We got out of jail against Boston, we got out of jail against Southend, but against Macclesfield at the Circle yesterday the boot was well and truly on the other foot, as the Tigers were punished right at the death for a largely complacent, lazy display by a last gasp equaliser from a Macc side who had played the greater part of the game with ten men, an equaliser which was richly deserved, as much by our home bogey team for their persistent endeavour and incisive counter-attacking play as it was by City for their unwillingness ever to stamp any sort of authority on the game.

Rendering a 15 053 crowd agog with indifference were the following:-

Musselwhite
Joseph Whittle Delaney Dawson
Price Hinds Green Elliott
Burgess Allsopp

The weather was crisp and clear, perfect for football, and the ball yellow as the match began with City playing as usual towards the away fans, on this occasion 200 plus in number. The early stages of the game were notable for a succession of free kicks awarded against the Tigers by referee Miller for what appeared to be not very much in particular, and it was from the third and (for the moment) final of these that our guests got off to a flying start. It was hard to fathom out exactly what misdemeanour Hinds had committed as the referee blew for a free kick some 25 yards from the City goal, but Macc were unconcerned as their centre half hit a thunderous drive which ripped through a fragile-looking City wall and glanced off the posterior of Dawson, allegedly, before being palmed onto the bar by the diving Muss, only for ex-Tiger loanee Carruthers to react first and bundle the ball in while the City defence stood around with more mouths agape than you would see while walking down Ferensway on a Saturday night. A mere six minutes were on the clock.

The Tigers, it has to be said, reacted in precisely the right fashion. Within a minute of the restart a Burgess flick sent Allsopp haring through the middle, but Willo in the Macc goal made a fine block with the City number 10 just unable to control the rebound.

Seconds later, though, we were level. A Burgess cross was cleared only as far as Hinds some 25 yards out, and our emergency midfield man, happily oblivious to the raucous invitations hurled in his direction a few seconds before by a Tig Chatter whose name rhymes with Spike Grott to decide whether he was playing in midfield or defence, controlled the bouncing ball and lashed it gloriously past the helpless Willo and into the right hand corner of the net.

This heralded what was probably City's best spell of the game. A great Elliott run ended in a cross which was just too deep for Burgess on 13 mins, and four minutes later Willo provided a whiff of nostalgia for the 4 000 City diehards of a few years ago as he flapped ineffectually at a cross with a Macc defender arguably controlling the resulting loose ball with his hand. On the 20 - minute mark Price fired just over from 18 yards out after Burgess had superbly knocked the ball into his path.

It was all City now with Price again in the thick of it, shooting wide on 23 after he had taken advantage of some sloppy Macc control in their own half, and then a minute later came what was to my mind the best piece of football in the entire match. Dawson mopped up a Macc foray and played it up to Burgess on the half way line wide out on the left. The City number 9 fought off a determined challenge and fed it inside to Green, who played through to Allsopp, who in turn lobbed just over. Breathtakingly fluent and direct football of a quality which would not have looked out of place at least two leagues higher.

Despite City's obvious ascendancy, however, it was clear that Macc had not been knocked out of their stride by our swingeing response to their impudent opener, neither were they intending simply to make the numbers up. Indeed, our visitors had had their own moments during this Tiger purple patch and had made us look decidedly uneasy when they took the game to us, although it has to be said that City were their own worst enemies in that regard. The midfield seemed lacking in bite in both attacking and defensive terms and, when City hadn't got the ball, allowed the Silkmen to pour forward at will; Hinds, who it seems was there to shore up the defensive qualities of the midfield, tried his best and indeed was the only City midfielder willing to get a foot in, but lacks experience in that kind of role, while Green, although showing one or two good flashes, for the most part darted in and out of the game like a minnow and was too often guilty of taking the easy option of a short square ball to the nearest amber shirt (known amongst the football cognoscenti as "doing a Melton"). At the back, some of Joseph's tackling was so limp it would have disgraced the lettuce counter at Sainsbury's, one particularly wretched effort on 16 minutes allowing Macc to break past him down the left and put a shot just wide (although the City captain did improve a little as the game went on), and even the normally dependable centre-back pairing were guilty of an uncharacteristically high number of unforced errors.

This overly lax approach nearly cost City dear on 41 minutes when, following a quarter of an hour in which really not very much had happened, the Tigers fell victim to another of Mr Miller's mysterious free kicks twenty yards out, albeit after they had eschewed at least three easy opportunities to clear their lines. This one was curled by a Macc onto Muss's crossbar with the City keeper a mere onlooker.

The next Macc sally into City territory, some two minutes on, came to grief in rather different fashion. After more sloppiness from Joseph, the Macc number 18 Little fired in a cross which Price blocked with his back. Exactly what happened next I have to confess I did not see, but suddenly the linesman was furiously waving his flag and Joseph lay in the foetal position near the corner of the box. After lengthy consultation with said linesman Mr Miller brandished his red card in Little's face and to be honest ought for good measure to have shown the yellow one to a couple of Maccsters who repeatedly refused his demands that they withdraw while he consulted the linesman. It was later said on Humberside that Little had kicked Joseph; anyone able to confirm this?

Anyway, the game drifted through to the interval without further incident, leaving the Tiger nation to ponder whether a return of "bad half, good half" syndrome was once more upon us. Early signs were not encouraging as the same lacklustre midfield effort, coupled with some questionable defending at times, gave our undermanned opponents far too much of the initiative and prompted an air of discomfort around three sides of the Circle which reached its nadir on 56 minutes when Justin misjudged a high ball and was lucky not to give a penalty away as he tussled with his opponent for possession of the leather.

Discomfiture was blown temporarily away a mere minute later, however, by a fine piece of individual skill from Danny Allsopp, as he took the ball by the right hand side of the D before weaving his way round the outside of the cover and planting his shot across Willo and inside the far post. As Motty (or was it Barry Davies?) once said, with questionable accuracy, of former Blade Tony Currie, "a quality goal by a quality player". The Antipodean Tiger nearly repeated his feat on 62 minutes, weaving to the right after Burgess had flicked a Dawson cross into his path but this time his shot was just wide.

Were we now to settle down, make our advantage count and put the game beyond doubt? Er, not a bit of it, thank you very much. After the tireless Hinds one of only three or four players to emerge from yesterday with real credit) had won an important tackle on the right-hand corner of the City box, the City defence just stood motionless, like the proverbial rabbits in the headlights, allowing a Silkman to skip happily in amongst this still-life representation and lay the loose ball off to a colleague whose shot was tipped round the post by a full-stretch Muss. The City number 28 raged at his colleagues, and rightly so.

A couple of minutes on, and the same thing happened at the other end, when a loose ball rolled invitingly across the edge of the box, almost pleading to be committed to the onion bag, with several bystanding Tigers glancing at it with disinterest until a Macc nipped in and whisked it to safety.

It was becoming end-to-end stuff now, with the ten men tearing unopposed through a City midfield on a regular basis but not, thankfully, seriously troubling the Muss, the unease sweeping through the Circle now being exacerbated firstly by the resumption of Mr Miller's practice of awarding dodgy free kicks in dangerous positions (but only ever to Macclesfield), and secondly by an increasing tendency on the part of the City defence to pass the ball nonchalantly across the field to each other, almost coming badly unstuck on a couple of occasions (although I note with approval that Taylor bitterly criticised this practice in his post-match comments on Humberside).

Despite this, it looked as though we might hold out, and indeed we probably would have if the blatant upending of Allsopp five minutes from time had resulted in the penalty kick which it properly merited (an identical foul on Elliott by the same defender but this time outside the box was, interestingly, penalised a minute or so later), and certainly would have if Willo had not made a fine save from France who had cut in from the right and hit a low drive to the ex-City custodian's left a minute from the end.

The fourth official's board bore the number 2, and the Tiger nation started to head for the exits, some no doubt satisfied that they had witnessed another win, others perhaps unable to bear for a moment longer the strain of City's indifferent attempts to preserve victory. A minute and three quarters on, and Elliott was comfortably shielding the ball in the right-hand corner when suddenly the ball squirmed 25 yards upfield and the visitors swept unimpeded to the edge of the City box where Justin brought a halt to the advance, apparently fairly. However, with a final twist of the knife Mr Miller opted to give Macclesfield another go at practising free-kick routines, an opportunity gratefully accepted as the ball was laid off to the Macc number 12 Whitaker, who planted it just inside Muss's left hand post, to the near-delirium of the visiting players and fans alike.

A mere blip or an ominous sign of an impending loss of form and League position? Well, as disappointing as the final outcome was, it hardly heralds a need to start pressing the panic buttons. Let's put things into context. Firstly, we are enjoying an unbeaten run of near-unprecedented length and, despite dropping two points and most of our rivals winning, still stand two points clear at the top, a start to the season surely beyond the wildest expectations of even the most expectant of City Independent-posting lamebrains. Secondly, the sensible among us know too well that, even in the most successful of seasons, there will always be days like (or worse than) yesterday; for those who can remember, yesterday was very reminiscent of the 1 ? 1 home Boxing Day draw with a woebegone Halifax side in the promotion season of 82/83. Thirdly, Taylor, in a refreshingly frank but rational post-match interview on the radio, gave no indication that he is about to tolerate any continuation of yesterday's sloppiness, stating that several of yesterday's line up will have to forego their promised rest from the LDV game against the Scunts on Tuesday, although I do wish he hadn't singled Whittle out for particular criticism. Granted, the Sarge cannot have been proud of his efforts yesterday, but he was by no means the only one. Fourthly, whilst I am loath to criticise match officials for my own team's shortcomings, it is beyond doubt that, the Little sending-off apart, we received a very raw deal from Mr Miller yesterday; not only because he denied us a clear penalty, but also because both opposition goals came from free-kicks the award of each of which was, to say the least, highly questionable. That said, the abuse heaped on him by the fans at the end misses the point that City only had themselves to blame for two dropped points.