And again... the Mighty vs Shrewsbury

New Year is here, festivities are over. Real life beckons us with a bony finger, cackling "you've had your fun with your indoor trees and your flashy little lights.... Now here is my wicked revenge. Behold the horrifying emptiness of January and February... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha" - these grim months wouldn't half be cheered up by us going on a mad winning spree because there ain't much else about them to look forward to.

Shrewsbury, blue and yellow kit, never actually any good but seems to beat us a lot. The kind of team you'd imagine the fans either carry a cheeseboard in a little Tupperware container and a broadsheet newspaper or some local cider in a square plastic container. Everyone in Shrewsbury is either a farmhand, an antique dealer or a vicar in my head. When I actually see them outside the ground though, they look quite normal and no one is carrying a bail of hay, wearing a cravat or sporting a dog collar but then, I guess, it would be wrong to pigeonhole those professions, so for all I know, the bunch of lads in Stone Island might be direct from the seminary. 

Us, latent potential, tangerine wizardry, legendary force in the game, Ballon D'or, greatest game in English history and so on. We're merely biding time before launching an all out assault on the Champions League etc. I've said it all before. The window is open, it looks as if a few need to be pushed out and a few others welcomed in. Pace, width etc. You know the drill.

Today, super Sonny Carey in for the hipster wingback is the one change. Coulson is a decent wide player, but he's not a pure winger. Sonny hasn't really been a winger either as far as anyone knew but who knows, maybe the extra player drifting in and having a shot might unlock what will doubtless be a resolute Shrewsbury side. He is the league one Phil Foden after all.

Time for some red hot soccer action.

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When I say 'red hot' I would struggle to actually describe it as 'tepid' - I've rarely found myself more at a loss for words than I am at the task of writing up this first half. What happened? Almost nothing. Ash Fletcher comedically side footed one a mile over. Albie Morgan had a dig from miles out that went miles wide and Sonny 'not actually Andrei Kanchelskis after all' Carey hit a deflected effort late in the half that bounces about a bit. Shrewsbury had a massive keeper who also seemed a little rotund but we've no idea if he's any good or not because we didn't have any shots at him. I can't remember getting anywhere approaching excited about anything beyond Tyrer making a good stop from a Shrewsbury break. I spent most of the half trying to decide if I liked the colour of Shrewsbury's kit - a weird blue green that seemed more like the colour you'd get on expensive but slightly poorly chosen pair of curtains in a badly renovated manor house or in a wall painted with poisonous lead based paint in a derelict farm. 

What else. I honestly don't know. I could read the live text back to see if anything happened I'd forgotten about but that would really defeat the point of the blog because you could just do that too and make up your own metaphors to suit. It wasn't that we didn't control the game, it was more that we got up to a certain point and ran out of ideas. The players did move about but they just seemed to swap positions, rendering the overall shape the same even though the individuals popped up in different places. We had a few nice one twos, the odd give and go where we made a bit of space but largely we a) shuffled it side to side or b) hit a hopeful and not very accurate ball at Joseph or Fletcher, neither of particularly troubled their man today. 

People say games like this are 'devoid of quality' - that's one of those phrases that isn't strictly true - the players mostly controlled the ball competently and passed it neatly enough. What we were is completely devoid of anything exceptional or outstanding. We were just individually very average and therefore collectively uninspiring. Shrewsbury were compact and organised. At times they dropped into a 6-4-0 formation but when they broke, they did so quickly and directly and did enough to keep us honest. Whilst hardly a team full of world class talent, it was noticeable they carried the ball with pace and passed it fast when going forward so whilst they had a lot less control than us, they carried just enough of a threat to prevent us totally overloading them. I think what probably sums it up is that an excellent recovery tackle from Casey in a half where Shrewsbury had very few forays into our half was my personal highlight - and that should tell you how little real threat we posed. 

--- 

Fuck me. That was dull. 

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The second half starts out in the same vein. Maybe I should start bringing a book to read. I could take up knitting or something. It's flat as fuck as well. The ground doesn't so much resemble a cauldron of atmosphere but the chatter of some bored people, the noise roughly akin to what you'd be left with if you removed the piped muzak in a moderately busy shopping centre. Maybe they should play some lift music whilst we're playing to fill the time. I'm sure this used to be a fun place to be where it all felt a bit edgy and sometimes it boiled over but it's really not been that for a while. When they announced the injury time in the first half it felt a bit like being sat in an exam hall told there was 1 minute to go before putting your pens down. That's not the vibe I really want if I'm honest. If you offered me the chance to swap my season ticket to 'away games only' I'd bite your hand off at the moment. 

Finally we get going. Evans is set away, he tees up Apter and the wee man pings a deep cross, Jimmy scrambles in at the far post and the ball goes wide. It's something resembling a chance and that's something. Encouraged, we pass it around well and create a shooting chance from some intricate work that leaves Carey to have a dig from the edge of the box. It's straight down the keeper's throat but it is, at least, on target. 

Bruce smells blood. There's a quadruple substitution (Joseph amongst those withdrawn, he's looked leggy today and nothing has stuck to him at all) and the return of CJ 'Ole!' Hamilton to the fray. Finally, some pace. So far we've not really looked able to run away from Shrewsbury - we could definitely have moved more, but to be fair, whatever movement we make, they just follow us and if you're not faster than them or bigger than them, then that's going to yield a stalemate. CJ might just change that. 

Change it he does. A ball up towards Ballard actually finds CJ, he does the trademark 'pull it back past everyone' thing he does, but there's Apter, coming from deep to pick it up, completely unmarked and he absolutely leathers it into the top corner, one of those where it's hit so hard, the net seems to stretch and envelope the ball. Yes! That's exactly what we needed and the substitution has yielded almost immediate reward. 

We nearly get another as great work from Offiah in the far corner keeps the ball alive and possession in our hands, he draws all the nearby defenders then just lays of for Evans to cross - Rhodes climbs and puts it just over the top. Surely we're going to roll this lot over now. We're on top, we're clearly better than them and they can't just leave 5 in a line with 4 in another line in front of that any more. CJ Hamilton has changed the game with his pace and if they come onto us, he'll be able to run riot in behind them... 

... that's not quite how it pans out. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but CJ has a yin to his yang. For all he's lightning quick and gives us an option than no one else in the squad (in fact no one for years) has given us, he's also not the greatest all round technical footballer on earth and sometimes (this will surprise you I'm sure!) that can be a problem.

First he gives it away after we pass it round just about everyone and the move breaks down when it didn't need to. Then he gets caught in possession and sort of half falls over, half stabs the ball to no one and we're all out of position because I'm not sure anyone expected him to do that and Shrewsbury just pick it up, run into the box and score. It's such a simple goal. We've spent most of the game trying to fashion chances from clever angles and stringing passes together and they just walk into the box after having the ball handed to them on a plate and it's 1-1. 

For fucks sake Pool! Just before the ball was turned over, we were going forward and turned around, choosing to go right back and play some possession football but that kind of falls down when you don't keep possession. It was a like a goal from the worst moments of Critchley 2.0 - an opportunity to attack turned down, the ball shuttled around the back and lost and then lots of shouting at each other whilst the other lot celebrate wildly because Blackpool is the place to come if you want a plucky draw to boost your survival hopes and everyone fucking seems to do this to us. 

I'd like to describe a barrage of attacks, wave after wave of tangerine pressure, oohs, aahs, head in hands moments, kicking the back of the seat in frustration, screaming at the ref, invoking phrases like 'the Alamo, only with more kitchen sinks being thrown' but again, I have to be honest, we were more than a bit shit once they'd scored and I mostly sat resting my elbows on the empty seat (people must have chosen the Sealife Centre this week) in front and glumly held my chin in my hands because we were never scoring. I think we won a corner but wasted it. They looked more likely and they didn't look particularly like scoring either, so that shows how little I thought we were going to score.  

--- 

That stung.

Shrewsbury were great at what they did, but they didn't do a lot. We played poorly, we failed to test them often enough. It was like having a defence in the way was enough because whilst they were resolutely well organised and hard working, there weren't many last ditch headers or flying blocks, their keeper wasn't pulling off double saves (or really, any saves) and they didn't particularly have to go beyond a standard level of shithousery (a few clips on Apter, a bit of time wasting) to frustrate us. 

One thing I noticed was that whilst the delivery to the strikers wasn't especially good, we really didn't compete for the ball in the box. It was if we'd decided that, rather than risk going all in and possibly conceding a foul, we'd watch the ball into the keepers' hands. I can't face writing the same paragraph about what we lack, I just hope we can go and get that injection of what we need (variety!) and start to match some of the away performances against decent teams with home performances against sides who we have to start beating if we want to achieve anything.

Players will make mistakes. CJ probably feels like pure shit and he's one of the few who gives us variety - the wider point is that we're struggling like hell to break down anyone at home and when you don't look like scoring very often in games like this, a single mistake will be amplified. You'll never stop mistakes, but we have to address the fundamental issues that saw us start yet again with only one actual winger on the pitch and reliant on a 35 year old who hasn't scored since forever as the change when (as has been inevitable for a while) Joseph looked like running himself into the ground had caught up on him.

CJ's mistake doesn't explain why we rarely win the ball in the air going forward, why we don't have many ball carriers and why we rarely seem to win an attacking footrace. The fact the squad was conceived for a different form of football does, and the manager needs to be backed to properly start to shape the squad to play the form he favours. There's little point in having appointed him otherwise because the overall issues here aren't simply about attitude or mindset - they're about the attributes and positional expertise of the available players. Mindset is formed by habits, it's not an absolute, it's not fixed - but being tall or quick or being a winger or a target man is. 

Onward

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

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Away with ye, shite... Again! - Queen of the South vs Annan Athletic

I don't know what it is about fitba but I'm drawn to it like a magnet. I don't see my (Scottish) family enough and I shouldn't be going from them to be away to a game today but how can I turn down a chance to stand under the rusting roof of the Portland Drive terrace and watch Queens taking on Annan? It's a local derby. I can't not do this.  If I'm away in Scotland (which is quite often) I always have to find a game. Last time I was in Glasgow, it was the off season, so I walked 6 miles round to peer through a fence at a derelict stadium in lieu of a game. There's something semi mystical about it all to me. It's familiar, yet strange. If I'm in say, Doncaster or Birmingham, I don't have that same pull - I don't think 'I should catch a game' - but up here, I can't resist. 

Dumfries and Galloway is the most understated of places. It's beautiful but in a way that doesn't shout about itself. In the depths of winter there's almost no colour. Everything is earthen. Red stone, turned brown with rain, bare earth dark and sodden, the faded, pale sunlight starved only just green of late December grass. Even the beize of the pool table in the pub seems more beige-grey than you might reasonably expect. 

Out here, it's the dark sky park. In summer, the heavens seems massive, the infinite universe unfolding in clear night, unhindered by the glare of street lamps in this sparsely populated corner of the world. In winter, in weather like this, that same sky hangs like an oppressive blanket, days glowering grey, nights pitch dark, the world seems not so much infinite, but to barely stretch beyond the glow of the light from a window. The floodlight are resolutely and gorgeously old school, a comfort at the best of times, but when they snap on, a few moment before kick off on a dull day like this, where there might as well be no such thing as a sun or a moon, their luminescence renders the 4g surface a vibrant green and there's a real sense of magic. 

Annan's tiny but tightly packed group of fans are at the far end of the new stand. The rest of Palmerston is slowly filling. The local ultras (average age 11.5) are revelling in a really gratuitously hapless shooting drill. Last time I was here, I noted the drummer has a little bit of work to do on his timing and I think that still applies but the kids don't care as kick off approaches with a resounding chorus of "Annan get battered" underscored by what I'll decide is a bravely free jazz approach to keeping time. Scottish League 1 supported by an Avant Garde rhythm section. Lets go! 

---

Queens start brightly. An extended head tennis match goes their way and the big target man Dickensson scoops over. The lively Adam Brooks then almost breaks away from a flick on by the big man. Roles are reversed as Brooks shows spellbinding skill on the right touchline after a nice pass from ex Annan man Lussient sets him away he swings a great cross over that Dickensson does everything but bundle home.  The home side are crisp and focussed and Annan can't get control of the ball at all. 

When the goal comes, it's well deserved and the quality is a delight to behold. The diminutive Brooks controls, slips inside his man then keeps going, shaping the perfect angle for a perfect curling shot that curls away from the orange-clad Annan keeper's desperately arching dive and then back inside the post. What a strike! A solitary blue flare burns in the goal mouth and a Queens steward has to go and find a litter picker to remove it. No pyro. No party. The singed patch on the pitch remains throughout the rest of the game as a reminder that, even as the quality degenerates to a point where there's almost no football at all, that moment shone brightly, a firework of a goal. 

The rest of the half is a touch more even. Annan hit the bar and grab a few corners but Brooks and Dickensson continue to combine well and Queens could be further ahead had they taken the chances that come their way. 

---

It's been a decent game and Palmerston hums with fairly content chatter. It's a cliche that the Scots are taciturn, but the conversation in the toilets "Good one?" "Aye, fine. You" "Aye, fine" does little to dispel the stereotype. 

--- 

If the first half was decent, the second half is anything but. Queens seem content to sit on their lead and Annan don't seem able to do anything about it. Nothing at all happens for ages. I listen as the lads behind me regale each other with score updates, I watch the young couple in front photograph each other and then the pitch. I find it heartwarming that a crush barrier on the Portland Drive terrace is a hot spot for a date and imagine them looking back 60 years from now. The chips smell good. The chips smell really good in fact. I spend a good 3 minutes wondering if I should go up and get some such is the lack of action on the pitch. I decide against it (a decision I regret still, 24 hours later), just as the ref decides not to give Annan a penalty after a very dubious shout even though Annan's no9 goes absolutely apeshit about it and then spends the next 15 minutes looking as if he's on a one man quest to get himself sent off as if that might teach the referee some kind of perverse lesson.  

I really like Dickensson. He's a journeyman, he's played everywhere up and down the UK and all over the pitch whilst on that journey - but today he's a focal point for the attack and his intelligent link play draws several appreciative rolling rounds of applause. I like his mix of brawny fight and deceptively good touch and vision and I think he's probably the player I'd look at and say 'he could go higher' - but the fact he's nearly 32 and he's been higher before makes me admire that he's putting the shift in that he is when probably the best outcome he can hope for from the season is to stay afloat in the game. Brooks (an ex Celtic kid) is the other obvious bit of talent, but he struggles to impact the game in the second half, bar a couple of sensational bits of footwork that get him away from his man, but ultimately lead nowhere. 

A few changes are made - the big man is withdrawn and Queens start to look more than a little bit sloppy. Annan start to make more headway. Whereas earlier in the half, it felt as if the game was stuck in a bog with neither team going anywhere, it now feels as if Annan have wriggled free. Still, they don't make so much, but some loose Queens touches and some really uninspired forward play that simply presents the ball back to Annan seem to to be inviting them on. At one point, Queens take a goal kick with not one, but two defenders inside the box - a short pass from the keeper and then a run forward, an attempt to play football, then a lump forward and Queens on the back foot as Annan win it again. That was more or less the pattern of the half. Annan get more and more of the ball and only the young full back Macintyre on loan from Hibs really gets the crowd behind him with some crunching tackles and tenacious defending as most of the rest of his colleagues retreat further and further into their shells... 

I should mention at this point that Queens are managed by the ex Annan manager and Annan by the ex Queens manager and numerous players on either side have played for both clubs. Before the game, I saw more than one car with mixed blue and white and yellow and black occupants climbing out. It's that sort of entwined place and that kind of relationship only raises the stakes.

Consider the drama then, when Annan finally get the chance to equalise - a penalty awarded for a handball at the back post that seemed fairly clear (though the lads behind me think the Queen's defender is pushed into the ball) - and the taker that steps up is Willie Gibson, Dumfries born, veteran of 3 playing spells and a management stint with Queens and now player manager just up the road. 

The Portland Drive crew does it's best to put him off, but he's resolutely calm, I swear he's smiling at this mischief before taking the kick and he sends the keeper left with his eyes and places the ball bottom right with the artful skill of a true piece of shithousery. Annan are ecstatic, Queens fans grimly despairing. It's what their side deserve, not really because Annan did much in particular but because to offer so little ambition in the second half is to just about demand such punishment from the football gods. 

Not much else happens. The whistle blows, I walk down to the front and as I make my way towards the exist, amongst the stoics muttering about 'every fucking week' there's a bit of fury from a few - one lad in a sports jacket stops, and gestures to the players trudging over for the obligatory applauding the fans ritual, 'nae, fuck awf, nae, fuck AWWF, away with ye - shite! Again! Every fucking week, just fuck awf' and part of me feels as if rather than the kind of vervant poetic odes to 'passion and glory' that are trotted out to advertise football, this is the true inner monologue of every proper football fan. 

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The night has fallen. It's an oily black, a true inky darkness. The rain is falling now, framed in the white head and red tail lights that snake away from the ground. The floodlights shine on. My love for fitba, the unadorned simplicity of it all, standing in stark contrast to the overbearing self aggrandizing hoopla of the elite game south of the border remains absolutely undimmed. 

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

If you want to get literally nothing more than you'd get for free anyway but are wanting to pointlessly give some money to the cause of a football blog that is usually far, far too long then your best option is Patreon. I wouldn't though because frankly, it's an act of self indulgence to write this shit and it shouldn't be encouraged. 

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IT HIT HIS BACK! - Wrexham AFC vs the Mighty

Do you remember the past? It was great. It was cold at Christmas, there were places in town that weren't vape shops and you were younger than you are now and didn't waste your life reading shite off the internet on a phone. League One was called Division 3 (or 2 if it was slightly less 'the past') and there were none of these 'Crawley' and 'Stevenage' nonsense teams to play against, just proper clubs like, I dunno York and the place we're going today.

In the past Wrexhan were a thing. They weren't Man Utd or owt, but they were pretty good at football, or, at least they were roughly about as good as Blackpool at football for quite a while and we had some cracking games against them. Then stuff went very badly wrong with them and they fell hard, so hard that it seemed possible they might not return. So hard, that not even a combined strike force of Andy Morell and Brett Ormerod could lift them back and let's be honest, if there's a problem that can't be fixed by those two, it's a pretty big issue.

Today then, they're back but they're back with bells on and aspirations. Some actors bought them apparently. I'm not sure who the actors actually are other than they seem to think they're funny, so I'll say that it was Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. 

Dan and Chevy became beloved by the locals by doing quirky clips on Twitter and buying them some half decent players and making a documentary about "hopes and dreams and soccerball" and whilst the wider world lapped all this up as a story of plucky success, those of us who support clubs who are in and around their orbit, mutter dark things about them being a bunch of Disney+ princess melts who've bought the league.

This is, of course, jealousy more raw than steak tartare. Wrexhan have had as torrid a time as anyone in the last few decades and you can view their current celebrity elevated status as either yet another example of the distorting influence of global money in the English game or a feel-good fairy tale of a grand old football name finally getting a day in the sun. Either way, Wrexham is one of the few games in this somewhat bland division that has a bit of anticipation about it and that's something.

There's something about a fog shrouded ground. Wrexham warm up in a psychedelic swirl of a shirt. The fog falls a bit more. The noise builds. The stand we're in is really rubbish and I can't see a lot of the pitch, nor is there room to move below but in a strange way, I like that too. Going to the football shouldn't be about padded seats and 3 course meals. The head height rusty exposed screws in the panelling at the back of the stand are a particularly nice touch. The noise builds some more. This is great, it's rammed in here. Fuck Hollywood, but to be fair to Hollywood, at least they're a team we'd give a fuck about beating.  

--

I really can't see much at all. Every time the ball goes towards what was the Kop end, it more or less disappears in a combination of fog, glare from a light in the stand and metalwork. When the ball is at the far touchline, I have to bend my knees to duck low enough to see. I am trying to chant and clap above my head whilst in a weird crouch. I'm not sure this looks very graceful. 

What does look graceful is us, belting down the left and in the fog, I can make out the elegant lurching run of Jimmy Husband, who crosses through the gloom and there's big Ashley Fletcher to miss it bundle the ball home and send me and the other 1400 Pool fans into a shock early rapture, scuttling down the gangway and filling the misty air with throaty roars of primal joy. It's a great start, the best start. Perfect. 

Ash Fletcher has definitely had his weetabix. He doesn't simply score - He's all flicks and lovely touches, coming deep, laying off, spinning and showing a real fleetness of foot and intricate dancing steps, skipping past the Wrexham defenders more than once, looking like a child leaping nimbly across stepping stones in a river... 'What the fuck did Fletcher get for Christmas?' asks someone in front of me in response to another lovely bit of play from the big man. I don't have an answer, but more of this please. 

We're doing well. We nearly double our lead when an attack ends up being half cleared and Hayden Coulson comes from deep to pounce on a ball that seems to float in the air for ages and plants a firm downward header just the wrong side of the post. C'mon Pool! The stand is rocking, this is the most fun I've had for ages... 

James Mclean is playing, as he always does, the role of the panto villain. He's not so much a flying winger these days as a filthy full back and he practically batters Rob Apter, elbows, studs, ankle clips, anything goes but the ref seems somewhat unwilling to do anything about it. I enjoy it when Lee Evans gets a bit bored of it and just wanders over and hoofs Mclean up in the air and then wanders away again. 

The game gets more even and Wrexham have several attacks, shots are blocked or crosses wasted. It's really hard to see and I'm starting to think, 'if this gets any thicker, we might be in trouble here' when there's a sound of anticipation from the home fans and then, (I've lost track of the ball behind the stanchion holding the roof up) Harry Tyrer dives, and then the sound of delight. I surmise that the ball has gone in from somewhere behind the metalwork and it's 1-1. I'm told it's a really good goal scored by Paul Mullin but I really have no idea because to me, it was just a random dive and some sound. 

The festive spirit is only momentarily dimmed. We get back on the front foot and at them. The noise redoubles. During the game we get a weird monotone Ash Fletcher chant, an airing of songs for Brett Ormerod and Ludo Sylvestre, the classic 'where were you when you were shit?' which I haven't heard for ages and a load more. There's a lot to be said for a tightly packed and low roofed stand and the roof would have come off if we'd scored again.

We nearly do as Joseph goes down the right, squares it, it's behind Fletcher but Apter picks it up, weaves into a space in which he can shoot and is denied by a full length slides from a defender. We nearly do again, as Lee Evans takes a weirdly (and brilliantly) flat free kick that evades everyone to find Ollie Casey who seemingly only needs to make contact to score. He does make contact, but then, in the haze, the (in my memory anyway) resoundingly average Mark Howard seems to morph into Gordon Banks and pulls off a point blank stop to deny us. So close. C'mon Pool! 

--- 

I've really enjoyed this. We've been the better side I think. We've certainly had the better chances. Wrexham have done very little and We've both started and ended the half on top. 

--- 

I don't know what Phil Parkinson said to Wrexham, but it's worked. Where they looked fairly timid in the first half, they're now a red wave, pouring forward, time after time after time. We can't get out. I keep looking at the clock and 10,20,25 minutes have gone by and we've done absolutely nothing other than defend. It's somewhat of a siege but we're putting up a decent defence against a side who all seem to have eaten some of the aforementioned raw meat at half time and all grown about 3 inches in height as a result. 

We block heroically. The centre backs head, Albie Morgan puts himself in the way several times. Kyle Joseph ends up back in his own box wrestling the ball away. They keep coming, particularly down their left where it feels as if we've got no one playing such is the ease with which they work it again and again. Evans dives to block one, Hubby dives under his own bar and turns one away. Tyrer dives and palms one away and out of danger too. A flick on, Mullin twists and turns and cracks it, Tyrer dives and saves low. Mullin heads on over he should do better with. 

I was concerned about not being able to see our attacks, but as we literally don't have any until 70 minutes are well gone, I was worrying about nothing. The Pool massive are getting restless. Bruce isn't changing things when it looks like we need changes. I'm not wholly sure we've got the players to change things, but for a while it feels a matter of time before Wrexham score and a matter of fortune that they don't. They bring on some subs, we wait ages to do so. 

Finally, we have a spell of possession and knock it around nicely. Fletcher has been less involved this half but he has a lovely first time lay off in a really good move that eventually yields a corner. Evans has his laser guide out again and drops it right on (I think!) Joseph's head, but if the ball was good, the header is snatched at and ends up ballooning over the bar harmlessly. 

On 84 minutes, we manage a shot. Sonny Carey is on and has a lovely one two with Albie Morgan (probably my pick of the front 6 today) and bursts into the box. It's straight at the keeper but it gets a round of applause out of sheer relief that we seem to not be under the cosh any more. In fact, we seem reasonably comfortable and at 1-1, you never know. Maybe we've weathered the storm and are ready to hit them with a classic sucker punch away day winner. Fuck knows, it seem to happen to us at home often enough, so c'mon Pool. Lets have one! 

What we get instead is this. A simple ball is pumped up. A big Wrexham lad has got wrong side of Casey, but he fights back and hoots the ball away. It falls to another Wrexham lad who twats it and Casey blocks it. Nothing to see here. They demand a penalty but a) it obviously wasn't one and b) so long has passed between the incident without the referee reacting to it that their appeals look stupid.... 

... until, that is, the referee puts his whistle to his mouth and points at the spot. Our players go absolutely mental. I go mental. What I want to say is 'FUCK OFF, YOU ONLY GAVE THAT BECAUSE THEY SHOUTED AT YOU, YOU PATHETIC BOTTLING CUNT' but it comes out as 'FUCK OFF, YOU ONLY FUCK OFF YOU ONLY GAVE THAT FUCK OFF. FUCK OFF' because I cannot put words in the right order after seeing such a surreal decision given. 

Steven Fletcher. Scores. Low. Fuck off. 

The ref endears himself still further by randomly penalising us for nothing as we vainly attack and then, to top it all off, literally getting in the way of our most promising move of the dying moments, doing a better job than any Wrexham defender.

Fuck my life. Fuck football. Fuck stupid sky blue referee kits that look like shit cycling jerseys and fuck Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase and their stupid 'feel good' project. Fuck feeling good. Fuck off. I don't feel good. Jimmy is raging at the ref for about 3 minutes. It feels like he might never leave the pitch. Wrexham are filming things like some great giant vlogger project. Fuck them. Fuck it all. We're filing out, dejected.

Boxing day seems cursed... 

---

I don't know. I thought we put a shift in today. Apter struggled when the game got really physical, but he's the only creativity and it's not his fault we've amassed a squad where he has to play wide right every week by default because no one else can do it. Fletcher really was decent for a good spell, I thought Morgan was tremendous and really got stuck in, even when the mismatch between him and some of their lads was almost comical. 

We did have to cling on in the second half but we did it (hallucinations from the referee not withstanding) and whilst they had a lot of the play, we didn't actually concede too many efforts on goal. I never want to be one of those people who bangs on about refereeing as if they've just this minute discovered football is unfair, because it has always been and refs always will be fallible and you go to games knowing full well you might get given a stupid goal or might lose a stupid goal and that's still 1000 times better than the heat death end of spontaneity experience of VAR but fuck me, it felt as if that ref was reading a script and Hollywood FC had written it because I still have no idea how he felt it was a penalty because it never was and never should have been. Sometimes you see a 50/50 call. Sometimes a 40/60. Maybe a 30/70 will go against you and so on... but this was literally a 0/100 call. 

In an odd way, it was good to play Wrexham again despite the result. There was a decent atmosphere, some back and forth and I actually perversely enjoyed the utter shitness of the stand - this game was one I always enjoyed way back when it was last a thing because they bring a few and we take a few and it's got a bit about it and I'm bored of nothing clubs and flat atmospheres and this was, despite the result, much more like it. 

This season is frustrating because it's clear that we've got a decent core and can play well at times. We more than matched them first half. It was also clear that whilst they could bring on some quality (as well as a terrifically inept massive lad) we're really short of game changing players and each game that passes makes me pine for January that bit more because the core needs adding to and we need more. We're so short of proper pace it hurts to watch sometimes - we just couldn't stretch Wrexham at all on the break. We're lacking the brute up front you sometimes need as well as we were just penned in and hopeful balls were gobbled up by their no5 who had the look of a suave 80s wrestler about him and swatted away our forwards with ease. We need width, we need... 

... You all know this. I'm repeating myself.

Anyway, we was robbed. 

Onward!  

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

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Early New Year's resolutions - the Mighty vs the January transfer window

This season has been strange. The last season was odd too. In fact, the season before that was odd as well. I don't know about anyone else but I feel as if Blackpool FC has fallen into some kind of weird uncanny valley - a kind of mist shrouded slightly shadowy version of itself. It is Blackpool FC but somehow, it feels a little bit 'wrong' 

Let me expand a bit. It's not just this season. This season has been odd (and we'll get to that soon enough) but it's the last couple of seasons. Firstly, Michael Appleton returned, like a spectre at the feast, a weird forgotten memory suddenly front and centre. That season was bizarre. I've never wondered before what would happen if you set 'The Walking Dead' in Yorkshire, but Mick McCarthy's reign is probably quite close to the truth. When you list the players we had at our disposal it seems kind of incredible we went down and were so consistently shit. We had Morgan fucking Rogers for fucks sake, and he didn't even get in our team all the time. 

Then Neil Critchley was reanimated and back, back, back but that never sat right. We did win quite a few games but it strangely didn't feel as if we were doing so and Critchley seemed to have undergone some kind of tactical lobotomy which left him dependent on reliving the same experience over and over and over again, forever sending on Matty Virtue for his weekly 8 minutes regardless of the situation. Critchley 2.0 was a hollowed out figure. Something had happened to him. 

This season started with car crash football. Critchley's few games were horror smashes. The kind where you'd close the motorway and need the air ambulance. Crazy Uncle Richard's were more a lurid high tempo dodgem ride kind of smash up, fun in their own way but probably not really the best mode of transport towards destination Championship. 

Then the club announced Steve Bruce and my head fell off. Nothing seemed further from the vision I still clung to of us, playing exciting youthful football with exciting young players and an exciting young coach. The dinosaur tag is a lazy one but honestly, Bruce's craggy features, looking like a combination of a particularly gnarly cliff face and a big hessian sack full of oats as he spoke about 'being back in football' was like a particularly surreal dream. I couldn't work it out. Was this really happening? Was Beadle about to pop out and declare 'surprise!' and capture my astonished face for the amusement of a prime time ITV audience? 

Then we were brilliant for a few games and it seemed like it might be a dream, but the good kind, the football version of when you have a dream about someone you didn't previously fancy but then when you wake up, you do. Then it fell apart for particularly awful reasons and it felt as if possibly Bruce might not come back because this is only football and it seemed we might need to start all over again as really not very crazy at all Uncle Aggers masterminded a series of abject and stubbornly poor displays and everything was really quite shit. Thankfully, Steve '90s football genius' Bruce reappeared in the dugout and the floundering ship was steadied and we even won some away games in a row which feels mental and pretty good. 

Thus far this year we've stared the relegation places in the face, gone on a couple of runs that have had us believing, won a few games in fine style, got battered a few times and served up a few really stultifying stalemates in between. We're on our best away run for ages, we haven't won at home since September. At one point we'd scored more goals than anyone else in English football, but we also look like we can't score and lack a forward line. We're actually quite tight at the back of late, but at the beginning of the season (and for a while after 'the beginning' had ended)  we couldn't stop conceding, regardless of whether the opposition were any good or not. 

I think Bruce is doing a decent job: Stats would bear this out: 

He's been physically present in the dugout for 13 games - We've won 7, drawn 3 and lost 3. That record over 46 games would, without doubt have us in that most specific of football locations - 'there or thereabouts' 

I think he's shown a canny approach, he's made the best of what he has and navigated some extremely difficult challenges (not to speak of his personal circumstances but to come in to a club, go out again and then come back in isn't easy whatever is going on) with wisdom and calmness. I get the sense that he calls a spade a spade and a crap performance a crap performance but at the same time, by the time midweek rolls around, bygones are bygones and he's willing to give everyone a chance afresh. He's certainly addressed our inability to play football away from Bloomfield Road and whilst 'changing things from time to time' shouldn't be something remarkable for a football manager, recent history makes Bruce look like an inspired and flexible tactical guru for having the imagination to sometimes put an extra striker on or move the tricky player into the middle for a bit. 

In short, I think we're in safe hands for the time being. I think we have a manager who knows both what he's doing and why he's doing it. Is he the next Kieran Mckenna? No. Is he serious about his job with us and thinking hard about it and having a positive impact? Yes. He'll do for me whatever I thought initially. 

Lets go back to the beginning. It's been a really underwhelming few seasons. The atmosphere shows it. The dwindling crowds show it. 

There was a real shine to us for a few years. A sense of a new beginning and an optimism. A sense of being 'part of something' - Perhaps COVID was a little bit of a curse turned into a blessing in that respect, in that we'd not really fully appreciated being 'back' when it was snatched away again and whilst everyone reemerged into the football world salivating and that little bit more edgy and appreciative of the sheer liveness of it all, we really, really grasped that and for a year or so, it felt as if we were louder, bigger, more colourful and more together than ever. 

That seems like a distant memory.

The last few seasons of mediocrity, mixed with calamity and some questionable commercial decisions/ill thought through communication from the club itself seem to have meant we've regressed to a state of shoulder shrugging rank averageness and surly antipathy/apathy towards the whole thing.

Let me qualify that. In the black hole years where I know pretty much nothing about us, we finished 10th and 12th in this division despite being the weirdest club in the league and having next to no one at games. It feels as if we should be doing a bit better now, what with having supporters and a few other normal things that normal football clubs have. 

That shoulder shrugging averageness applies to the squad too. I don't want to single anyone out to damn with faint praise but we're a squad of unremarkable players who just seem to have ended up here because they have. It's hard to discern a whole lot of variety within or any great plan behind the make up of the 22, especially as the man of neatly ironed polo shirts and the fully safety equipped Volvo (with its '5-3-2' steering wheel) who was responsible for the make up of so much of who and what we now are is currently plying his trade of sensible string back driving gloves football over the border. 

Supporters trade in outrage because that's the currency of the day for all public discourse and you don't have to look far on an any given match day to find someone being labelled as 'shite' but the truth is, they're mostly fairly adept at football. The problem isn't that they are all rubbish at the basics of the game - it's more that very few of them stand out as being actually remarkable at anything. The squad isn't so much 'shite' as 'bland' and poorly balanced for what we're trying to do. If I was an opposition fan, I'm not sure I'd noticed that much about us most weeks. 

I think there's a cynicism beginning to set in - I can feel myself already glumly accepting that we've signed a 19 year old on loan from Stoke reserves (and nothing else) on deadline day but in the interests of optimism and finding some kind of purpose to the whole pointless affair of following a club who mostly aren't very good, I think it has to be said that this January might be the most crucial one since the (no longer quite so new) ownership took over. 

Here's why: 

We've turned this way and that way over the last few seasons. We've tried things, abandoned things, gone from one style to another and whilst initially, Bruce seemed to be one more stab in the dark, the presence of Dobbie and Keogh in the background suggests a semblance of future proofing ourselves and a degree of hitherto unseen succession planning. In fact, we've got what must be one of the more expensive dugouts in the division and for it to flounder around for a couple of years making do with a squad defined by it's averageness and lack of depth in key positions would be a strange way of using it. It's like hiring a top architect to design a 2 bed semi detached bungalow and asking him to make it look like a Barratt Home. It makes no sense. 

If we don't have a good go at addressing the obvious defects in the squad (we've got one goalie who can catch and the other who can kick, half the number of wide players we need, a back up left back who can't be trusted to play left back, no real natural finisher (assuming Rhodes doesn't find the elixir of youth), no target man, only really one 'tough' midfielder who is seemingly always injured therefore his toughness is a bit of a moot point) then you have to ask what is really in this for Steve Bruce? - He's been around the game forever, he's managed his boyhood club (and their deadliest rivals) - he's got to cup finals, he's won things, he's lifted Premier League trophies - and whilst he clearly loves the game, I'm not sure scraping us to 9th for a couple of seasons is the most attractive option. 

We desperately need a bit more. We need some 'points of difference' - that would ideally be some top class players who possess everything but being realistic, we're unlikely to get any of them, so instead, it probably needs to be a couple of quick lads, a couple of lads who are pretty hard and a couple of lads who are pretty big and hopefully all of them possess a basic level of technique. 

However tempting it is to give in to a doom laden fatalism, the season is really far from over and the right signings could transform us. Kyle Joseph runs literally miles further than the average striker and will make space for the right partner. Everyone wants a goalscorer but we've got no one who you'd really back in the box (Rhodes maybe a finisher still, but it's becoming increasingly evident that he's not going to be able to play a harrying, intense game such as we've played at our best.) Someone to protect Evans and dominate midfield would make the world of difference as currently, the nearest thing we've had to a play maker for years is having to be his own enforcer. Others in midfield don't lack talent either, but neither Morgan or Carey are going to protect anyone either. More width is a must because we're so over reliant on Robbie Apter it's painful because literally no one else in the squad can actually beat a man. A target man would be an excellent option from the bench because when we're struggling to get through and go long, we look blunt as manfully as Kyle tries, he's really not Dave Bamber and neither is anyone else. If Husband gets injured we're screwed at left back. Maybe Harry Tyrer will become a good keeper, as despite him doing a really good impression of being not very good, I think he actually probably is a good keeper in waiting who just needs to get his head right, but that's Everton's gamble to take really, not ours and a solid goalkeeper to replace the pretty good one we flogged at the last on deadline day is probably needed too. 

It seems a lot to ask for but it's what's needed and you could make a case for even more. It might seem far fetched and wise sages (and idiots like me) say things such as 'January's no time to buy really' - but in the first January window of the Sadler era, we brought in, Maxwell, Thorniley, Ward, Ronan, Dewsbury-Hall, Taylor Moore, made Husband's loan permanent and also signed some big Geordie lump with a dodgy groin whose name I forget. Wonder what happened to him? 

That's 8 signings, all of whom you could argue were a success in tangerine, whether immediate or longer term. That window goes to show the current management of the club that it's not impossible to add significant strength in January and, if we aren't in a position to enact that now - with one of the game's most well connected and experienced figures in charge (and someone who knows him well in charge of recruitment,) then it begs the question - when will we ever be in a position to do so and if we're not going to place our faith in Steve Bruce then who the hell are we ever going to place our faith in and if not Bruce, why on earth get a manager who is such a change in direction?)

Getting rid of Critchley so soon after spending all summer presumably recruiting for his quite particular style and replacing him with someone who made few bones about publicly declaring 'we'll be doing something different' almost as soon as he took the job is a decision that if we want to make a success of it, then we'll have to take the chance in January to do what we didn't do in summer and recruit some of the pieces that are needed to make the Steve Bruce jigsaw whole. January is where odds and sods are on the market - and to bring the piece to a close, perhaps one of the reasons we've just not felt wholly 'Blackpool' of late is precisely because that kind of 'slightly raggedy, bit of a gamble, left out somewhere else, needs a shot in the arm and a bit of bracing seaside air' player has been lacking and maybe, whilst I'm almost certainly thinking wishfully, January could just bring us a few of those and things could look and feel very different.

There's no guarantees in football (another hackneyed cliche) but unless we have a go at stirring up the pot, and add a bit more bold flavour to the mix whilst we're at it then I can't see this season really going anywhere and that cloud of tedium and apathy that seems to cling to Bloomfield Road will not be dispersed. If we get that bit more depth, that bit more spice, that little bit more bite - then it might just create a bit of a chain reaction - those players currently with us are lifted, it might unlock that bit more space, that new partnership might blossom and so on. Why not this window? When have we ever been 'right up there' at this point and made a success of it? We always come good later on. It's what we do. 

The energy we all feed on has been missing for quite some time. 

Now is the time to find it.    

Onward

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

If you want to get literally nothing more than you'd get for free anyway but are wanting to pointlessly give some money to the cause of a football blog that is usually far, far too long then your best option is Patreon. I wouldn't though because frankly, it's an act of self indulgence to write this shit and it shouldn't be encouraged. 

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Hard grind - the Mighty vs Stevenage

Steve Bruce's 90s football fun house opens its doors once more. It feels like a 'grind it out' sort of day. Steve Bruce is the sort of man who can handle that type of thing though and is inevitably going to lead us to glory...

The weather is a churning mess of grey, black and patches of distant blue that are almost taunting in their opposition to the darkness that is bringing winter showers. It's the solstice today. This is ancient day of festivities. A turning point in the calendar. From here, the only way is up towards light and warmth.

I don't think the ancestors of the Fylde Coast ever celebrated by inviting anyone from Stevenage round to their stone circle though. It might be unfair, it might be snobbery but the name conjures about as much festive excitement as an office Christmas party you have to pay for yourself in a Harvester pub by a roundabout on an industrial estate near a motorway junction. A game against someone else might serve up some kind of pagan ceremony of wild excess, the stands lit against the darkness, the noise and drums bringing a ritual warmth but this... It doesn't really feel magic(k)

--- 

We start pretty well. Ash Fletcher wins some headers! We seem to have a reasonable grip of midfield. We tidy up anything they offer (which is the square root of fuck all) with ease and play in a largely forward directiion. 

There are chances. Robbie Apter is away and smacks a shot against the keeper when maybe he should square it. Albie Morgan catches one perfectly after cross from Apter is only scooped to the edge of the box. Kyle Joseph meets a Lee Evans corner square on but instead of making the need bulge, puts the ball the wrong side of the post.

I struggle to recall much else. When the halftime whistle goes, it's fair to say we've been on top but we've not really turned the screw. Stevenage might have had an attack but if so it's slipped from my memory. In previous games against us they've defied my snobbery about their non-club status and been aggressive going forward but in the first half they're just about as anonymous. as you could imagine.

--- 

I hope a bit more happens 

--- 

We're out early. They take forever to emerge, presumably having a tactical master class drilled into them at halftime.

They are better second half, but it would have difficult not to be. Not much happens for about 15 minutes other than Harry Tyerr has few unconvincing punches where his technique reminds me of someone trying tentatively to reach something heavy down from a high shelf suspicious that putting to much into the action might bring things crashing onto their head.

We seem to lose the grip we had on the midfield and I start to wonder who is on the bench. It's the kind of game where 10 minutes of a genuinely quality player would probably settle it. If we had Kaddy or some such football genius to pop on we'd be 2-0 up in no time.

We don't.

We do have Jordan Rhodes and your dad remembers him scoring goals so that might work. It almost does, Evans corner, Rhodes near post and a really sharp save by their otherwise comically poor at kicking keeper denies us again.

We have a spell of loads (ok. about three) corners where there's briefly a flurry of atmosphere and a sense of vague anticipation. Soon though, combination of Stevenage adapting to our changed shape and the referee's complete and utter naivety at their high level tactic of 'pretend to be injured every time Blackpool attack' means by about 80 minutes I've all but given up on us scoring.

Every time we seem to be attacking space, the ref whistles and play is called back. It ruins three of our attacks in short order but I suppose the ire towards the officials comes as close to anything else in terms of resembling an atmosphere.

Other 'highlights' of what is a pretty rank half of football include: the ref and lino giving a goal kick for a ball that went out for a throw about 10 yards up the line. Jordan Rhodes being used as target man, something he is resolutely not, Tyrer making a couple of half decent stops from shots you'd expect him to save but you never knows with him, so there's relief, Tyrer joining in with 'you don't know what you're doing' to the ref. Tyree getting booked for questioning why the ref stopped playing for a fourth time when it was Ash Fletcher who got cleaned out, not the Stevenage player who went down as if he'd been the fouled and not the fouler and Lee Evans with a truly naughty challenge that given the shenanigans of Stevenage was quite satisfying.

The game ended, not with a barrage of all out Pool attack but with first, Stevenage suddenly playing some very canny passing football out of nowhere and then a brace of Stevenage corners and what seemed to my eye to be a more than reasonable shout for a Stevenage penalty. Thank fuck it wasn't and thank fuck they didn't sneak one in a the far post when everyone left the ball alone in the absolute dying seconds.

It was a truly dismal game, but that would have been very bitter icing on a very stale cake.

--- 

It almost goes without saying that such a game exposed a lack of quality in the squad. To be fair, defensively, we were pretty sound but baring the earliest part of the game, we didn't really seem able to put our foot on the ball or to be able to dribble round anyone or particularly dominate physically.

Probably Apter looked most likely to create something, but as the game went on, it became more obvious that we only really had that outlet because on the left flank was a striker and both the strikers are relatively similar build and essentially 'nuisance players'

It's been clear for some time (pretty much ever since we landed back in this division) that we need more both variety and more quality. Quality doesn't just mean 'really good all round player like those from off of the Premier League' - it can mean 'being both quite tall and able to head it a bit' or 'being both really nippy and not totally shit with the ball' 

I suppose it's positive that we seem to have come up with a functional back 4 (and Penno and Casey were really good today) but in front of it, we definitely need more because we lacked any real point of difference or game changers and as much as Bruce can shuffle it about cleverly at times, you have to sometimes have a player who is just quicker or bigger or technically better than who he's up against and we don't really have many of those.

Mostly, it's positive that that game is over and I don't have to watch it anymore.

Onward... 

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

If you want to get literally nothing more than you'd get for free anyway but are wanting to pointlessly give some money to the cause of a football blog that is usually far, far too long then your best option is Patreon. I wouldn't though because frankly, it's an act of self indulgence to write this shit and it shouldn't be encouraged. 

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