The Lower League week - Coventry's ten points and Northampton Town's bonfire of the memories

Portsmouth’s Johnny Ertl was shown a straight red card

A few more impressive goals…

Rochdale’s Scott Hogan, returning to the club he was released from after two years in non-league, marked his first professional appearance with a nice flick before turning and taking a jinking dribble through Hartlepool’s defence. It proved vital – coming at a time when his side were a little on the back foot, but won by three goals to nil. Hogan was released without making an appearance the same summer returning manager Keith Hill left for Barnsley – he’ll be hoping to make more of an impression this time.

Oldham’s Christian Montano, twisting the defender at pace before dinking the ball from the edge of the six-yard box without ever bothering to stop, was the standout goal in a 4-3 win over Stevenage that wasn’t even one of the more interesting results in a pretty dramatic opening day to the season.

…And plenty of red cards

Of course there’s nothing funny about the injury that came from Lee Miller’s challenge, but elsewhere there were some enjoyable red cards.

Darren Carter, one of six debutants for Northampton, slid in slowly from behind on Ryan Jarvis’ ankles; Portsmouth’s Johnny Ertl was sent off for elbowing an opponent in the centre circle; and Gary Liddle decided to go kung-fu fighting.

Scunthorpe were so comfortably superior to Mansfield that Eddie Nolan picked up a second yellow card for throwing out his arm and giving away a penalty for handball, and they still managed to win 2-0.

Pundits will say that fans don’t want to see players get sent off, but I love a bit of deranged, misplaced commitment.

Amazing goals, dramatic, surprising results, and red cards so crudely clumsy that they’re actually pretty funny. My emotions on the opening weekend have been clouded by the fact I’m a Hartlepool fan, but overall, it’s pretty great to have football back, isn’t it?

What were the odds on that?

After losing 4-1, Accrington’s bad opening weekend continued with news on Monday that Rob Heys, Accrington’s Managing Director had been charged with breaches of betting regulations. As a result, he’s withdrawn from all footballing duties until a committee has delivered its response, expected in the next two weeks.

This is probably something unimportant and technical, as was the case with Andros Townsend betting on games in competitions he’d played in. The BBC ‘understands’ that Cameron Jerome’s charge, announced at the same time as Heys’, is of a similar nature to Townsend’s. Odds are that Heys’ charges will also be similar, though as an administrator with 11 years’ experience at Accrington, rather than a sportsman, he should have had a better understanding of what the rules allow him to do.

In 2009 four Accrington players threw a meaningless final game of the season, so there is a remote chance that there’s a larger culture of betting corruption taking place at Accrington. Odds are though, that like Townsend, Heys has just been a little daft and should have known better.

Nevertheless, if James Beattie wants to add to his squad before the end of the transfer window, the Managing Director’s absence will make things harder.