A week's a long time in politics......

..... and it's just as long a time in football!!

Tuesday last week - Belper Town 2 - 1 Glapwell in a league game.

Last night - Belper Town 1 - 5 Glapwell in  a Cup game!

Fans are up in arms and one in particular is spouting off on the fans forum about the performance and not getting value for money. "Schoolboy football." " A disgrace" etc etc

Stepping back for a moment and whilst admitting it was not the best performance we've ever seen at The Meadow, there are one or two things that need to be remembered.

Rich Adams - regular centreback this season - out with a stress fracture of the big toe.

Simon Mirfin - generally playing the midfield "holding role" - out with a disclocated shoulder.

Luke Federenko - wide midfied player - sunning himself in Dubai.

Mark "Barney" Barnard - left back and our most experienced player. Carrying an injury and could not be risked.

Jon Froggatt - captain and striker - again, carrying an injury so started on the bench.

and so on.......

The Belper Manager actually had to ask the "retired" Asa Ingall to help out and had to stick a new signing, Jay Smedley, straight into the side. Andy Rushbury - who plays wide midfield usually, had to fill in at left back.

The argument expressed last night and since is that we beat Glapwell last week but we lost to the same side this week - "Why?"

Read my lips - they put the same side out as last week but we couldn't! Different game altogether. The performance wasn't great but hey - get over it and move on.... This is not Chelsea we're watching here but a Manager with a greatly reduced budget working his b*ll*cks off to bring together a squad of, perhaps, lesser players than we had last season and make some sort of half decent side from them.

Anyway - rant just about over and I'll post a few pictures as soon as. One last thing - I don't think it helped that the team also lost 3-2 to Rushall at the weekend in a league game. After coming back to 2-2 from 2-0 down, it was naturally very disappointing to lose 3-2 but that's the way it goes sometimes.