Coalville Town v Loughborough Dynamo

Saturday saw me at Owen Street for the local derby between Coalville Town and Loughborough Dynamo.

It's been a while since I've watched a game down there and in truth a few previous games have been spent being a cheapskate and watching from the top of one the hills that hangs over the ground.
I'm from Coalville (ish), I covered their FA Cup run a few years ago and my Dad used to play for them when they were known as Ravenstone (and were far worse than they are now) so I felt quite at home there with the Snibstone Colliery providing a back-drop to the continuation of Dynamo's Midland Alliance title challenge.
There were over 200 there in the miserable conditions but both sides put in committed performances.
In the end Loughborough were too strong for the home side and ran out comfortable 3-0 winners. Dynamo are a good side and are equally capable of playing great football and of grinding out a win when they need to. The former was in evidence today, the first goal in particular was a fantastic passing move that must have contained about 12 passes before Kris Nurse finished for what is around his 40th goal of the season.
From watching them early in the season you can see how much Dynamo have matured since August and are now within three points of leaders Atherstone but with four games in hand.
If they can secure a promotion spot it will be great for local football if they can join Shepshed Dynamo and Quorn in the Unibond Division One South next season.

Shepshed must have secured their safety with the 2-0 win over Kidsgrove. After a miserable couple of years hopefully they can now concentrate on building for next season.

I read recently about how a sports journalist can fail to remain neutral if he covers a team for so long and that's probably right. There's so many great characters you meet in and around the clubs that you can't help but want success for the clubs for those people as much as anything. Yes - even Quorn!