I think it's probably disrespectful and insensitive to say 'I love a minutes's silence' - I should probably rephrase that to get my meaning across in a way that isn't offensive.
Lets start again.
What I mean to say is: A minute's silence is quite rare now, in the age of applause - there's something really quite reflective and important about standing amongst thousands of others and just stopping for a moment and hearing the world go on around you. It makes you feel small and feeling small is good for you. It places you in amongst a totality and silences give you pause for thought about history and all that led to now. We are mere grains of sand. We are just atoms held loosely together and waiting to be torn apart by time.
The Last Post is always a fragile tune. Military might and the machine of war churning, but the quivering note of the bugle sings of the human caught in the brutal workings. It's beauty defies the horror, a haunting and painful melody.
I'd forgotten today would be our remembrance game and it catches me a little unprepared. There's more than a twinge of emotion as I think that the two sets of lads, lined up opposite each other around the centre circle would be cannon fodder in another era, the lush carpet of Bloomfield Road swapped for a hellish swamp of mud, shattered trees and rotting limbs, the decaying mortal remains of so many souls dying for reasons no one can properly explain. People have a lot to answer for. The Somme, Passchendaele and all the rest. The fundamental insanity of fascism and everything else that you can think of that lines the dark corridors of our collective story as a species.
Today we scan lists of statistics looking at XG and assists like it matters. In yesteryear, the lists of the dead read like an endless vidiprinter of death, loss and grief left running all day and night, thousands added to the tally each 24 hours. The numbers still speak of unspeakable things even after so long. Silence is the only way to comprehend such futility, such waste, such animal slaughter, each death a lost love, each body full of all the glorious capability of every human. Trench warfare that lasted years and no one could even tell who was winning even as the bodies piled higher than can be readily conceived of.
History remembers the names of the great who achieved so much, it remembers the names of the leaders who caused wars. It should never forget the many, even the known dead rendered practically nameless by the scale of the records. They never started war themselves, nor ever had the chance to achieve greatness. They sacrificed. They were sacrificed to the madness.
Long may silence sometimes reign.
What I mean to say is: A minute's silence is quite rare now, in the age of applause - there's something really quite reflective and important about standing amongst thousands of others and just stopping for a moment and hearing the world go on around you. It makes you feel small and feeling small is good for you. It places you in amongst a totality and silences give you pause for thought about history and all that led to now. We are mere grains of sand. We are just atoms held loosely together and waiting to be torn apart by time.
The Last Post is always a fragile tune. Military might and the machine of war churning, but the quivering note of the bugle sings of the human caught in the brutal workings. It's beauty defies the horror, a haunting and painful melody.
I'd forgotten today would be our remembrance game and it catches me a little unprepared. There's more than a twinge of emotion as I think that the two sets of lads, lined up opposite each other around the centre circle would be cannon fodder in another era, the lush carpet of Bloomfield Road swapped for a hellish swamp of mud, shattered trees and rotting limbs, the decaying mortal remains of so many souls dying for reasons no one can properly explain. People have a lot to answer for. The Somme, Passchendaele and all the rest. The fundamental insanity of fascism and everything else that you can think of that lines the dark corridors of our collective story as a species.
Today we scan lists of statistics looking at XG and assists like it matters. In yesteryear, the lists of the dead read like an endless vidiprinter of death, loss and grief left running all day and night, thousands added to the tally each 24 hours. The numbers still speak of unspeakable things even after so long. Silence is the only way to comprehend such futility, such waste, such animal slaughter, each death a lost love, each body full of all the glorious capability of every human. Trench warfare that lasted years and no one could even tell who was winning even as the bodies piled higher than can be readily conceived of.
History remembers the names of the great who achieved so much, it remembers the names of the leaders who caused wars. It should never forget the many, even the known dead rendered practically nameless by the scale of the records. They never started war themselves, nor ever had the chance to achieve greatness. They sacrificed. They were sacrificed to the madness.
Long may silence sometimes reign.
Now for a sudden key change because after all, this is a football blog and there is football today too.
Terry fucking Bondo is on the bench. I love Terry Bondo. Everyone does. He's the latest trend on the hit parade. It's only partly down to the fact he's called Terry Bondo and at least a bit because he's a young kid who looks like he can do something we need him to do - namely, run about and get near the ball in the region of the goal and a lot about the fact he looks like he actually wants to score a goal. I might sometimes have my nagging doubts about the tactical relevance of Steve Bruce's 90s football travelling showcase (given the prevailing zeitgeist isn't very '442') - but I do very much like his instinct for picking the player of the moment and his willingness to give a kid a shout.
---
The first half is interrupted by injury twice and never really seems to get going as a result. A Northampton lad manages to hurt himself quite badly and is taken off on the orange stretcher that always reminds me of a mini model of a lifeboat. There's the usual shouts of 'get him off the pitch' and 'get up you tart' but as it becomes clear he's actually badly hurt, there is a grudgingly respectful round of applause. Football crowds are the best of human nature eh? To be fair, there's a lingering doubt in my mind that he pretended the whole thing to avoid the shame of being skilled (that sounds like something young people say to describe a move on FIFA so I'll use it, whether it is a phrase or not) by CJ whose 'trick' in beating him is put in perspective by the fact it was very possibly beating a man with a fractured leg or some such horror injury.
Jimmy is the other interruption. When he sinks onto his backside and throws his head back, I'm thinking the worst, but then it's evident that's just to stem the flow of blood from his nose. Jimmy is made of strong stuff and football is a lot less dangerous than war, so he's patched up, has a change of shirt and we're off.
Other than injuries there's a lot of effort but not a huge amount of quality. Robbie Apter has a couple of runs and slams the ball over the top or down the goalie's throat (not literally obviously, it's just one of those things people say in football reports because everyone else says it) and Rhodes heads wide from a corner when really, he might get it on target if he'd been properly in the groove.
Northamption look indifferent to the prospect of attacking most of the time. They're happy enough for us to chug away looking quite often like we might be about to put a good attack together but mostly not quite doing so. Numerous times Joseph or Apter don't quite break the lines or we don't quite find a pass. Finnegan does ok in the middle but when his big moment comes from what is probably our best move, some slick passing and changes of direction that sees the ball pulled from the right to give him a shooting chance from about 18 yards, he gets caught in two minds about shifting it on to the next man or cracking it with the laces and what happens looks a bit like the outcome of a bunker shot in golf where the head of the club is loose as the ball flies off at an oblique, almost impossible to conceive angle and ends up nowhere near either any of our players or the goal.
The Cobblers have the best chance of the half. How it came about I don't recall, but Gary Goalie makes a brilliant save, a sharp pass from the right begats a sharply taken effort from about penalty spot range and the big man gets down fantastically well and gets a strong paw to it (he's the kind of keeper with paws, Grimmy had hands) to turn it away. For all the questions about goalkeepers* O'Donnell is good today, making a couple of excellent saves and generally being quite commanding and decisive.
(*and they are very real - who sells the decent first team keeper and ends up with the lad in goal who was last a no1 with a team relegated from the entire football league shortly after telling the fans prices are going up to pay for 'better players'? Answers on a postcard**)
**Don't bother with the postcard. It's a rhetorical device and stamps are murderously expensive these days plus PO BOX GM14 is a made up address I've used previously as another device so it wouldn't get to me anyway***
***Unless the actual GM14 uses it for some reason, in which cases it will land in Hartlepool and I doubt he'll give a fuck to be fair****
**** Are PO Boxes even a thing anymore anyway? Answers on a postcard etc. See what I did there? Lets stop this shit, cos it's shit and crack on with the feast of delicious league one football we're all savouring... I bet you can't wait for more of it...
Where were we?
Joseph is limping. FFS.
---
I dunno. It's like something happened and time passed but it's not really registered with me. We've not been awful but I've not really been excited either. The usual things happened. Joseph ran about a lot (until he started limping, when he slowed down a bit). Rhodes did quite well on a scale of Rhodes this season and I thought worked hard to come deep and win headers. Apter looked the one player who could really cut through but didn't really trouble the keeper either with crosses or shots and when he did deliver a nice ball (and also when Jimmy did) we didn't quite read the intent and it flashed past the post with no one near it.
---
Joseph has come out for the second half. Hurray!
Joseph is on his haunches doing the universal squat of the footballer who can do no more football. Fucks sake. This is a piss take this year.
What are we going to do? It's Terry Bondo time!. Who had Terry Bondo down as a first team pick 3 weeks ago? Not me. Anyway. I'm not sure if everyone else is injured or Steve Bruce has said in his lovely gentle but firm Geordie voice "look, the rest of you can buck your ideas up. I like what I see from Terry. I like a player called Terry. It reminds me of my playing days. So on both performances and forename terms, I want better from you. Go and score a few goals and call yourself 'Keith' or 'Clive' or, I dunno, 'Gary' and you'll be right back in. I don't hold grudges, but I have standards - is that clear? Any questions? Now, Steve, pop the kettle on, Stephen, go and grab those chairs and Keysie, get the hobnobs, lets have a natter"
For the first bit of the half we're really poor. The Cobblers have their best spell and put a lot of pressure on. We defend well, but we're worryingly reliant on last ditch defence. I prefer 'defending well' to mean the midfield mop up before it gets to the defence but you cannot underestimate the importance of Jimmy Husband's under the bar headed clearance. Jimmy sometimes looks less than free of movement on a football pitch but his athletic and twisting leap to flip the ball away is outstanding and brings to mind his tackle away at Bournemouth which is genuinely the most astonishing bit of defending I've ever seen in the flesh.
That effort is followed shortly after by a sliding challenge as they look to be part way through pulling the trigger. I *think* it was Gabriel though Casey also goes to ground at the same time so it's difficult to be sure but whoever it was got it absolutely right at a moment they absolutely had to. Whichever way round it was, they tackled both their own player AND the Northampton player such was the force of the slide.
Bondo doesn't really touch the ball for a bit. Then he's away down the left, a lovely bit of skill and a burst of pace to the byline. Who knew the big man did this? He's like Josh Bowler only with end product as the ball fizzes across for us not to make the most of, but not because of the quality or direction of the ball, but because it's us and we don't score goals at the moment.
There's a cross from the left where Bondo takes his man away and (I think) Rhodes gets in at the far post, but the ball is in the side netting, not the back of the net. Rhodes then has the best effort of the game from a Bondo knockdown, a drilled effort from distance that the keeper flings an arm up for and tips over in a leaping, tumbling manner that denies Rhodes a goal his all round effort probably merits.
It transpires though, that in having a good shot, Rhodes has injured himself. This is the most Blackpool thing ever at the moment. We bring on Embleton (not a striker) and Norburn (even less of a striker) and I'm not sure how this is going to work. If you didn't have Terry Bondo down as a first team pick, then you likely didn't have 'Terry Bondo as a solo striker' down as a potential game winning tactic either.
It works surprisingly well. Or at least, to be less hyperbolic about things, it doesn't go quite as to shit as I fear it might. It kind of carries on as before with us not really quite getting it right overall, but given the patchwork nature of it (what is it? 5-4-1? 3-5-1-1? I don't know) with Apter nearest to Bondo, no real right winger and Embleton wandering about the middle like a Sunday shopper browsing the aisles of a supermarket before being allowed to pay for stuff at 10am, the outcome isn't bad.
The greatest moment of the season (everything Keogh related aside) so nearly happens. Coulson has a sort of 'is it a cross or a shot' effort, Bondo reacts quickly with a snapshot at the near post. I'm about to leap so high that I hit the roof of the south stand, but their keeper equals (or perhaps even betters) our keeper's earlier stop and the fairy tale is denied.
There's a moment that might not remain in the collective memory where we nearly score a wonderful goal. I've wondered about Embleton quite a bit this season. Last time he was here I liked him a lot but he's struggled this time to find a place and influence things and looked more than a bit lacklustre at times. I was reminded of why I liked him by a tiny moment today. The midfield is the usual league one meat grinder. Everyone is booting it and jumping and it's all hopefull stuff. Embleton nips in and with a deft back heel sets us off into space. I keep watching Embo cos I'm trying to work out if he offers us anything still. We make three or four passes and then, the ball is pulled across to Embleton who has drifted, unseen, checking his run to be exactly where he is, ready for the ball, but sans marker. The ball is just too short, he winds up for it and pulls out because it's not there. It would have been a sensational goal from a higher division. They say you can't mourn for what never was, but honestly, I'm gutted that didn't actually come off. I'm still none the wiser about where he fits and how we use him but there's at least some quality still there beneath the dusty surface...
The Cobblers have the best chance of the half. How it came about I don't recall, but Gary Goalie makes a brilliant save, a sharp pass from the right begats a sharply taken effort from about penalty spot range and the big man gets down fantastically well and gets a strong paw to it (he's the kind of keeper with paws, Grimmy had hands) to turn it away. For all the questions about goalkeepers* O'Donnell is good today, making a couple of excellent saves and generally being quite commanding and decisive.
(*and they are very real - who sells the decent first team keeper and ends up with the lad in goal who was last a no1 with a team relegated from the entire football league shortly after telling the fans prices are going up to pay for 'better players'? Answers on a postcard**)
**Don't bother with the postcard. It's a rhetorical device and stamps are murderously expensive these days plus PO BOX GM14 is a made up address I've used previously as another device so it wouldn't get to me anyway***
***Unless the actual GM14 uses it for some reason, in which cases it will land in Hartlepool and I doubt he'll give a fuck to be fair****
**** Are PO Boxes even a thing anymore anyway? Answers on a postcard etc. See what I did there? Lets stop this shit, cos it's shit and crack on with the feast of delicious league one football we're all savouring... I bet you can't wait for more of it...
Where were we?
Joseph is limping. FFS.
---
I dunno. It's like something happened and time passed but it's not really registered with me. We've not been awful but I've not really been excited either. The usual things happened. Joseph ran about a lot (until he started limping, when he slowed down a bit). Rhodes did quite well on a scale of Rhodes this season and I thought worked hard to come deep and win headers. Apter looked the one player who could really cut through but didn't really trouble the keeper either with crosses or shots and when he did deliver a nice ball (and also when Jimmy did) we didn't quite read the intent and it flashed past the post with no one near it.
---
Joseph has come out for the second half. Hurray!
Joseph is on his haunches doing the universal squat of the footballer who can do no more football. Fucks sake. This is a piss take this year.
What are we going to do? It's Terry Bondo time!. Who had Terry Bondo down as a first team pick 3 weeks ago? Not me. Anyway. I'm not sure if everyone else is injured or Steve Bruce has said in his lovely gentle but firm Geordie voice "look, the rest of you can buck your ideas up. I like what I see from Terry. I like a player called Terry. It reminds me of my playing days. So on both performances and forename terms, I want better from you. Go and score a few goals and call yourself 'Keith' or 'Clive' or, I dunno, 'Gary' and you'll be right back in. I don't hold grudges, but I have standards - is that clear? Any questions? Now, Steve, pop the kettle on, Stephen, go and grab those chairs and Keysie, get the hobnobs, lets have a natter"
For the first bit of the half we're really poor. The Cobblers have their best spell and put a lot of pressure on. We defend well, but we're worryingly reliant on last ditch defence. I prefer 'defending well' to mean the midfield mop up before it gets to the defence but you cannot underestimate the importance of Jimmy Husband's under the bar headed clearance. Jimmy sometimes looks less than free of movement on a football pitch but his athletic and twisting leap to flip the ball away is outstanding and brings to mind his tackle away at Bournemouth which is genuinely the most astonishing bit of defending I've ever seen in the flesh.
That effort is followed shortly after by a sliding challenge as they look to be part way through pulling the trigger. I *think* it was Gabriel though Casey also goes to ground at the same time so it's difficult to be sure but whoever it was got it absolutely right at a moment they absolutely had to. Whichever way round it was, they tackled both their own player AND the Northampton player such was the force of the slide.
Bondo doesn't really touch the ball for a bit. Then he's away down the left, a lovely bit of skill and a burst of pace to the byline. Who knew the big man did this? He's like Josh Bowler only with end product as the ball fizzes across for us not to make the most of, but not because of the quality or direction of the ball, but because it's us and we don't score goals at the moment.
There's a cross from the left where Bondo takes his man away and (I think) Rhodes gets in at the far post, but the ball is in the side netting, not the back of the net. Rhodes then has the best effort of the game from a Bondo knockdown, a drilled effort from distance that the keeper flings an arm up for and tips over in a leaping, tumbling manner that denies Rhodes a goal his all round effort probably merits.
It transpires though, that in having a good shot, Rhodes has injured himself. This is the most Blackpool thing ever at the moment. We bring on Embleton (not a striker) and Norburn (even less of a striker) and I'm not sure how this is going to work. If you didn't have Terry Bondo down as a first team pick, then you likely didn't have 'Terry Bondo as a solo striker' down as a potential game winning tactic either.
It works surprisingly well. Or at least, to be less hyperbolic about things, it doesn't go quite as to shit as I fear it might. It kind of carries on as before with us not really quite getting it right overall, but given the patchwork nature of it (what is it? 5-4-1? 3-5-1-1? I don't know) with Apter nearest to Bondo, no real right winger and Embleton wandering about the middle like a Sunday shopper browsing the aisles of a supermarket before being allowed to pay for stuff at 10am, the outcome isn't bad.
The greatest moment of the season (everything Keogh related aside) so nearly happens. Coulson has a sort of 'is it a cross or a shot' effort, Bondo reacts quickly with a snapshot at the near post. I'm about to leap so high that I hit the roof of the south stand, but their keeper equals (or perhaps even betters) our keeper's earlier stop and the fairy tale is denied.
There's a moment that might not remain in the collective memory where we nearly score a wonderful goal. I've wondered about Embleton quite a bit this season. Last time he was here I liked him a lot but he's struggled this time to find a place and influence things and looked more than a bit lacklustre at times. I was reminded of why I liked him by a tiny moment today. The midfield is the usual league one meat grinder. Everyone is booting it and jumping and it's all hopefull stuff. Embleton nips in and with a deft back heel sets us off into space. I keep watching Embo cos I'm trying to work out if he offers us anything still. We make three or four passes and then, the ball is pulled across to Embleton who has drifted, unseen, checking his run to be exactly where he is, ready for the ball, but sans marker. The ball is just too short, he winds up for it and pulls out because it's not there. It would have been a sensational goal from a higher division. They say you can't mourn for what never was, but honestly, I'm gutted that didn't actually come off. I'm still none the wiser about where he fits and how we use him but there's at least some quality still there beneath the dusty surface...
Not long to go. We'll never score today.
Bondo and Offiah exhange passes, Terry's touch and go technique is really impressive as is Offiah's physical pace and his mental speed as he spots Apter. It's threaded and the little man is in, legs drumming, bearing down on goal and it looks as if this might be it but the ball is rolled the wrong side of the post in what was maybe an attempt to give the keeper the eyes and then slam it at the near post but was undone by the fact he didn't really slam it or get it on target.
That is that.
---
After the game I felt quite down about it because we didn't really do an awful lot and no disrespect to Northampton (disrespect to Northampton) it's Northampton. Thinking it through again, I still do feel a bit down because the same predictability and inability to really get any control was there - but there were a few reasons not to book the league 2 tour quite yet. Firstly, we were defensively better. Jimmy played well, Offiah played well. Casey almost always plays well even when we're clown car defending and Jordan Gabriel was much more like himself. That back four should be good. It shouldn't leak goals like a sieve. It's not world class, no, but it's not bad for this level, it's not a bottom 6 defence in any world.
Midfield was again the weak point and that is fundamentally why 442 is not paying off any more. CJ had an anonymous game and went off injured. The Rapter's right sided role is fine, but I think I liked him shoved up behind a striker more because he's truly of the leash there and harder to contain and the switch it to him, he takes it down, cuts inside routine is becoming a known quantity and without much else elsewhere on the pitch, you can sit on him there because you know exactly where he'll be. Evans was someway off it today though - he didn't look fit, he got his pocket picked a few times and struggled to impose himself as he does when on it. I think he played because he had to play and there's merit in that. A lesser player I think might have put their hand up at some point to come off or not start and it's churlish not to value that. Norburn definitely stiffened things up a bit. I though Finnegan wasn't bad at all really but as my wise neighbour said 'he's just not the enforcer type that you need to give Evans that bit of time' - ultimately, Norburn is much more that.
Tactically, whilst it's a shame it took an injury mess to force us into changing things up a bit, I would credit Bruce for thinking on his feet well and definitely give him a lot of love for both picking Bondo and then chucking him when he did when he could easily have baulked at how early it was and how key Joseph is to replace. For all that it feels as if we've really not invested well of late, there's a lot to be said for backing a kid over a journeyman and we've not done that a lot in the last few years and for me, I absolutely love seeing youth get a chance and wish we'd done it a bit more. It's also clear that we don't HAVE to play 442 every minute of every game and that gives me a bit of hope because some players might benefit from that and make the squad a bit more deep as a result.
The main man today was of course, Terry Bondo. A world without Kyle Joseph might follow in the next few weeks and I dread to think of it, but Bondo did well. Talent and experience is all well and good, but without the wildcard of youthful endeavour, it can all be a bit stale and routine. For all the fear of putting kids in, he looked absolutely fine. He was no rabbit in the headlights. He caused problems, he was brave, he linked with others and gave us an energy. I'm not getting carried away. Bondo might play 4 or 5 games and disappear to the Unibond* league. He might be the new Matty Blinkhorn and play quite a bit but not quite crack it. He might be half decent and knock in a few and be an asset on occaision. He might smash it and be the next big thing. I don't know, you don't know, Steve Bruce doesn't know, Terry Bondo himself doesn't know.
That's the beauty of giving a young player a shot - it's about today. He had no weight of expectation but he exceeded what could reasonably be demanded of him in his all round impact and therefore, tonight, he'll feel as if a door has been opened. No one knows how long the door will stay open, but for many in the youth system, it remains steadfastly shut forever and therefore, I will tonight raise a glass to his efforts in tangerine in the hope one or two more might sneak through the door that Bondo has got his toe through and we see more of that kind of fearless and high effort football. It should give some of the 'established' players a kick up the arse to be honest.
*whatever it's called now.
That is that.
---
After the game I felt quite down about it because we didn't really do an awful lot and no disrespect to Northampton (disrespect to Northampton) it's Northampton. Thinking it through again, I still do feel a bit down because the same predictability and inability to really get any control was there - but there were a few reasons not to book the league 2 tour quite yet. Firstly, we were defensively better. Jimmy played well, Offiah played well. Casey almost always plays well even when we're clown car defending and Jordan Gabriel was much more like himself. That back four should be good. It shouldn't leak goals like a sieve. It's not world class, no, but it's not bad for this level, it's not a bottom 6 defence in any world.
Midfield was again the weak point and that is fundamentally why 442 is not paying off any more. CJ had an anonymous game and went off injured. The Rapter's right sided role is fine, but I think I liked him shoved up behind a striker more because he's truly of the leash there and harder to contain and the switch it to him, he takes it down, cuts inside routine is becoming a known quantity and without much else elsewhere on the pitch, you can sit on him there because you know exactly where he'll be. Evans was someway off it today though - he didn't look fit, he got his pocket picked a few times and struggled to impose himself as he does when on it. I think he played because he had to play and there's merit in that. A lesser player I think might have put their hand up at some point to come off or not start and it's churlish not to value that. Norburn definitely stiffened things up a bit. I though Finnegan wasn't bad at all really but as my wise neighbour said 'he's just not the enforcer type that you need to give Evans that bit of time' - ultimately, Norburn is much more that.
Tactically, whilst it's a shame it took an injury mess to force us into changing things up a bit, I would credit Bruce for thinking on his feet well and definitely give him a lot of love for both picking Bondo and then chucking him when he did when he could easily have baulked at how early it was and how key Joseph is to replace. For all that it feels as if we've really not invested well of late, there's a lot to be said for backing a kid over a journeyman and we've not done that a lot in the last few years and for me, I absolutely love seeing youth get a chance and wish we'd done it a bit more. It's also clear that we don't HAVE to play 442 every minute of every game and that gives me a bit of hope because some players might benefit from that and make the squad a bit more deep as a result.
The main man today was of course, Terry Bondo. A world without Kyle Joseph might follow in the next few weeks and I dread to think of it, but Bondo did well. Talent and experience is all well and good, but without the wildcard of youthful endeavour, it can all be a bit stale and routine. For all the fear of putting kids in, he looked absolutely fine. He was no rabbit in the headlights. He caused problems, he was brave, he linked with others and gave us an energy. I'm not getting carried away. Bondo might play 4 or 5 games and disappear to the Unibond* league. He might be the new Matty Blinkhorn and play quite a bit but not quite crack it. He might be half decent and knock in a few and be an asset on occaision. He might smash it and be the next big thing. I don't know, you don't know, Steve Bruce doesn't know, Terry Bondo himself doesn't know.
That's the beauty of giving a young player a shot - it's about today. He had no weight of expectation but he exceeded what could reasonably be demanded of him in his all round impact and therefore, tonight, he'll feel as if a door has been opened. No one knows how long the door will stay open, but for many in the youth system, it remains steadfastly shut forever and therefore, I will tonight raise a glass to his efforts in tangerine in the hope one or two more might sneak through the door that Bondo has got his toe through and we see more of that kind of fearless and high effort football. It should give some of the 'established' players a kick up the arse to be honest.
*whatever it's called now.
Onward
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