Rebuild The Lansdowne

Sheffield United U21 1 v Cardiff City U21 0

Friday 10 April 2015

Twitter @ball_sup

The campaign to refloat the Old Girl starts here. In the meantime,

The Venue

The refurbished, just reopened Royal Oak ....sorry, sorry Beer Engine. Nice & simply furnished. Bright. Great first impression. Bar Lady let me taste. 6 on cask. Four pukka Craft Kegs (Marble, Buxton, Bad Seed, Harviestoun). London Rd keg stout (Youngs rebadge). Erdinger, Estrella, Oranjeboom. No Normal Lager.

Tuatara Hefe bottlejob. I'll hold out for Aotearoa Pale Ale. Go To Beer.

Tom the Owner introduced himself & let me witter. Good luck fella.

17 Cemetery Road
Sheffield
S11 8FJ

The Beer

Dawkins, Black Flag Porter on cask at 4.6%. More very dark brown than black. Appealing colour. There is a lot of sweetness. Veering towards honey, varnish. But quite a lot going on as well. Some pucker up bitterness. More of a coating bitterness than a finish.

The Match

Kieran Bywater set up in centre midfield for United. He kept swapping left & right with Ben Whiteman. Sorry mate, identikit SUFC short muscular midfielder. Quick googling. Guessing that's the fella who has come through the West Ham system. Guessing he's being given a trial. I saw no brown envelopes. He lasted 90.

He was more in the game in the first half. Although I don't think he was tiring, he was quieter as the second half wore on. He was busy & organised. Always looking to support people who had the ball. Taking it, compose, give it short. Lot of possession. No trees uprooted. But, barely set a foot wrong either. Box to box. Not always with ball mind. But covered some ground.

It was a lack lustre game. Not much going on. Open, but few chances. Perked up a lot towards the end. Cardiff could easily have equalised. Got to say, Michael Higdon made no impact. Julian Banton has an odd way of demonstrating his speed along the ground. Twice I caught him completely misjudging balls pumped in high, sailing over his head. Thing is, having been caught out, he had the speed to turn, chase it down and rob the striker who was clear. He was outstanding though. He can have Man of the Match.

116/262