

There’s 0-0 draws and then there’s 0-0 draws. I don’t quite know what I mean by that but it’s something along the lines of there being two different versions of the good old stalemate. Example One, as seen on Wednesday night as two of the ‘biggest names’ in English football, Manchesters United and City, was awful and a neither side deserved to come away with even a point after showing no desire at all to win what should be one of the biggest games of their respective seasons.

But then there’s the type seen yesterday at Sixfields, a game where either side could have won, chances went begging and despite being down to ten men for 46 minutes of the game The Cobblers could easily have come away with maximum points.

It was Abdul Osman’s harsh red card, though, that will steal all the headlines with the game ruined by a poor referee, Iain Williamson, after he gave Abdul Osman his marching orders for what looked like a ball winning tackle just before half-time. The last time Williamson was in charge of a Cobblers game was a 2-1 defeat at Colchester in January 2009 in a game where he sent off Paul Rodgers dead on half-time and we threw away a lead to fall to defeat that day. Thankfully his error this time didn’t have such a negative effect this time and the incident fired up the game instead.

After the break, both sides battled hard in search of a winner and there were no real signs of shutting up shop. Vale went close through Doug Loft but Chris Dunn was at full stretch to tip the ball away. At the other end, Michael Jacobs produced a stunning effort from distance that threatened to steal it for Sammo’s men.

Loft hit the bar late on as we hung on but a draw was a fine and fair result that had most Cobblers fans going home happy. That’s more progress in the recovery from the five game losing streak and we would have taken a draw before hand so with ten men it’s more than acceptable as we head into a couple of weeks away from Sixfields, starting with Barnet next Saturday.

Thankfully, Mr Williamson won’t be anywhere near us at Underhill!