Hardening

It was a bitterly cold night at Nethermoor, with the pitch steadily hardening with frost as the game went on.

For one reason or another it's been a couple of months since I've seen Guiseley, not since this year's FA Cup adventure came to an end at Mansfield. In that time the shipping out and drafting in of players to suit the regime of the new manager has continued apace, rendering the team sheet essential. Only one of the team that started at Mansfield was in the first eleven tonight. So we're left with a team with squad numbers in the 40s, with a handful of appearances between them and virtually no goals. And nothing, really, that's recognisably Guiseley; I wasn't the only one to remark that the current team at Bradford Park Avenue that I watched stroll to a 5-0 win last Monday is more familiar to Guiseley fans than the Guiseley one.

Not that these changes have made a jot of difference to the form or results of the team. Four league wins all season, one win in the last sixteen (a Boxing Day gift from Chester) and a team that seems estranged (through unfamiliarity) from the fans and the club. And yet the programme notes from the manager and owner occupy a seemingly fantastic world where they are building Leeds' second professional club with squad and ground improvements suitable for entry into the Football League. The prospect of relegation into a strong National League North seems inevitable, and so often we've seen teams in this situation keep sliding down, as North Ferriby have done this season.

To be fair, they might have nicked a point tonight. Gatehead had one decent chance  and scored from it, Guiseley had one gilt opportunity and didn't convert. The mood of the supporters is fatalistic and nothing on the pitch changed that.

The only hope is that this new group of players will click at some point, but games are running out. Thanks to rearranged games there is now a run of three consecutive Tuesday night home games, so I expect I'll be back next week just to see if that click is going to happen.