What had seemed to be the clearer picture emerging in the Championship race recently became suddenly murkier again as leaders Marine succumbed to defeat by the odd goal in seven at Spartak-Slavia, enabling the chasing pair Liverpool St Helens and Stalybridge Celtic to close the gap by two points each after achieving home victories themselves.
In a twist of fate that defied what has become the norm, habitual brinksmen Marine went down to a late, late goal after recovering to 3 - 3 from 1 - 3 down, a dramatic denouement to a match of high excitement and scintillating skill, whilst St Helens eventually overpowered and outgunned an obdurate Northwich Victoria - who had led 2 - 1 going into the final ten minutes - to prevail 4 - 2 and defending title-holders Stalybridge edged past second-bottom Locomotive Crewe Alexandra by 2 - 1 after an uncharacteristically nervy and wholly unconvincing performance, the plucky visitors unfortunate not to earn at least a draw to aid their fight for survival: again, Celtic seemed to be suffering something of a European hangover after gaining that slender first-leg advantage over Slavia Prague in a hard-fought Champions’ Cup quarter-final in midweek.
The three scores at Stalybridge proved to be the lowest total of the day in any of the Championship fixtures, as goals rained in elsewhere, most torrentially at Audenshaw, where Dynamo, hit for seven last week at Wrexham, extracted the same payment this time from Excelsior Marlow who replied with four of their own, lifting the home team four points clear of Crewe in the relegation zone even though they remain third from bottom as a result of the other Dynamo - Burnley’s - 3 - 1 win over Blyth Spartans. Burnley’s was a crucial victory, as now both of the latter pair and Marlow should have enough of a cushion, with only three league games remaining, to avoid the drop, and, above them, Manchester Central’s stylish 4- 1 triumph at consistently inconsistent Wrexham - one of the Citizens’ favourite and most accommodating of opponents, after the 7 - 1 result in their favour in the earlier reverse fixture - assures them of top flight status for next term whilst also suggesting the potential for the rebranded club with its mostly young team to improve on this campaign’s showing. For each of the three beaten teams in that cluster of results, this season, largely one of disappointing returns, especially for Blyth but also for Marlow and Wrexham even if slightly improved, can’t end soon enough and a summer of much soul-searching and rebuilding surely lies ahead.
Quite possibly the Championship’s result of the day was Red Star Mossley’s comprehensive 5 - 0 pulverizing of a thoroughly chastened Gainsborough Trinity, the victors following the resumption last week of their fine run of form this calendar year, after the recent anomaly of the crazy-day derby defeat at Audenshaw, with another impressive performance and the goals it so richly deserved. Cup semi-finalists next weekend, Mossley have become a match for any team and could end the season with silverware and very much on a high if such excellence is maintained.
Finally, Hungaria put six past hapless Hartlepool Petrochemical, already relegated by their defeat last week, who replied with a purely academic three of their own, enabling the East End Magyars to leapfrog Northwich in mid-table.
Hartlepool’s replacement in next season’s top flight will be Marxist Polytechnic, whose narrow but ultimately crucial 2 - 1 victory at Atletico Espanol, combined with defeats for faltering pursuers Sheffield Wednesday and Bohemians, guaranteed not only the students’ promotion but also confirmed them as champions of the Second Division in their inaugural campaign at national level, with three games to spare, a fine achievement even if quite a premium selection of players have been co-opted to their cause - nevertheless, a fine team has been moulded and the Poly should have the means and be able to prosper at the higher level. Wednesday’s and Boh’s woes enabled Torpedo Tranmere to slip into third, between the two, level on points with the second-placed Owls, however skittish their performance in the fluctuating but eventual 5 - 3 win over Merthyr Tydfil - all is still very much to play for over the remaining three fixtures in the battle to secure the runners-up position and promotion. As Sheffield Wednesday’s collective nerve was failing at home to Caledonia Thistle - the Anglo-Scots’ 2 - 1 triumph bringing them what could be a priceless three points in their desperate struggle to avoid relegation - so Tranmere’s fellow Merseysiders South Liverpool Red Star were undermining Bohemians’ challenge, a narrow but impressive and deserved 1 - 0 win continuing South’s fine run of results and form over the second half of the season that, but for a contrastingly poor opening semester, could well have seen them vying for promotion too. As it is, the Liverpudlian Red Star have achieved a comfortable mid-table position that should be maintained until the campaign’s conclusion and has perhaps established a platform from which to build towards greater things next term.
Bradford Park Avenue’s 3 - 2 win at Crystal Palace keeps open a glimmer of the possibility of finishing second should all three rivals above them crumble, whilst, although only a point further behind, Hendon Hotspur’s defeat at Newcastle Blue Star, a 1 - 3 defeat that could easily have been at least twice as bad had Blue Star taken but a mere fraction of the deluge of chances they created with such rare style and panache, probably extinguishes any hopes the north Londoners may have harboured of timing a late charge through the pack.
Excellent though Caledonia Thistle’s win in Sheffield was, Manchester Newton Heath managed to keep just ahead of them and thus out of the relegation places by the most slender of margins courtesy of an impressive 4 - 1 triumph over Inter-Italiano who, with also-defeated Merthyr, are now only two points ahead and casting slightly more nervous glances than previously over their respective shoulders.
Deeper in the mire, Atletico Espanol’s loss to Marxist Polytechnic exacerbates what appears to be their pretty hopeless plight at second-bottom, whilst Excelsior Benelux’s 2 - 0 defeat of Newcastle-Gateshead Dynamo, although welcome (not least the clean sheet after concessions of six, seven and another six goals in their three previous outings), was rendered less helpful to their cause by Thistle and Newton Heath’s points-gaining and simultaneously terminal to their opponent’s hopes of avoiding the drop. As with the merged north-east club in the Championship, the Tynesiders’ fate of relegation is an ignominious one and, if rumours of the imminent demise of a club that few supporters have taken to their hearts and minds are well-founded, the season truly has been a failed experiment in keeping what was ‘Newcastle United’, twice former league champions, in the Football Alliance and, indeed, alive in some form. Unfortunate it is too that the name of Gateshead, in their ‘United’ incarnation founder members of the Alliance and such stalwarts of the second tier particularly, will disappear from the national setup and the football landscape, at least in the short term.
