To Love Is To Bury

Crewe 3 Bury 0

Not sure how confident the Bury fans were before this game, but there were plenty of doubts circling in among the Crewe fans. Bury had had a decent start to the season, featured three of our ex-players and are expected to to make the top ten again this season.  One or two were suggesting a draw would be the likely outcome. I, on the other hand, was pretty confident. Not only did I fancy the Alex to win it, but I also had the back up of knowing that I was having a lucky pre-match walk up in Bickerton Hills. After all, it worked against Barnet...
Well, I went for the planned pre-match walk with Charlie and his dog, Wire. As we were a little short of time, we opted for a slightly shorter and less strenuous route than the Barnet walk. It was still enough of a work out for me, of course. Anything sort of slope gets me a bit puffed out these days...
Was slightly concerned though that changing the route might affect the outcome of the game. Well, I only had to wait three minutes into the match for my faith in the walk to be re-affirmed when Bury's central defender, Efe Sodje (a former Crewe favourite) capped a dreadful opening by knocking the ball across the box to Shaun Miller, who buried his shot across the keeper. One nil and a dream start. The Alex had started at a high tempo and the Bury backline were having all sorts of trouble coping with the pace and movement of the Alex forwards and every time they cleared it, it was the Crewe midfield picking up the bits and pieces. 18 minutes in and we had another goal to celebrate and, for the second time this season, the Alex scored from a corner. Westwood whipped it in from the left and Artell was unchallenged in the box to head home. At this stage in the game Bury were struggling to contain the Alex and, to be honest, we should have probably scored at least one more. As the half hour ticked past Bury started to get a foothold in the game but they rarely threatened the Crewe goal and when they did have sight of it, the shots went tamely wide.
Fair play to Bury though, they plugged away and came out and gave it a go for the first ten minutes of the second half. Crewe weathered the storm, such as it was, with few alarms. and then pushed on looking to increase their advantage. The game truly got away from Bury just after the hour mark when former Crewe midfielder Schumacher capped a frustrating display by recklessy clattering into Zola and earning a second booking and first use of the showers. Zola limped on for a few minutes before being replaced by "wonder kid" Nick Powell. Powell's first meaningful contribution was a shot that was well wide and his second was an air-shot at a cross from Donaldson. Fortunately for him, the ball ran through to Murphy who took it into the area and drove a shot in at the far post. 3- 0 to the Alex and it was starting to look like it could be a cricket score. And perhaps it should have been, Donaldson and Miller had both missed good chances and then Powell earned a penalty which Donaldson saw the Bury keeper, Belford, deflect over the bar with his foot. And right at the death Powell, unmarked in the area, somehow managed to volley a cross from Donaldson into the ground and over the bar.
At the final whistle I had to be extremely happy with that. What many people had seen as a tricky game had been negotiated with ease and not only had we kept a clean sheet, but we'd never looked like conceding. Bell had had a man-of-the-match performance in the middle of the park and Artell and Ada had once again looked as good a central defensive partnership we've had for a while. The only downside of the win is, of course, that I'll have to be out for the "lucky" walk again before the next home game against Oxford.  Mind, if we're going to win our home games that comfortably every time, it's worth the sacrifice!