Get it launched! - the Mighty vs Wigan Athletic

I decide to walk down the prom from the station. I haven't done this route to a game for years. It's easy to forget when you don't go to the front very often that Blackpool is mad as fuck on a world class level and this has to be one of the planet's greatest walks to a stadium. Walking to the Dave Whelen Broken Leg Superstore Stadium is a grim trek through muddy carparks, derelict mills and a particularly dystopian Asda. We deserve the points just for that really. 

I have no idea how this will go. This season is up and down. Down and up, side to side, back and forth. I'm doing everything to avoid saying 'rollercoaster' here.  We're rubbish. We're great. We're rubbish again. We're on our 4th manager this season and perhaps it's showing a bit. It is what it is. 

I resent the very existence of Wigan Athletic on a fundamental (deeply childish, personal and bitter) level.. It's a rugby town. They're a non league team. Dave Whalen once nearly killed me (true). All their fans actually  support Liverpool or someone like that. Their 'fairytale success' was bankrolled. That's the gist of it. I've outlined my antipathy in greater depth in previous blogs. They've turned up tonight in a ninja kit with a yellow bib on the front like they fancy themselves a bit. 

Before the game, I'm thinking - the problem now is the same problem as the problem previously. We have 'a way' of playing that suits some players and not others. When the right players aren't fit then trying to make that way work come what may doesn't seem to be the definition of tactical genius. That said, in this weird Bruceless limbo,, it's all a bit churlish to be raging at the fate of a football team but then again, that's what we do and that's what the entire football industry is built upon. If it weren't for the one eyed emotionally immature football supporter like me, there wouldn't be a professional game because we'd all find something better to do of an afternoon/evening and therefore I'm hoping genial Uncle Steve has got a master class for us tonight.

--- 

It appears he hasn't. It's 442 and no matter the shape of the pegs we're going to hammer them into those classic 90s football holes. To be fair to Stand-in Steve, we're a bit short however you throw the cards in the air but I swear we could fashion something slightly more creative and perhaps convincing than what we put out. 

The first 20 or so minutes are attritional stuff. When I say attritional, I mean, really quite shit. I can't really remember anything good that we did and mostly I entertained myself by correctly guessing that Ash Fletcher would mistime his jump when it came close to him.  If you want to play along in future, you get one point for a poorly timed jump and a 3 point jackpot for when he jumps in the wrong place as well. (minus 1 point for 'not jumping at all') 

Wigan weren't especially good either but they had a canny tactic of lobbing it up the the touchline for a fast player to run after. They did switch the play once too which in this game was advanced level stuff I passed a bit more time wondering about people who pay shitloads for Sky Sports and whether any of them are still watching what looks a bit like two works B teams battle it out. 

Then Wigan score. It's a smash it up the wing into that channel ball and then from what I can see from miles away, one of our defenders isolated and they get a ball in quite easily, that gets touched on with no real challenge and subsequently swept home by a late runner unseen by our defence. I'm not raging yet, but I can't help observing that t's quite easy to score against us

We wake up a bit. Fletcher has a run and a semi respectable shot that is deflected wide. The Rapter puts a few lovely balls in (one is a sensational cross considering he's got no space to work in at all) but we conspire to either head them wide (Joseph) or not head them at all (Embo ) Joseph's perennial harrying pays off as he's through on Sam Tickle, he sees the chance for a lovely chipped finish and executes the idea but the Wigan keeper reads it perfectly and Joseph looks a bit sheepish because what really should have been filed as 'audacious and cheeky' ends up under the heading 'looked a bit shit I'm afraid.' Kyle can do what he likes though. He's beyond reproach for me. The Rapter pings one from distance that has fizz and swerve but is just over. 

Then Wigan score again. This time I'm raging properly. Evans moves deep to collect a pass. He's eyeing up a raking ball, wandering about visualising his next clever pass  for far too long and Wigan just nip it from him, runs through the middle, whilst our defenders run away and score. I'm not furious at Evans per se, because he's also earned a mistake or two this season but just the universe and everything in it can fuck off. Fucks sake Pool. 

We attack a bit more and from a move that threatens to have broken down, Evans whips a ball into the box, Joseph is quite near it, but it's a Wigan man who deflects it in. A good time to score, but it would have been better on balance not to be 2-0 down before scoring... 

--- 

I don't know. We've made some chances but we don't look joined up at all. Wigan haven't been great but they have looked a bit more cohesive. It's all a bit scruffy. Our tempo is off. Some players seem to want to be patient, others hurried. It's like the musicians aren't in time with each other. 

--- 

The second half actually hurts to watch at times. Agnew has quite clearly told them to cut out any fancy business and get it launched quickly and as often as possible. It's both 'sort of more effective' and also 'whisper it quietly but this is a tiny bit TC and Mick' 

I'm not a football purist. I actually really like watching a well drilled direct team doing their thing but we're not that side. It doesn't help that Gary Goalie isn't the best kicker, nor does it help that none of Evans, Apter, Carey and Embleton are what you'd imagine a long ball midfield to be and Ashley Fletcher, despite being every inch an athletic looking mobile and physical presence on the outside iis about as effective as a target man as one of those wavy arm hot air things you get outside of car garages for no other reason than that seems to be a thing you put outside of car showrooms.  

Wigan carve us open several times. There's some really last ditch blocks, one particularly of note from Penno and a wild shirt pull from Casey that is all he can do to stop a break. Gary Goalie makes a very good low stop to keep us alive. They head one over the top when they should really score. 

We can't keep the ball. We're literally just twatting it hopefully forward at any chance we get. 

Then Fletcher has a semi respectable overhead kick effort and I wonder if the answer is to make him shoot every time facing away from goal or to play him in a blindfold. He then is slipped by a neat bit of play from Sonny and Embleton and seemingly clipped in the box. It's not happening with this ref all night and you have to fear it might never happen for Fletcher. If ever a player needed a random and unexpectedly spectacular goal, it's him.  

Wigan do a weird thing - they take off the nippy wing backs that tortured us. I don't really understand that move. 

Amenable Uncle Steve sends very polite nephew Jordan 'always sends a very neatly written Christmas card' Rhodes on. Carey whips a good ball in. Rhodes is on it and it's inches wide. Kyle Joseph gets outside and cuts it back and Rhodes hurls himself at it in what from a mile a way looked like a classic Keith Houchem style and it's deflected what feels like millimetres wide. Rhodes looks livelier than he has done for a while. 

We go 433 with Onomah and Ballard entering the fray. We carry on twatting it, which really doesn't seem to be the best use of the small and pacy substitute and the quite technically able but not hugely hard working midfielder but what do I know? It's not quite Mad Mick using Ian Poveda as a target man but it's annoying me because it seems to be just reverting to a set ideology and we've had enough of that with the Cheshire Oaks oatmeal soft furnishing fabreeze scented one. 

Wigan are annoying me too singing that stupid Bob Marley song. Should sing some George Formby instead or fuck off and eat some mintballs and chase some eggs down a mine. Everything is annoying me to be honest. 

The ref has been gash. We've been pretty poor. I don't understand our tactics or substitutes and and this is a really poor defeat that I honestly can't imagine Critchley's boredomball succumbing too and that's a really depressing thought. Where's the inventiveness that Uncle Richard's  carefree chaos unlocked? There's none of it. It's like watching a VHS uploaded on youtube of a match from the days of muddy pitches and half empty terraces and I'm half expecting Andy Gouck to be the next sub. 

We're hacking away in injury time. The ball is bouncing around but we can't get it down to shoot. It's guiding out to Robbie Apter. He's got to make this count. A little drop of the shoulder, and a dart, the little bit of space he needs. He's drilled it to the near post.... It's in!!! 

Yesssssss! I have no idea who scored (it turns out it's one of those boycott era players for us who is just a  name to me) but suddenly my fury at the world has gone. As poorly as I think we've played for periods we've deserved that and it's fucking brilliant to let Wigan know that every little thing isn't going to be alright after all. There's that bitterness again. Pour me a pint of it. I want to down it in one. Beautiful.  

Then we're going again. It's one of those moves, one touch, a scream for a penalty that I've no idea on but that we're never going to get because Wigan could behead one of our players in the box with a machete, film it, send the video to the ref with a full confession and he'd wave play on, another touch, a lay off and Josh Onomah steaming in. In fact, I can see the run from almost before he makes, it, a vision of his arrival onto the ball, the goal gaping, his powerful frame perfectly balanced over the ball to strike it cleanly and crisply into the net. 

In reality (where sadly football is played instead of my mind,) he leans back and hits row P of the Kop. 

--- 

I don't know how to feel about this game. 

For all that it wasn't pretty (it really wasn't) we did create chances and you'd have to say, we probably gave Wigan one and a  half of their two goals by not defending very well and whilst they even more literally gave us two out of two of ours, I think we deserved that luck marginally more than them. There wasn't a lack of effort but there was a lack of quality and a sense of it being all a bit patched up and stuck together with bits of tatty masking tape, which, I suppose it was. 

It all felt very 'lower midtable' if I'm honest and leaves us still pining for those absent or injured. For me, we need to start showing a bit more tactical flexibility when we're lacking key players because 442 or bust isn't yielding the results and ultimately, we didn't play with the kind of verve and belief we'd shown earlier in the year, nor the solidity that Bruce's arrival had added to that attacking imagination. That said, we came back from two down and we didn't give in and ultimately, we could have won it so maybe I'm just being aesthetically snobbish. I don't know. I just hope that '14th' isn't what '8th' was last season because it's felt a bit like that of late. 

A late goal is always good though and Gary Goalie gets full marks for the celebration. 

Onward! 

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Steve Bruce's Tangerine Army - the Mighty vs Barnsley

This game is overshadowed by human tragedy. It's not my place to comment on the nature or details of it because it's private. If you've been on this earth for more than 5 minutes you'll know something of the hollow, numb shock of your own grief. It's like being immersed in ice, like being drowned or smothered. It eats away at you, it paralyses. It chokes. It's like suddenly falling from a great height. It's like waking up and finding you are buried alive. It's a weight you carry, it's an aching that can't be soothed. Loss is personal but it's also universal. It faces us all. Circumstances differ wildly and widely but it's one of the elements of being human that binds us all together. 

There's nothing that really defines existence more. Life is what it is and it has one outcome. The circumstances of today only remind us that no one can take it for granted. That we are fragile. For all the stories we tell ourselves and all the monuments we build to our own folly, we are finite as is everything and everyone we love. We all carry memories, tragedy and suffering and the longer we survive, the wider the wake they leave behind us. 

Perhaps I've come over all 'vicar' here. I don't know. Fuck the vicar act anyway. I have no more knowledge than anyone else. You, me, everyone. We all wrestle with the same questions. This is a football blog but sometimes football is meaningless. So many times I've reflected on the ludicrous pedestal we put it upon. How many hours we spend analysing and debating it, how many emotions are spent bemoaning, celebrating and the full spectrum in between the poles of victory and defeat and yet it means nothing to any rational thinking. A promotion, a relegation. It's just fiction really. The rules can be redrawn any time we want. I think of my Grandma, all hairnet and knitting needles, saying something like 'all those grown men getting so wound up about a silly playground game.' I miss her. I miss other people too.  

Yet, this stupid game does matter to me, to you too very probably, in a very real way. The point and the purpose of it all is simply... Some people... Together... In one place. Football's actual meaning is as a shared experience. To be alive, to suffer, to love, to grieve. They are shared experiences too. I don't know what life is for. I don't know why it can be so unbelievably cruel sometimes. I don't know why what happens happens and I don't know what or who you might be thinking of as you read this and you don't know what or who I am thinking of whilst I write this. 

What we both know is that in the heart of the crowd, in the moment of the goal, in the frustration of the defeat or the tension of the dying seconds protecting a slender lead we're taken elsewhere. Football is, as Michael Parkinson once said so eloquently, not 'war or death or famine' - it is 'something else'. It is something that 'reminds us of life outside of those things' and it's incredible power is that people being in the same place turns something of no real importance into a place and event of deep and powerful meaning.

Long live 'something else' that will be there, meaning both nothing and yet everything all at once because Saturday at 3pm is when we leave it all behind. 

One love.

Tangerine.

Steve Bruce's Tangerine Army. 

--- 

We're barely started and we're stopped. Applause rings out from every soul in the ground. The referee is almost the first one applauding. I wasn't sure if clapping was the right thing to do but it doesn't seem wrong. It's just a gesture and whatever the right or wrong symbol would have been, there is no doubting the feeling and sentiment behind the moment. Well done the ref. Perhaps they are actually people. He's been brilliant in recognising that it's just a stupid game and the rule book can be suspended for 60 seconds. 

The game when it resumes resembles how I imagine a league one game would look if played at the bottom of a (full) swimming pool. It's just not very fast. The player's limbs move a bit slower than they need to. You can see that they've *thought* the right thing but when they go and *do* it's as if their bodies aren't quite willing to carry out the instructions from their brains. 

Everything is just a little bit wrong. Touches are heavy, the weighting on passes are just a bit off. The run is a bit too late. Joseph is doing his usual shift but when it matters he knocks it too far ahead of himself. Ballard looks a little bit like he's running on loose sand, he's just not quite got the elastic energy he usually has. The Rapter is as ever a pleasure to watch but even his magic act isn't as polished as it can be and he runs into trouble as often as he glides through it. 

Lets talk Embleton. The major talking point was that he starts ahead of a presumably crocked CJ. I'm surprised at how disappointed I was not to see the 22 shirt in the line up. His pace and ability to cover a lot of ground has suited Bruceball down to the ground. Embleton is playing a very different role. He's not so much on the left wing as drifting into a central role, a sort of 11-1 = kind of a 10, an inside forwardish role and initially he is quite effective, taking the ball on the turn well and setting us a away a few times. As the game goes on, one poor touch leads to several really quite poor moments and there's a nagging feeling that he's leaving gaps and not really working back as he might. Coulson (who also isn't looking as energetic as he can) is left 2 on 1 more than once and I can't help feeling that CJ might be sprinting back to cover where as Embleton is ineffectively wafting about vaguely in a way that makes Sonny's defensive cover look like prime Gary Brabin. I think he really, really, really, needs something to go his way. It's tempting to say 'the man doesn't give a shit' - but it's also very probable that 'the man has had a horrific experience with multiple career threatening injuries and deeply needs the injection of self belief that some success would bring' could be a plausible take as well because confidence is everything in a game of instinct.  

We do have chances. Ballard puts one he runs onto one low to the keeper's right. The keeper is equal to it. The Rapter's best moment is a stuttering and jinking run where he smashes it into the side netting. There's an Albie Morgan volley from a corner that is literally another half a yard of dip from being a world class moment, as it curls, fizzes, spins and swerves but just doesn't drop quite quick enough. 

For all those chances, we don't convince. Barnsley create few direct chances but nonetheless, seem more in control of the game. They are physically stronger and more precise in their play. Their goal is well worked and leaves me wondering why they were able to get from one end of the pitch to the other with no real effort to tackle them and then finisher allowed to run inside and get a shot off with no great obstruction in his way. 

The Tykes control a lot of the play after the goal, so much so that I'm glad to get to half time without being further undone. 

--- 

It's been odd. We've created more clear cut efforts, but it's also felt like they were clearly the better side. It feels as if the 442 isn't matching their set up. It also feels as if Embleton playing inside as he is means we we don't have the width we need to stretch play horizontally and then create gaps as a result. 

--- 

It takes changes in the second half to get us going. Gabriel has been uncharacteristically poor and his withdrawal pushes Offiah to the right. That ignites us a bit. Out of possession he's a full back but in possession he is very advanced. It's a wonderful run from him that is the highlight of the day, bursting from deep and somehow evading successive challenges before finding himself in the box and putting his effort just beyond the post. 

When we do score, it's a far post ball from Evans that gets a touch and deflects home. I think it's an own goal but Casey runs away claiming the credit and the PA gives it to him. The relief is tangible. 

Onomah, Pennington and Rhodes are also on. I like the first look at the new lad. He's got more physicality than Morgan, Carey and Finnegan combined and he has several really nice bursts through and links really well with his new team mates, touching one off for Apter to have a go, pulling one back for Rhodes to draw a good save and keeping one alive to earn a corner. We start switching it. We get some nice overlaps. Joseph runs down a defender and steals possession, Joseph has a snap shot. The Rapter control a great long range pass from Evans. The crowd responds. C'mon Pool! 

Rhodes climbs and wins a header in the box, he rises like the classic centre forward, it's a leap from the 1950s and a downward header that for a moment I think is heading in but the keeper gets accross to and it isn't to be. We've had a great spell of 10 to 15 minutes but we've not been able to make it count quite enough. We get a free kick. Evans is a dead ball magician but the rabbit is stuck in the hat and the ball way over the bar. 

We send on Ash Fletcher. No one is too excited at this because a forward that doesn't score isn't a very exciting prospect. "Perhaps it will bounce off him and go in?" is heard from behind me. The entire row laughs. This is where we are with this lad. "Maybe he should aim for the corner flag and it might go in by accident?" offers another voice. Sadly, he doesn't have a vintage cameo, his efforts limited to not jumping when he needs to jump and jumping when he's not actually in the right place to jump. I can't remember him touching it otherwise. That said, I do completely approve of the intent to win the game by switching to a 3 up front. It just doesn't work - I'd rather see that than some pathetic attempt to sit on a point at home though. 

Talking of pathetic... 

Barnsley corner. Injury time. It's a floaty one to the far post. A wave of players seem to roll in at the far post. One of them connects. The ball loops oddly gently back towards from where it came and weirdly over everyone else and the side netting is bulging. The Tykes are going mental and almost as soon as the ball crosses the line, 'Pool fans are streaming out. It's at the other end so it's difficult to be sure who should have done what but it does feel as if the header was way too easy, both in that it was seemingly unopposed and also that it kind of 'plopped' into the goal - it wasn't exactly a deadly bullet. 

Fuck's sake Pool. 

--- 

We didn't deserve to lose but we also didn't deserve to win. After the game, I look at the stats and we're better than Barnsley in almost every metric. It didn't feel like that though. I was always, aside from the spell in the second half when we could have scored several times, on edge. We never felt properly in control of the game beyond that 15-20 minute purple patch. 

It's been great watching some simple and confident 442 football lately- but today was an example of the limits of both that system and the squad. Barnsley had us outnumbered in the middle and we lacked the central aggression to really compete and the wide pace to trouble them on both flanks. For most of the first half and a bit of the second, we were a bit lost, we couldn't connect defence with attack and drove too many aimless balls. Joseph is great, but he's not all things to all men and whilst he's decent in the air, he's not an out and out target man by any means and he was well marshalled. Several players didn't seem to be fully fit and as a result we didn't have that overall 'snap' about us that disrupts oppositions. 

Onamah looked like a really good player who will need another month of games to be genuinely and consistently impactful. I liked that he knew exactly what he wanted to do and how he read situations. I liked less that after he'd been on for about 15 minutes, the game seemed to be going too fast for him and he chucked in some really quite wild tackles as a result. I think if he's got the hunger to really show what he can do, he could be as good as anything we've seen in a while. It's all about his mind I think. 

Offiah was magnificent. He's got this way of sprinting to cover and close down danger where he runs twice as fast as man he's chasing but he doesn't seem to be even trying that hard. He really appeared to be at both ends of the pitch at the same time in the second half and did as much to drive us forward as anyone else. He's got a career ahead of him for sure. 

To lose another late goal and to generally not really get a proper grasp off the game again was frustrating but football is only football and I can't write the opening and then bang on about some mistakes, like kicking a football about is the be all and end all of everything. Everyone wanted us to 'do it for Steve' and it's a shame we couldn't, but us pretending that winning a football match would make things all ok for him is bullshit. It won't. For us, yeah, it would have been great and I'm sure the players and staff wanted very much to show they cared, but lets not kid ourselves that football changes anything in the real world or that his loss is our loss. It doesn't and it isn't. We've got plenty of experience and knowledge at the club.  The manager and his family need space and time and football, footballers and demanding football crowds and their never ending needs can wait as long as they need to.

I, as much as anyone (perhaps more so than some) am guilty of talking about defeat and victory as if they're the biggest things in the world. They're not. Blackpool was beautiful today in the sunlight. The evening fell and the dusk light weaved the sky and earth together in a soft and magical way.

We'll be ok. The squad needs reshaping for what we're doing. We'll try and do that. It's a perpetual journey anyway. You never actually arrive and none of it really matters except for the moments it creates and that it takes us elsewhere. 

Onward.

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Football is the cruellest mistress - the Mighty vs Lincoln City

At least the keeper didn't score. 

A panoramic shot of a field at dusk. In the background the sky is painted with sunset as if a theatrical diorama created for this moment and this moment only. At the point where the sky meets the land, a distant illuminated tower. I turn my head. Look to the land on the other side of the road. The sky is darker and a thousand crows wheel, a corvid whirlwind above autumnal stubble.

Sometimes I wish I had longer just to take in the world. To do nothing but notice. There's angles and beauty in everything. Lines, colours, textures that speak of something beyond my comprehension. Maybe it's a soul. I don't know. Who even has time for a soul in this world of forever doing. I always seem to be moving, thinking 'what next' and these fleeting moments of inexplicable transcendence will have to do. 

Anyway.... Football! That's next. I'm in a strange mood still though. I put my earphones in and listen to some music. The effect is eerie as the PA system bleeds together with my tunes and everything is kind of ghostly and distant. Some kids chase the sprinkler showers along the edge of the gangway. Keogh is coaching in a very enthusiastic way. People climb the steps, some slower than others. Various stewards and safety people perform a choreography of pointing and walking and looking, without appearing to affect any great change.

The music ends. 

Beesley's in, Rhodes is out. I approve of that. 

I'm looking forward to this one.

---

It's very nearly the end. The game isn't dead, but it's definitely not got long to live. The keeper is up. As a rule, I love keepers coming up - I have a bad feeling this time though. I've had a bad feeling for about 15 minutes. Lincoln just won't lie down. They're rugged and ugly and they've shithoused there way to having ten men and the crowd on top of them but they're refusing to lie down. They're like a zombie in a terrible film that just won't die and we're panicking, shooting it time and again but it keeps coming, bits hanging off it, limbs missing, lurching towards us slowly and surely, our party one by one falling prey to the inevitable forward march of the monster till nothing stands between them and us... 

We've left no one up. They wouldn't track them anyway, it's all or nothing now. I hate this. I'm watching the keeper. They've got some big lads. Some square shouldered beasts. C'mon Pool. Hang on. Get to it. The ball comes in, it arcs, close to the keeper but he can't make contact, I'm momentarily relieved that the ball has bypassed the central melee but then I'm horrified as they've a man over who steals in, seemingly unopposed and the ball is being diverted in. Someone was there, but whoever it was doesn't do a great deal to stop it. 

I'm in a kind of shock. I look to the linesman. Nothing. I look to the ref. He seems to have given it. One of their players is screaming in the faces of our lads. Classy twat. The rest of them celebrate in front of their fans. The keeper trots back to his goal and gives a bit back to the Kop. 

I feel actually sick. 

What presaged this moment of abject horror was a period of play where we looked increasingly rattled by Lincoln when we should have been cruising to victory. Something went wrong. Everything went wrong. 

Tyrer stopped being able to kick. We stopped being able to pass full stop. Jimmy hooked it out play and spun round in anger at himself. Sonny passed it inexplicably to the East Stand and his shoulders fell. At one point, Embleton's attempts to get back in position seemed so laboured, I thought he would unfold a little stool and have a sit down to catch his breath. We couldn't hold the ball. We couldn't pass it to each other. We couldn't even clear it. We looked as if we had ten men and Lincoln 12. I have no idea where that came from, whether it was nerves are having been held for so long, whether it was, for some players at least, fatigue from 4 intense games in 10 days or whether Lincoln just found some kind of next level energy for 15 minutes or a bit of everything. If anything it was like we tried too hard most of the time but not quite hard enough in a few moments in between. We just went to bits. 

The first half was us dominant at first, then struggling to break Lincoln down, then putting pressure on again. We'd done everything but score. Morgan, set up by a smart set piece from Evans absolutely rattled one that did everything but go in after the keeper blocked it. Coulson had a great run and set up Joseph who produced a divine spinning finish that the keeper performed a near miracle to get to. Evans put one just wide and, after CJ performed an equal near miracle to keep the ball in play we had a mad goal mouth scramble where Gabriel came closest to brute forcing the ball home and the players all ran away beseeching the ref for a handball. 

Lincoln did not a lot aside from defend resolutely and foul, their highlights were a cross scuffed wide and Connor McGrandles not being sent off when really, there was a strong case for a second yellow. We pinged it wide, we slipped it through, Robbie Apter found crosses from the most oblique of angles - we played pretty well, but we didn't score. 

The second half was weird. We seemed to adopt a cat and mouse style, passing it along the back, daring Lincoln to press and then, when they came, whipping it long or trying to play through them. It was a curious mix of Critchball and Stevie Bruce's 90's football extravaganza. Lincoln posed no real threat, but we were also struggling to break them down - the one real chance coming after CJ was sent up the left and produced a peach of a cross (yes, he did) only for Fletcher to produce the kind of header that a year 8 kid who isn't very good would produce, the ball seeming to balloon off the top of his head in a manner redolent of someone who'd closed their eyes, jumped and hoped for the best. 

Then, Kyle Joseph, not for the first time this half is caught. He's been running deep in horizontal lines, providing an angle for our more artistic attempts to get out and it is very useful, very intelligent and Lincoln has no answer but to kick him up in the air. The no 5 did it once too many times and he was gone.

The ground erupts. The ground has been great tonight. The less there are, the louder it is sometimes. The drum is a permanent back beat. Duh duh duuuuu d-d-d-d duuuuuu (drum pounds) duh duh duuuuuu (etc) I've bounced involuntarily on the balls of my feet for 20 minutes. C'mon the Pool... 

Almost instantly, the cry is heeded. Fletcher, right hand side, great control and a run, he takes it to the byline it seems, he's run it too far has he? He hasn't because he's pulled it back and Kyle Joseph has slid in and sent the place wild! Yes! Great play. Never doubted the big man. Honest. 

NOTHING CAN GO WRONG NOW

I'm dreaming of the league table. I'm dreaming of the second goal. I'm dreaming of us knocking it about as Lincoln get more and more ragged and we maybe take off Joseph and perhaps Rhodes scores an impudent little finish or two and maybe they go down to 9 or even 8 as their temper gets the better of them... We'll teach that keeper to fake injury. He'll have a bad back from picking the ball out of the net so many times... 

This, as you already know is not quite how things turn out. 

At the moment of death, we have a corner. Evans, as he seem to do with an unerring regularity spins it right into the box and finds a man. Unfortunately, it's the big lad from year 8 again who can run about but he's closed his eyes again and the ball just bounces off him to the keeper. 

The last rites are spoken. 

Fuck's sake Pool. 

---

Sometimes. I hate football. 

We've got a squad built for 5-3-2 polite possession football and it shows when we get stretched. There's 13 or 14 of them who are well suited to playing a totally different way and some who really aren't built for what we're doing now. Whether, in hindsight, we could shuffle the pack a bit more, set up a bit differently, make different changes, I don't know. 

I know this fucking stung, because we should have had it won. I can't help but have a grudging respect for Lincoln. They're not Wrexham or Birmingham - they're just a team of players with no particular great star value but fuck me, they scrapped to the death in a horrible and uncompromising way. 

That's no comfort - but it's the mentality that we've shown a lot more of late, but not in that final section tonight. There was something in the air tonight - and it dissipated so quickly, a reminder of how brilliantly (and terribly) fragile success and belief is. If you're Man City, you have a battalion of pure class waiting to come in - if you're us, you have a first team and some others and you get tired, you get knocks, you end up thinking 'if only player x (mainly Norburn tonight in that wild 15 minutes) was fit' and 'how we miss Dom Ballard' - Coulson going off wasn't a good thing. There's no bigger advocate of the footballing genius of Jimmy Husband (formerly topknotted god amongst men) but the hipster has been fantastic in the last few games and gives us an additional burst of pace and attacking threat. He's been Gabriel but on the other flank and we'll miss that if he's out and we missed him when he went off. 

Tonight was fucking painful, but if it wasn't for the pain, the joy wouldn't be so rich. I honestly have pissed myself of with that trite ending, but what else am I going to say? It's true. At some point it'll be us stealing a point in the dying seconds and it will feel glorious because tonight felt so shit. That's how it goes. I still don't feel any better despite writing that Pollyanna shit. 

Blackpool are Blackpool. 

Onward. 

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Up the football league we go! - the Mighty vs Burton Albion

The last time we convened for a league game, I had one key question in my head. 'Is Steve Bruce going to be any good?' 

Today, that question seems horribly outdated. It's like owning a Nokia brick phone after the smartphone had been invented. It's like gas lamps post Edison, it's like worshipping Gary Madine* It's all so last year**.  

*He's a goal machine  

**about 2 weeks ago

Today my thoughts are different. They go a bit like this: 

Proposition a) Burton are palpably not very good. They've been rubbish so far, even Critch beat them 4-0, and they seem to have been getting relegated for about 2 years and they couldn't even keep hold of Bez Lubala. 

Proposition b) We're palpably decent, we've just played 2 of the better sides in the division away, deservedly beaten both and, for good measure put one of the more 'Burton-y' level sides in the division to the sword before that. We look like a proper team, have multiple threats going forward and several players playing the football of their careers. 

Conventional logic would say: home win. 

Tangerine logic says: A+B = agonising, frustrating, calamitous and self inflicted home defeat that leaves you wondering what the point of anything is and why you even bother with this stupid club anyway. 

I'm actually a bit worried that I'm not as worried as I normally would be to be honest. Steve Bruce has got me believing despite my battle hardened seaside paranoia. I think we can overcome the inevitable and puncture the (Pirelli) tyres of the men in yellow and black.

Belief, hope, even a tiny little bit of expectation.

It's a dangerous thing... 

---

The start of the game is flat. The ground seems quiet. I'm kind of thinking 'this might be one of those games that we just never get going' when out of nowhere we get going. It only takes one attack, one crossfield pass, one run from the Rapter, one snarling tackle from Coulson and we're up and off and the drum is going, the noise is swirling and we're back in the heart of where we all want to be. 

Burton don't look as shit as I expected them to be though. They're a bit ragged with the ball at times, but they often move it nicely and move for it quite well. Things are more even than I hoped they would be. We press a bit but without Dom Ballard we've not got the same dynamism up front and we're not stealing the ball as we've done in the last few games. 

Burton even carve out a few chances, though Albie Morgan rasps a really nice effort wide for us. It's all quite level. Aren't we supposed to be hammering them? 

Lee Evans swings it in. Offiah darts towards the near post and... It's a goal! It's so simple. Since Critchley left we've been absolutely brilliant from set pieces. I don't know what it is, but we just seem to have more players in the box, more movement and more commitment to get to the ball first - it helps that Evans has the ability to put the ball where it needs to go time after time, but it's also about what happens when it gets there. 

I'm settled down by that. We all are. 

There are two absolutely sublime bits of play from the Rapter, one, where he's in the corner, hemmed in, absolutely no way out and he shows the ball, takes it back, looks to be looking for a pass and then squeezing, like an alley cat through a tiny crack between two wooden panels of a fence, he's through a gap that barely looked to be there, all along the touchline and pulling it across to be stabbed just wide. The second is actually better if that's possible because it involves the most exquisite use of the bounce and spin of a ball I think I've ever seen, just brushing it with his legs, using his feet to shape the direction of the bounce to what he needed it to be - it's like watching a master potter at work, sculpting beauty from the mundane, shaping a lump of clay into graceful lines with the merest of contact. I could watch him do stuff like that for the rest of my life and never get bored. I'm so, so, so glad he's as good, perhaps even better than I thought he might be, because it's been so long since we've seen someone come through like this. 

There are moments when the freshness of Apter seems to contrast with the age of Rhodes. One of them isn't always in the right place, but has the energy to get to where they need. The other is always in the right place but just can't seem to find the next gear to make it count. 

Jordan Gabriel has a wonderfully mental charge forward where he closes almost every Burton defender down chasing for the ball like a dog let off the leash on the beach. How did we not let this man play football for half the games he was fit for last season? The crowd rise as one. Evans keeps spinning it out wide, Offiah is imperiously sweeping up. CJ is even doing little give and goes and running round to receive clever passes. 

That doesn't tell the whole story though. We're not having it all our own way. Burton aren't giving in and they are a threat. Tyrer has to clear a few from the edge of the box, they slam one into the side netting and then, After Tyrer makes what I can't tell from my end if it's a really good stop or a bit of a fumble, they head a rebounded chance over when it looks like for all the world they're going to score. 

---
 
I've enjoyed us, but I think we've played better. It's not the Tuesday night dominance or the side that blew Charlton away for an hour so. It's ok. It's quite good - but I feel like we're only slightly on top as opposed to dominating. 

---

A recurring frustration for me over the last few seasons is that we've not rarely seemed to get better after half time. Today is absolutely not one of those days. We come out fizzing, running hard, playing it first time. We've got that lovely confident sense of patience to play when we want combined with an urgency to make things happen. 

There's no one more urgent than Apter - the ball is slid forward, he takes it. There's an expectant hum, he's got maybe 45 yards to go, he's going, like a champion wind surfer, riding the waves, skipping and jumping, dipping and turning but going through everything the sea throws up... he's outside, he's inside, the ball is not so much glued to him, but as if it's on elastic - he shows it, but then seems to draw it back to his feet, and he's on his way still, the man behind me can't help the words 'this is going to be a great goal' tumbling from his mouth and as Apter pulls back the hammer, the powder fires and it's not actually so much the expected musket shot because he's far to clever to give them what they expect, but more of an Amazonian blow dart finish, precise, poison tip arrow, right into the bottom corner that the keeper gets nowhere near... 

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! 

So many times last season, it seemed so obvious that the energy and impetuosity of youth was lacking. The wee lad is leaping and punching the air. He's clenching his fists as he's mobbed in front of the Kop. I feel nothing but pure light and elation. All goals are great goals, but when the goals is a goal scored by a kid you've been watching progress for years and daring to hope that one day he'd do this and you'd have this very moment you are living now, than that is even better than a Gary Goal and truly, the greatest goal of all. 

Breathe out. We've got this. 

Hang on, Gabes, shit! An awful pass across his own box is snaffled by a Burton forward, he whistles a dipping effort and somehow Harry Tyrer arches his back, leaping, springing incredibly athletically from a position where he seemed to be caught on his heels and palms the ball over the top. It's a truly magnificent stop. 

Rhodes' light might be dimming a little from his brilliant best, but there's nothing at all shabby about the ball he turns round the corner for CJ. GO ON CEEJ! He's doing what he does best, just punting it ahead and charging forward, into the box, through on goal and the keeper is making a good low stop. 

They fling a ball, in, for once neither Offiah or Casey get to it and one of the blue shirted/green shorted (what a weird colour combination) men stoops and again, Tyrer pulls off a brilliant save, this time kind of collapsing and then flinging himself out as he falls to make a low save that big keeper should struggle with, but he really doesn't. It's arguably better than the first one as he has so little time to react. 

Rhodes and Morgan have gone off, Albie getting serenaded to the touchline after another good game. The ball breaks for us, Carey spots a space and races forward into it, he looks to go inside, but plays a nice disguised ball to Fletcher outside of him instead, Fletcher takes it well, looks up, sees Evans, slides it across. Evans looks to have lost the shooting chance as he seems to take forever to take the ball from one foot to another, but just as I'm thinking he's fumbled his lines, he delivers, with pitch perfect elocution as he fairly leathers it into the top corner to send us into raptures. 

That's the game. 

Burton, to be fair to them, don't give up. They're a much better side and have given a much better display than either the scoreline or their league position would suggest. They certainly seem a better team than the one who beat us over Christmas last year. Such is football though. Win when you look crap, lose when you look good. Their subs definitely improve them - the 17 year old Ronelle Donovan in particular. He has a bit of the vibe of Nya Kirby in hair, physique and playing style - a player who really impressed us at a similar age - but who has now fallen out of the league altogether (he's currently in the Isthmian League South East division) - a fact that makes Rob Apter's emphatic arrival on the stage all the more pleasing, because the promise of youth is never a guarantee of later success. 

I can't remember much of the rest of the game except for the strange and genuinely soul affirming feeling of applauding CJ for running back and getting stuck in in a way he's almost never seemed to do. Whatever Bruce has said to him, it's worked. He's still CJ in essence, but he's making the most of what he has and it's as if he's twice the player he was a few weeks ago. 

--- 

Today was a bit odd - we played really well at points but we didn't convince as much as we have done - and yet, this was our most convincing win of the season. There was something really quite satisfying about the fact we were clinical and also that Tyrer was really very convincing as a good keeper is a prerequisite of a really good team. 

The one worry for me is the lack of Ballard. Evans and Morgan were good. Evans and Carey was fine. As long as we've got Evans and... we'll have a chance. Rhodes and Joseph just wasn't quite there. I'm not sure if Joseph was feeling the burn of running two games in one match twice in a week already or if the way he shares pressing with Ballard and they swap over running the ball down just isn't going to happen with Rhodes. 

That's a minor question in the grand scheme of things and we all know that if he gets a chance, Jordan Rhodes will bury it, so it's far from a nightmare situation. 

In fact, stop twatting on about worries - we're fucking 4th! How did that happen? When and how did we suddenly become actually, really, genuinely, not even joking about it, pretty fucking decent? 

I don't understand what is going on. It feels like something is happening. I absolutely didn't expect it. I  love it though. 

3rd vs 4th on Tuesday under the lights. 

What more could you actually want in life? 

Onward! 

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One morning of Kevin De Bruyne - Bamber Bridge vs the future

Bamber Bridge is one of those places that weirdly seems to have its own identity despite, to all intents and purposes being part of a bigger place. It has the misfortune of being stuck to Preston and yet somehow it seems a little bit more distinct from Preston than other places that are also stuck to it. Penwortham. Not sure what that is. Broughton. That's a roundabout I think. Walton-le-Dale - is there anything other than car showrooms and closed pubs there? Bamber Bridge - that's a football club tucked in by the railway. That's a place. 

The football club is half decent in the grand scheme of things. It's at that level whereby it might reasonably hope to get somewhere in the FA Cup (somewhere being a 3 minute highlight on national telly of them playing someone like Exeter or or Stevenage.) It has a history - some players have played for them that you've heard of (not least, super Robbie Apter ) It has a half decent ground, a proper stand, a bit of terracing, you can buy a pie, have a pint. If you go to Irongate on a match day, there are enough people for it to feel like 'a thing' and the prospect of seeing players good enough to justify the fact you are paying to watch them. You'll see a few ex pros, you'll see a few never been pros and a few young pros and the football will be hard fought and physical. At the level they're at, there's not enough at stake (i.e. it's not a matter of global capital's childish pride in their latest toy) for it to be tainted by painful and joyless over-seriousness that blights the top levels but more than enough at stake to make it real. 

It's one of those many clubs where you'll go, spend an afternoon - the football might be great, shit or somewhere in between but you'll not feel ripped off because that's not what football is about at that level. 

The strength of English football comes from the fact it has literally hundreds, if not thousands of clubs like Bamber Bridge - operations serious enough to resemble (if you squint a bit) the 'bigger' teams above them but open enough to be a place for the local community to gather, watch and even play football. It's this vast network of teams that provide the foundations for all the hoopla and spectacle above. Without the foundations, a house crumbles.

English football is good, not just because there is money, but because as a player you are constantly walking a tightrope, knowing at any time there are an infinite number of sharks circling below, the multi thousands of players from the next rung down, hungrily waiting for that sniff of a chance. Clubs like Bamber Bridge are what makes that, they are what contributes to the incredibly competitive meritocracy that is football in England. Whether it's a super league, the MSL, the Saudi League or whatever - these pretenders will never match the culture, the depth, the sheer weight of numbers that makes English football what it is. The original professional league with an astonishing and never ending number of teams, a straight line from Manchester City right down to village level football with (at least a theoretical) path from one place to another. 

The Premier League might be a triumph of spin and marketing, but essentially, it's just a re-brand of Division One. It is, metaphorically speaking, the penthouse suite or observation deck atop one of the world's tallest buildings and whilst the lower floors might not have the global appeal, they still matter. Just because no one pays to ride the elevator to floor 6 of the Empire State Building doesn't mean floor 6 isn't an integral part of the structure. If you take floor 6 away, the building is that bit smaller, that bit less grand, that bit less appealing. The point is, the observation deck is what everyone goes to, but it is only where it is because of everything it sits on top of. 

Bamber Bridge need cash to survive. They don't need a lot of cash. (£30,000) 

Here are some facts about the cash they need in comparison to other things in football

1: Paying Kevin De Bruyne for a morning and about 20 minutes after lunch. (based on his reported earnings of 400k per week) 

2: 10 of Fulham's most expensive season tickets

3: 0.0002% of the cost of Enzo Fernandez's transfer fee 

4: 0.000004% of the cost of a 27.7% stake in Manchester United

5. 6 hospitality tickets for one game (Chelsea vs Manchester United) 

6. 0.01% of the 'merit payment' received by the worst team in the Premier League last season. 

7. 0.000004% of the latest Premier League TV deal 

8. 0.0004% of the somewhat questionable sponsorship deal that Manchester City's owners appear to pay themselves to cook the books. 

9. 125 Tottenham shirts (pro edition) from the Tottenham club shop. 

10. Half a game of the Sky punditry team (based on reported earnings of around 1 million each for the 'a-team' pundits and them doing about 50 games per season) 

I don't know about you - I'd rather my next bit of spare cash went towards keeping a club like Bamber Bridge alive than contributing further to the culture of 'tunnel clubs,' 'CR7' and stadiums with swimming pools for rich tourists to Instagram themselves in. I'm fortunate to have *some* disposable income and to be able to pay my heating bill. I don't have anything like the levels of spare cash that football in general has but there we go - if I'd wanted to be a billionaire, I should have worked hard and inherited an oil state.

If football wants to continue to pump it's filthy money round the top levels, I can do fuck all about it, but I can give a few quid to Bamber Bridge if I want because I think that kind of side, that exists largely because people love football and doesn't have the option (or, I would guess, desire) to 'monetise itself in order to maximise consumer interface with the brand and turn social media interest into consumption' or to 'seek to renew the customer base and phase out legacy profiles in favour of newer and more upwardly mobile cash rich leisure spend' should actually be able to carry on existing. 

Bamber Bridge fundraising page

It's a choice (if you are able to make it.) Up to you.

As you were. 

Onward. 

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Forgotten already - the Mighty vs Sheffield Wednesday

Before the game, I have a feeling that Steve 'giant football brain' Bruce would use his giant football brain to work out that the League Cup isn't very important. If Richard Keogh was still the manager, you'd suspect that he'd be bouncing up and down on the spot talking to himself in the third person trying to work out how we can not only beat Sheffield Wednesday (all out chaotic attack) but actually win the bloody thing (all out chaotic attack again) 

Steve 'football, eh, jumpers for goalposts etc, wonderful. how lucky am I?' Bruce is a bit older and wiser than that. I had a feeling he might bung out the sort of side he did (a half baked selection of random players in need of a game) and treat it as an opportunity for the preseason he was denied by the fact he had his feat up reading a catalogue of cruise holidays and wondering where he'd put his reading glasses, before remembering they were on a string round his neck. At the point we were 5-3-2ing our way to Spain and Crewe, he was probably considering whether or not to try the new carvery place down the road next week or not as the biggest decision of the next few weeks. 

Like Nostradamus (though, as far as I'm aware, yer man never had a go at predicting the starting line ups of League 1 sides in the early rounds of lesser cup competitions) I was right. 

Still. It was a nice evening. Lovely light. It's better than sitting inside and thinking about tomorrow. That's what football is. 

--- 

From the off, we huff and we puff (words Steve 'did I tell you Fergie rang?' Bruce himself would use post match) but we don't really get close to blowing anyone's house down. Neil 'unemployed' Critchley wouldn't have been able to cite 'good areas' unless 'mostly twatting it forward hopefully from somewhere around full back' constituted a 'good area' which I don't think it did in Critchley's head.  

I can't actually remember anything we did from the first half other than Rhodes catching the defender in possession and trying a weird effort when it was clearly (obviously, I know more about being a footballer than him) the right option to try and put Beesley in. 

I don't think we had a shot at any point. Hey ho. 

Sheffield Wednesday are reasonably proficient. They're not noticeably 'good' - just a bit bigger and a bit quicker than us. They have a spell where they score two shady goals that are chalked off (offside and a really mad handball when it looked like it might go in anyway) and then score a real goal (that was a bit like the shady goals but just not shady) and then basically keep us at bay for the rest of it without any real effort over and above the generally quite acceptable running about in an organised way that they do. 

--- 

We lack pace upfront. We lack pace wide. We lack pace and presence in midfield and essentially, I don't think we've got a hope in hell unless we address the above. We haven't really got any presence on the bench, but we do have some pace. 

--- 

The second half is the same. Nothing happens. Wednesday look boringly competent again and indulge in some falling over antics that don't seem really in keeping with the lack of tension in the game. We look as toothless as the victim of a sadistic dentist who fucking loves removing teeth. 

The main highlight is some immensely loud whistling, most obviously from a fella in the crowd but also from someone on the bench. I've never mastered that 'putting yer fingers in yer mouth to increase the volume by a factor of 10' thing and have nothing but admiration for anyone who has. 

I'm musing on the way the North is considerably steeper than the south and the spruce appearance of the flags behind when... 

THOMMO HAS A SHOT! AN ACTUAL REAL LIFE SHOT! 

It's straight at the keeper but still... 

Thommo goes off. We put some faster players on to replace some of the slower players as well. 

We are better with the faster player but we still can't really create anything. It's one them Chizz. Everything we do breaks down. CJ actually does a great job of pressuring their full back and nabs it a few times. We get the ball to the Rapter who does some running and some tricky things but the final ball or shot isn't there. We steal the ball in midfield really well and then hit a shit pass. We chase them down and put some pressure on but the cross is over everyone's heads. 

Sonny hits a really nice first time pass. Gabriel does a tremendous tackle and run forward. Kyle Joseph goes hunting and wins the ball and then dribbles round 3. None of it does any good. It's just one of those nights where we don't make more than three passes in a row without something going wrong. Finnegan does a sensational little shimmy. Finnigan also looks like he's never seen a football before. 

Gary Goalie makes a good save towards the end. No one's that arsed when the final whistle goes. Everyone it seems, is a pragmatist now. 

It happened - but as we're filing out, it's almost like it's being forgotten already. Maybe after 5 thrillers in a row, this was something we needed to remind us that not every game is an end to end chaotic classic. 

--- 

I'm not sure we learned anything other than 'if you take away all the quick players and all the strong players and play all the slower players and all the flimsy players at once in a system which fundamentally requires strength and pace to function, it's probably not going to work' 

Morgan did pretty well for a comeback game and lasted a decent time. Casey had a really good night and I think deserved the man of the match. Rhodes worries me because I think Bruce likes him but I just don't see how he's going to be able to create the kind of pressing menace that Ballard and Joseph do and if either of those are injured I'm not sure where the energy comes from. 

Last night looked like a bunch of fringe players playing an unfamiliar system. I don't particularly object to us not prioritising the League Cup. Swindon won it, and when I think about it, Luton won it and Birmingham too and probably some other ridiculous teams. I'm not fussed about winning anything that any of them won unless it's the Anglo Italian cup which counts because we've won it. 

The bigger questions are for the weekend and the biggest question is - how do we function without either Evans or Norburn. I've no issue at all with either Carey or Morgan  (in fact, I think they both have their distinct qualities) but it's not a pair that I'd imagine at the heart of a rugged and aggressive 442 approach. Either one would work with one of the missing players alongside them but those two (or indeed Finnigan) as the foundation of how we played last Saturday doesn't seem a realistic prospect. 

Maybe Steve Bruce and his giant football brain has the answer. Setbacks on the road to glory are inevitable but it does seem particularly 'Blackpool' to both discover that we've got a brilliant midfield and then to lose it on the same day.  The last fella had no plan B.

Maybe this fella has? 

Onward 

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