Pendle 0–0 Aigburth: a commitment to nothing

The match was a vacuum. It was a game of chess played by people who had forgotten how the pieces move. For the neutrals, it was a sedative. For the supporters, it was merely a Sunday afternoon spent watching twenty-two men engage in a polite disagreement about who should be bothering to attack.

Pendle Athletic seem to have developed a fondness for the zero. It is becoming a brand. To be fair, Aigburth FC were equally committed to the cause of nothingness. There was no sudden flash of brilliance, no desperate long ball that actually found a forehead, and certainly no one who looked particularly keen to ruin the symmetry of the scoreboard. It was a performance of profound caution.

One suspects the managers will describe it as a hard-fought point in the morning. In reality, it was a bag of sand. It was football stripped of all its joy and replaced with a very sturdy defensive shape. There is something almost admirable about the commitment to such a dull outcome.

Other teams were slightly more adventurous on the day, but Pendle and Aigburth preferred the safety of the void. There is little time to reset before tomorrow. One can only hope that someone remembers to bring a goal to the next matchday.