Electric Dream - the Mighty vs Port Vale

You forget what it's like when games matter. We've been drifting for so long that it feels like forever since a game really had anything significant on it. We all hoped at this point, we'd be nervously checking the top 6 rather than the bottom 4, but meaning is meaning however it comes around... Since Sunday evening I've been imagining tonight. In my head, it involves Josh Bowler weaving in and out of defenders, threading a tangerine line, pulling it tight and them all just toppling over as the head banded one does what the fuck he wants because he's actually that good. 

I know this isn't necessarily realistic - for one thing, we've collectively forgotten that the best right winger we've had in quite a long time is a right winger (imagine someone saying 'listen Stanley, dribbling and wizardry is all very well, but I see you as a kind of advanced '8' so I want you in tackling practice and to watch these videos on tracking during the counter press') and secondly whilst I've tried to imagine positive things this season (like maybe 3 or 4 passes being completed) actual manifestations of my desires have been few and far between. The season been less like seeing tangerine dreams come true and more like  watching a YouTube compilation of hilarious DIY disasters, things like cupboards falling on people's heads, doors falling out of their frames when opened, and walls being knocked down by accident - punctuated by the odd Ashley Fletcher consolation goal. 

Big Si has had his say. Should that matter? I don't know - but it feels like it does. It says 'he still gives a fuck' and we need to give a fuck because if we don't give a fuck, we're going down and that's not what anyone wants. The team is out. Josh Bowler plays, thank fuck and I don't mind the line up. I'm not sure about 442 but it is what it is and we're giving things a try so lets get on with it and get behind them come what may... 

--- 

How the fuck is it even possible to take this lot half seriously.

I've barely finished trying to work out who is playing where. I've hardly exchanged pleasantries with those around me and somehow Port Vale have scored already. This isn't going to be a blog where the facts are strictly followed because my view of the goal was basically - I wasn't paying any real attention, but then evidently someone on the pitch (Walters?) wasn't paying any attention either as the ball went from nowhere in particular to being in the middle of our box and BPF was making a save, then another save and then the ball went in anyway. 

It's like we've deliberately gone out and done the most 'Blackpool this season' thing we could think of to start the game. People say 'this team lacks identity' and I say 'there it is, right there, in that goal' 

Fucking hell. 

C'mon. Get a grip. 

There's a little bit more exhortation to each other on the pitch. The Kop keeps going, the drum keeps beating. We've folded too often, we need to pick ourselves up. There's no point moping. 

The first half is a test of the faith and patience of us all. It's split into roughly two types of moment. The first moment is how the 10 players who aren't Josh Bowler play - the ball is mostly smashed long and hopefully towards the front line. There's a fair bit of wresting and chasing of shadow. It's not all dreadful, Jordan Brown has put his boots on the right feet and is looking less on his heels and more dynamic but it's not exactly quality all round. The 11 players who also aren't Josh Bowler who play for Port Vale don't look a crack outfit either - they've scored, but they're also quite prone to just smashing the ball away like a school football team who've had to pick some lads who don't play football that much because half the year is on a residential trip. 

Then there's Josh. 

It's not that he's never played better than this, it's that we've so rarely seen this type of thing this year. A player, who knows what he's good at, simply doing that. There's a bit of control, it's like he's got sponge on the inside of his boot as he cushions it and brings it down, it even fucking spins back into his path, there's the shimmy, the dart infield, the little show of the ball and then the burst away and past - tempting, teasing, fooling. It ends with a give and a go and then it comes back to him - the shot is high and wide, but it's something, it's some belief, it's someone backing himself. 

Leadership isn't just screaming at people and telling them what to do - it's also about what you are willing to risk and showing that you'll take responsibility - Bowler might be a frivolous show pony who wants to dribble and shoot - but in a side that look terrified, his fearlessness is a glorious counterpoint, an inspiration, a flickering candle of hope - not just to those of us in the stands, but to the players around him as well - someone to pass to, someone to get on the ball, someone who has the beating of their opposite number - in a team with no target man to hold it up, a team without anyone with that searing turn of pace, a team with no one with the physical strength to just lever someone off the ball every time then maybe it's the bandy legged winger who might just be the key to the collective psychology of a group who've too often seemed too easily beaten and too accepting of it. Luxury player? Fuck that idea 50 times over. 

It's not fair though, to just say this is a show pony turning up and prancing. We fuck up in midfield and Bowler ends up chasing back in a situation that looks dangerously 2 on 1. A slide tackle, he's saved the day. He gets up, he checks the head band and he goes again. There's another shot from distance, there's more weaving, dipping of the shoulder. He's always available, he's neat and tidy with the ball and he mixes it up looking as if he's going to drive at goal every time with the odd through ball or touch off to someone else and keeps their confused defence on their toes. 

Maybe I'm going over the top - but it's quality in a season where we've been starved of it. It's like water in a drought. It's actually incredible to think that he's not started a game for us on the right wing when he's capable of looking this good. 

Other things happen. I almost don't need to say 'the ref and linesman are shite' - Their almost all either officious or essentially a random decision generator - and tonight's fell more into the latter category. Jordan Brown hits the post with a drive that I think the keeper gets a hand to and the frustration grows. The atmosphere is strange - it's like being at an Olympic event where a lot of people are watching, but aren't confident enough to really celebrate or bemoan what the competitors are doing because they're not sure about the rules - obviously, we understand the rules - but there's an unspoken sense that the team needs backing - but things aren't really working, so there's a kind of muted, controlled hum - no one wants to really let loose the frustrations, but there's not a lot to get behind and so the sound of oblivious kids is at some points loudest. 

--- 

Half time. Whilst I've got some of what I imagined in terms of Bowler's performance, Vale are yet to collapse in a heap as a result. I'm nervous. 

--- 

The game kicks of just as I come out from under the stand. On the way back to my seat, I stop to give my learned opinion to someone - 'I don't understand why Ennis is still on the pitch - I'd have hooked him and gone 433' - Super Niall has looked on his heels to me. The Ennis that is fully fit is a constant menace, he's on his toes, he's chasing down defenders, he's a constant nuisance. This Ennis (especially after 90 minutes on Saturday) has looked a passive yard off it to me.

Hence my insightful tactical wisdom. 

I look up, we've got the ball, with Bowler, close to goal, it's put across and YESSSSSSS! WE'VE FUCKING SCORED AND I'VE NO REAL IDEA WHAT HAPPENED BUT I DON'T FUCKING CARE BECAUSE THIS ISN'T AN ACTUAL FUCKING NEWSPAPER OR ANYTHING IT'S JUST ME WRITING SHIT ABOUT WHAT IT FEELS LIKE AND THAT FEELS FUCKING GLORIOUS TO SEE THE BALL IN  THE NET THAT BELONGS TO THOSE SHIT FUCKING NOT EVEN FROM A REAL PLACE ANYWAY NO SUCH THING AS 'PORT VALE' IS THERE, IT'S LIKE AN ENGLISH RAITH ROVERS AND WHO THE FUCK ARE RAITH ROVERS ANYWAY AND WHO CARES ABOUT THEIR STUPID CUP RUN THE FUCKING JORDAN GABRIEL THIEVING BASTARDS !!! 

YESSSS! 

A lady who has listened into my conversation of literally 10 seconds earlier smiles at me. "Ennis scored it" 

What the fuck do I know?

Nothing. 

C'mon Pool...

There's a fire been lit now. The noise has solidity, certainty, body to it. We knock it around better. We look something approaching confident. We play something half resembling football and have something that you might call 'a spell' 

Then what I can only describe as the most 'this season' thing you can think of (aside from conceding a first minute random shit goal for no reason) where Vale get down their left, it's as if we've got no right sided defence at all, pop in a cross and someone turns the ball into the roof of the net and the world collapses in on itself. The ground crumples up into a tiny ball and I'm left, staring down at it thinking, I should just pick this up and toss it into the bin because, frankly, that's all this is good for. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. 

FUCKS SAKE POOL! 

Deep breath. C'mon. This is Blackpool. This is us. Everyone thinks their team makes it harder than it needs to be, but they don't support Blackpool so they don't have a clue. We're not losing this. We're not not winning this. C'mon. 

The world is still here. The ground is uncrumpled, creases smoothed out. The game resumes. Trying to explain what happened thereafter, is going to be hard. I just stood there, rubbed my chin nervously, just wanting us to score, wanting it so much. Details are vague... 

Evatt makes subs. Honeyman goes off - he struggles tonight, it was as if he tried to play about three positions and ended up between them all. Randall too, he was in a kind of left wing role that didn't give him a lot of joy and Coulson who did ok I think. On comes Karoy (who has a good cameo, bringing a certainty and energy), CJ and Clarkson 

I'm listing the subs because the game just isn't there in my brain. My memory is nerves, hope and wondering 'is this actually in any way enjoyable?' and then also thinking 'there's nothing in my life that remotely comes close to captivating me like this does' 

At one point, the really big lump Port Vale have up front manages to wrestle both Casey and Walters out of the way at the same time and turn and shoot. It's not a great shot, but it's something we lack horribly. That physical threat, that back to goal player. We've got a midfield crying out for that sort of thing sometimes. 

More subs. These aren't popular ones. Off goes Ennis who obviously, I'd have subbed before he scored and on comes Bloxham. The fresh legs do make some sense but it goes down like a lead balloon. Off goes Big Mike, gammy toe and all and then on comes the superstar game changer that is *checks notes* ... James Husband? 

Has Evo gone mad? 

The answer is no. 

A ball slid into Bloxham. The man from a 15th century Shropshire farm does brilliantly, leans in, shields it, spins, slips his man and then squares it and who should be there, just hanging around, but the jazz man himself, Ashley 'don't actually give a fuck any more me and I'm a lot happier for it' Fletcher who turns it home and I could lean back and fall forever into a moment like this because it's made of sheer relief and like exhaling when you've been holding your breath for longer than you really should ever hold your breath. 

We have some corners and stuff. Things that usually happen happen, like CJ running into someone or BPF booting the ball to where there isn't anyone, but we've got the general momentum. I keep looking at the clock. At some point, one of the corners is met by Husband who absolutely meets it with force but it's blocked or parried or something. Whatever, it doesn't go in...  I notice how engaged Bowler is in this game. He's talking, pointing, clapping. He's having little words with people, he's touching gloves with BPF after a scary moment where BPF comes at the last possible moment. 

All of this is very interesting, but I just want a goal. I want a goal so much. 

A corner. Jimmy has been running wide and deep at every corner. Bowler stands there. There's a pause, calm before the storm whips the box into a swirling whirlpool of bodies darting, checking and turning, tangling, pulling and surging. The corner is deep, it's good, Husband goes round the outside again, he's got free, he hits it and FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!

YES!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! 

I haven't celebrated a goal like this for a while. Of all the people. Of all the players to make this moment. 

Here's the thing. I recently had to scrap my car. I really liked my car. It wasn't an amazing or hugely special car, it wasn't expensive or hugely desirable. I just liked it - and sadly the underbody and subframe had corroded to a point that it was dangerous and it was definitely beyond repair. There was a very real prospect it would fall to bits at any point if I carried on driving it. I was really sad when I dropped it at the scrapyard, because I'd spent a lot of time with that car, I'd done a lot of miles in it and it had been a good car. Cars can't run on memories though and nothing lasts forever... 

Hopefully, you can see that isn't simply some information about me that means literally fuck all to anyone, but is actually a cunning metaphor for how I've recently felt watching Jimmy's travails... and to see that moment and to see some sort of redemption for him, I couldn't be fucking happier. Jimmy has done something decent - even if my car is by now a cube. 

(The fact some jobsworth pedant later gave the goal to Raul Walters is neither here nor there - this blog does not run on facts but raw emotion and misplaced optimism and loyalty - don't be a fucking dick about it either, because if you didn't run on those things too, then you'd have given up on this lot some time ago.) 

Now the rest of the game.

There's 7 minutes left. This is a team not built to defend who've taken off most of the defensive players. I start to irrationally panic that we've scored too early as if we've got the fucking luxury of scoring when we choose. 

BPF does some ridiculous thing chesting the ball down and letting it bounce instead of just catching it and I shout 'DON'T FUCKING PISS ABOUT KEEPER' so that's him told. Husband shadows the ball back but he doesn't come and get it so Jimmy kicks it out of play instead. I feel sick. I feel faint.  

Half the team have forgotten how to kick a ball. Clearances are flat or spooned or sliced. Tommy Bloxham is galloping around like a schoolkid on a race to find all the treasure in a school activity he's over excited about. He's absolutely wound up in a way he's not really been very much. There's an endearing moment where Evo appears and exhorts them 'forward' and Bloxham picks up on the message and runs about waving his arms, beckoning them all wildly, as if trying to shepherd some animals across a road. Karoy belts a few away with a reassuring thump. I almost throw up in my mouth as one of the Vale subs looks like he's got in, but he does a little step over that wasn't really needed and that lets someone get back and force him wide. 

CJ makes a sliding tackle. CJ gets up and chases and gets a block in. I'm worried because CJ has done two good things, so potentially the next thing is a disaster - but no, CJ heads the ball away, not once but twice.

People are leaving. I can't comprehend it.  

There's a break where Bloxham gets cut down and then we do a weird thing from the free kick, kicking it straight out into the corner, like kicking for touch in rugby. I don't get that at all - but then, Vale try and get out, the ball comes out, it's down the other side now, I'm checking the clock again and again and then there's a wrestle and a free kick to us and it's celebrated like the final whistle but it's not and the ground is up, the noise swirls, the game goes on and even now I'm thinking, don't take this for granted it's not over and then... 

mercifully
blissfully
joyously 

It is over. 

Thank fuck for that. 

--- 

No one could pretend that this was a 'turning point' where the team clicked and everything was perfect. There is no 'turning point' in this season - all that matters is the results. I don't care how, we just need to get over the line. Style? Fuck style. It was 3 beautiful points. It was some fight, some unity, some character in getting back up twice and turning the game round.  

There was some long hair and white boots eccentric quality in the midst of it all and that quality impacted. Aside from the bits where he stood out, at one point in the second half, Bowler had 3 players on him when he got the ball. That opens up space for others. We built Championship wins against very good teams around the fact they couldn't ignore him or even risk leaving him man to man and to have finally tried him where he fits best gives us a definitive strength we didn't have before tonight and should give others opportunity too because of his ability to pull teams out of shape. That's something positive to work on. 

Whether we've got anyone to play on the left, I don't know. Randall or Clarkson - they should have enough about them to make that work to some degree - maybe they need a little time to get into the groove, neither of them have had any consistent run. 

Tonight though, isn't about tactical triumphs or analysis - (though, Evo shoved the booing of his subs back at us) - it's just about having done enough to get the points. Cardiff will be a totally different test, Burton another thing again. Port Vale are cut adrift at the bottom and we can't be complacent or sloppy or celebrate it too much, we have to keep going, build on this and most of all, fight where we need to and get the ball to Bowler and then take it from there. 

Onward
 

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 Tweet You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter 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

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Nothing risked - little gained? - the Mighty vs Wigan Athletic

I'm not a big fan of declaring games as 'must win' but all week, this game has lurked in my head as exactly that. We've spent all season waiting for the turnaround that has never materialised and now, here we are, facing another side in a similar boat to us, staring down the barrel of the dreaded run in, having abandoned all hope of anything beyond survival. Just to cheer you all up - the best case now is abject mediocrity. 17th looks appealing... The fear is obviously, something much worse, a relegation when you've recruited a team for promotion. What has happened has us here, but today, we need to play like we're starting afresh - How you start the final stretch doesn't dictate whether you make it over the line but it certainly has an impact. 

Oh, for confidence and belief. Oh for a side we can love and celebrate. Oh for a team with credit in the bank whose mistakes we can balance against their successes and forgive. This is tension. This is a time when songs, sung in full voice still feel hollow as we're screaming with desperation, not chanting in celebration. We're trying to evoke something we've not seen, not making noise to the tempo of the game. 

It feels like a kind of madness to think that pretty much 7 years ago we turned up here, to watch a side unfamiliar to many and thrown together with the backdrop of empty stands and toxic turmoil. A team managed by someone who had never before (and never since) managed a football league team and that side was considerably better off than this one.

We've come a long way since and yet, we're further back than where we started. That's football I suppose. Always kicking sand in your face but still, we return for more.

We're not drifting though. Oh no. Definitely not. No drifting here. Just a steady, forward thinking football club with 'progress' running through everyone's body like the lettering in the proverbial stick of rock... 

I've found myself in uncharacteristic despair. You can probably tell. I'm not sure what we should do. Whichever way you put this lot together, disaster never seems far away. The belief that we just need something to drop and then things click into place has ebbed away and now it's about doing basics, scrapping, competing, struggling, not giving in. A season that started with promises of 'players that'll get you off your seat' is now looking to have achieved just that, in so much as, a proportion of fans aren't in their seats but doing something else with their lives... Lets just hope that, however it comes, we find ourselves 3 points richer than we started the game. That's all that matters right now. 

It's been a long time since Bloomfield Road has felt remotely like it did that day almost 7 years ago. We've had precious little to cheer in a while. The team selection doesn't actually scream 'attack, attack.... attack,attack,attack' - It's as if Evo has decided he can't trust the footballers and so has picked all the runners instead.

Sexy football indeed. Times are hard. Needs must. 

Lets put aside all the griping and just do what we're actually all here for. 

C'MON YOU POOOOOOOOL! 

--- 

I'm just about to say 'Why is Brown on free kicks?' - We'd made nothing of set pieces taken by our 1980s tribute midfielder last week and he doesn't seem the most obvious candidate to be our lower league Beckham. I'm glad I haven't said it out loud by the time he's taken it, as he provides a lovely ball, curling and dropping exactly into the path of Ollie Casey's forehead, which propels it, with a deeply satisfying certainty beyond the keeper and into the net. It's the kind of goal we concede. Simple and deeply frustrating to let in - but for once, we're on the other side of that and it feels magnificent. The funny thing is, when you concede these goals, they feel like defensive failures, capitulations by the gutless players who have failed in preventing the most obvious of outcomes - but when you score them, it's all about the charging run, the timing of the leap and the quality of the ball. I love old fashioned goals and that was a perfect example. Casey loves it, we love it and the Pool are staying up. These are there for the taking... Top half by May anyone? C'MON POOL! 

I might have got a bit carried away there for a moment, though, for a good while it does appear that Wigan are there for the taking. They're horrible for the first half an hour or so and we create a lot of pressure. We don't create many chances but we have a lot of possession in 'good areas' ((c) N Critchley (2023-24)) - we keep them pinned back and we look hungry for the fight. Brown is having a good game, his tackling is more certain and solid. Initially the combined energy of the midfield 3 is helpful to us, we play with a kind of manic approach and whilst little of quality emerges from this, it is very disruptive to Wigan. 

Bloxham has a chance to fiddle the ball into space in the box, he does the first part well, but the shot is well wide. The same player has a chance to run onto a through ball and he falls between chasing it down and trying to win a penalty and does neither very well. Fletcher has a couple of moments, a similar doomed chase where cynically, I think he might have been better running across the defender and falling over and one unfortunate moment where, unexpectedly, the ball breaks for him in a great position but he's on his heels and his touch is terrible and the brief moment of excitement disappears in an instant. 

The crowd is positive. We are fighting. This isn't great football, this isn't anything other than a lower league relegation scrap - but we knew that was what were coming to see and the players on the pitch are clearly doing their best to outscrap Wigan and so far, they've done it reasonably well.

We're onto the linesman for an awful call. We're onto the ref - this weeks edition has the air of a grammar school prefect who has outgrown his uniform and is drunk on the power of his little enamel prefect badge. He stalks about noting things in his little special book with a strange mix of self satisfaction and confusion. The game is niggly and there's lots of falling over and he gives some very odd decisions. Refs are refs are refs and both sets of fans and both managers (both yellow carded) are incensed by him. 

So far so good then? The exercise in pragmatic selection and pragmatic football (pass, pass... lump) is paying off? We've not been very aesthetic, but Wigan haven't had anything at all... 

Don't count your chickens. This is Blackpool.

Wigan surge through, breaking our lines for the first time, BPF is initially effective, forcing their lad wide, but then, they retain the ball, calmly move it a couple of times, first back, then square, there's no challenge and now it's a chance to shoot - the shot isn't all that, it's on target yes, but instinctively it feels manageable, more central than in the corner, but it squirms past BPF's arm and thumps into the goal, a stomach punch to the tangerine cause and one that felt preventable. 

To say we don't cope well with adversity as a team is stating the obvious. What defines this season more than anything, isn't so much the first goal we concede - but how we react to it. Today is another one of those games. The players look bereft. It's like the opposition scoring is the worst possible thing that can happen. If I was in charge of them, I'd lock them in a room for 2 days with "Even the best teams concede goals, stop being a bunch of melts and fucking react to it better or get a job in ALDI or washing cars or mining for phosphate, or whatever else it is, just basically anything where it isn't a basic inevitability that you have to concede goals as part of your working day" playing over and over again for the entire 48 hours...

I don't know if Evo has tried this yet, but, true to form and to use a technical term, we 'go to shit' once again and everything suddenly looks rushed and panicky - there's been very few occasions this season where we've brushed off a set back as 'something that happens' and got straight back into the game.  Happily, Wigan aren't very good so there's no terminal harm caused despite our best efforts to the contrary... 

--- 

Overall, we've done ok (ish), the effort has been there - The problem is - we've had a long spell with the better of the play and a short spell with Wigan on top and we're drawing because we couldn't make much of being on top. The team aren't lacking in effort, but it's glaringly obvious we're lacking in the quality to calm the game and thread a pass or the bit of magic to beat a man or the movement of a proper goal poacher to give the options to the players in the 'good areas' 

--- 

We're off again and Wigan pick up still on their upturn from the end of the previous half. They're hitting our right flank and getting some joy. Firstly Walters is cut out the game, turned round like discraded paper cup in on an airport runway being blown by the displaced air of a fighter ject by a ball and a run behind him... they're in, but happily their lad has a 'CJ Hamilton' moment and completely fails to control the ball. That's one we've got away with. 

Then, a similar ball into the right back position and Brown and Horsfall both hesitate, expecting the other to chase it. It's like watching two cars stall on the starting grid as they lurch uncertainly and the Wigan lad races in, cuts inside and places a shot past the keeper. Luck is on our side as it cracks the inside of the post and then the bounce is unexpectedly kind, sending the ball, not back over the line, but rolling kindly into the arms of BPF. 

I start to watch the subs. It's really evident we need *something* more. We are making very, very little and the stretching and sprinting on the touchline offers more promise than the clumsy football on offer on the pitch. 

One moment seems to sum us up. Fletcher has a quiet game, but he is a good player. I'm watching the front two, whose 'needs must' partnership of previous months seems to be extended long past the point of need. Fletcher comes short, signals to Ihiekwe to roll it too his feet. He does, Fletcher, comes to the ball, then peels away, a clever dummy that sells his man totally. It's pointless though because Bloxham hasn't read it and the ball rolls through harmlessly. The little bits of occasional skill we produce aren't leading to anything because the team don't seem to be on a wavelength - that's been notable all year, it's been notable longer perhaps, but last year, with the likes of Apter and some ginger kid I've forgotten all about, we had individuals who could make things happen. 

Surely we have those on the bench... Randall, Bowler, Clarkson. There's a fucking good set of footballers right there. They can do mad stuff like have a shot and pass to someone else. Niall Ennis! He's an actual proper striker. He scores goals and everything! 

Still we wait. Still the the game mostly resembles a low quality fight between two blokes who've had too many jagerbombs and both been dumped by their girlfriends that night, and are taking out their mute frustration and fears on each other but really, they're both too pissed to do any damage to each other. You feel they're likely to stumble into a piece of street furniture and hurt themselves as they are to actually land an effective punch. 

Finally we get Ennis. Why he's not starting every week by now when he's been back for well over a month is a mystery. I can only guess there's more to his fitness than meets the eye. The game goes on a bit longer in the same manner. The ref struts around doing inexplicable shit. Passes go astray. Wigan escape down our right again, but fortunately another of their lads has the touch of a ping pong ball on concrete and we escape yet again. 

We have a couple of shots but they're barely worth mentioning. We win a few free kicks and the Horse gamely runs about looking like he's got more idea than anyone else in the box, but nothing really comes of them. The Horse gets beaten for pace at the back and Casey (who has a really, really good game today, his best for ages) makes a tremendous block to save his partner. The Horse makes another run in the box and seems to get wrestled to the ground. The ref gives Wigan a free kick because he's a fucking idiot whose legs and arms are too long for his kit. 

All the while, the tension is palpable. I'm looking at the line every 20 seconds. The players on it have done so many shuttle runs they're probably ready for a rest now. It would be vey on brand Blackpool FC 2526 for our players to injure themselves by warming up for too long. Evatt seems caught in indecision. It's obvious that to win the game we need to risk losing it. That's always true. It's the nature of football that to attack, you have to sacrifice defence a bit. Anderson was helpful first half when his manic energy was disruptive but by now, it's both counter productive and less manic. Honeyman is a similar tale - his distribution has become genuinely awful, he passes it out of play several times, he doesn't look to have the legs left when he collects in a rare moment of opportunity all he can do is check back and play it square - which defeats the point of having him in the advanced role. The clock ticks on. Evatt strolls back and forward. He stands on the touchline. He takes his jacket off. He puts his hands behind his back. He moves them forward, he locks his fingers together. He walks towards the dugout as if to speak to Crainey and then he turns away again.

I kind of sympathise with his double bind, but c'mon, we can also lose games trying not to lose them... Why is this season defined by fear? 

Time ticks on and on and on and still we wait. Finally, Bowler and Randall are readied. This is one of the most exciting players I've seen in the last decade and one of the best players I've seen play against us in League 1 They've got an entire minute or so, plus injury time to impact the game.

Not surprisingly, they don't. 

--- 

Afterwards, it's still a strange feeling. It's a sign of how poor we've been to say 'there's something to be taken from the fact we scrapped' - it's not a lot, but to have folded against this opposition would, I think have been potentially terminal to our self belief. 

That said, the straws I've clutched are flimsy ones. We didn't take 3 points in a game where the opposition were poor. We didn't even look to try. After the game Evatt says, essentially 'I didn't want to risk it' - I value the fact he's honest about it, even if I disagree. I've waxed lyrical about Josh Bowler here plenty of times before - I would find a way to play him more often than not, there's no question in my mind about that - but I can respect if Evatt doesn't see him the same way - what I find more strange is, knowing where we are and how we've been all season, that we've signed players in January we don't feel like we can use. Joel Randall is a player Evatt's signed twice and Leighton Clarkson is our 'statement' from January - yet, they sit on the bench in a 'must win' game. 

The point is this - we're now trying to reinvent ourselves as a pragmatic set of scrappers who can reduce a game to a wrestling match. I do grudgingly get why a manager might do that - but the squad isn't designed for this, any more than it's designed for anything else. There are only so many players who can effectively execute that style and whilst we did it reasonably well for 30 minutes and probably, we matched Wigan for effort and niggly stuff and we ran about a lot, but like everything else we've seen this season, as soon as one player tires or has a knock, we're then throwing in ill suited players to that style or carrying bodies who aren't at 100%. 

Time will tell if the pragmatic 'stopping the rot' decision was the right one. In a world of tangerine tinted sunlight, we go to Wimbledon and we combine today's effort with a bit of the quality we didn't see today and we win the game and take a new found confidence as a group into the remainder of the matches.

All hail Alpha Critch and his psychological masterclass. 

This season though, has had a way of smashing any optimism in the face. Just as my hopes get up, they belly flop into the ground in an undignified and painful manner. I'm also seeing a world where, we go, try to do the same thing and we're fatigued after 20 minutes and Wimbledon 2 up by halftime. If that happens and we don't change shape and stick the Horse up front, I'm done. 

We had to win. We didn't lose. We're still alive, we've still got it all to play for. The issues of one game pale into significance in comparison to the issues over time. We need to get to the end of this season and wipe the slate clean and build something properly, something actually thought through, something with a bit of depth and some clarity to what it actually is. 

We just need to get there first. 

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

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - but if you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Scrapped. Won! - the Mighty vs Mansfield Town

Here we go again. Am I ready for this?

Yep. Of course I am.

I've prepared by watching a 90 minute documentary about a massive disaster where loads of people died. Perspective and all that.

Saturday was a 90 minute disaster where people only lost the will to live, rather than their *actual lives*

So it's all good. The SS Tangerine sails again, on this crisp and clear evening. Surely, to surely to surely to surely to fucking goodness we can't be *that bad again*

I liked Evatt's reaction. I liked the sense of the squad and him, sharing some kind of meltdown and coming out with some conclusions. I like that he cares. It goes a long way. The basic gist seems to be - be faster and go forward more often. That will do. Slowly and sideways loses the race.

Let's see if we can do it.. .

The Horse plays. Ennis starts. Things look a little bit brighter.

---

We start poorly. We're second to everything. I feared this. We all feared this. Ian 'tracksuit' Evatt feared this. Mansfield are that drilled and physical team who are greater than the sum of their parts that bully us and fear has been a theme of the season. They seem in our faces, direct, we seem rushed and uncomfortable., an effort fizzes wide, a long range shot scraps over the bar. 

Yet, as time passes, we don't seem second best anymore. We grow into the game. We start to track them better, we win some tackles. Jordan Brown begins to have the kind of ugly but effective game he's capable of. - despite an early-ish booking he disrupts play fairly well tonight. We start to find Clarkson a little bit of space to play in and he responds with a couple of first time balls that are worth the ticket price on their own. 

They run the ball out of play as we press. We're roused from our slumber. Bloomfield Road is far from the cauldron it can be. Mansfield made all the noise but as the game progresses, their fans begin to falter a little and we finally begin to pick up. Not so much a cauldron perhaps, but at least a pot with a few bubbles in it. 

A corner, Fletcher comes as near to scoring as it's possible to be without making contact with the woodwork.

Ennis is a nuisance. You forget, after months of absence how effective he is. Always tangling with defenders, trying to spin them, send them over his back or shimmy and put them on the wrong foot. He moves, he drags people around. Fletch pulls deep, Ennis goes wide. This is actually a bit like a forward line. 

Here's the man himself, he's come short, he flips it out wide, CJ, now CJ, c'mon, that little push and run, the pull back, Ennis again, a touch, space, shot YESSSSSSSSSSSSS! YESSSSSSSS! 

Its a proper strikers goal, a lovely finish crisp and neat, precise and powerful. It's deliberate, purposeful. It's such a novelty to have someone up with Fletcher who knows exactly what he's doing and how we've missed him.

---

It's a strange atmosphere. The applause at halftime seems almost cautious. It's like being on a date with someone who's broken your heart before. It seems to be going well but it's much better to protect yourself. You can't just trust implicitly.  Not after last time...

There's a lovely moment, just after the whistle when Bloxham, coming out to warm up hugs Ennis and seems as thrilled with the fact he's back and scoring as Ennis himself must be. More of this sort of thing.

It's almost like team spirit. 

---


The second half is about two questions.

Firstly, how long can Ennis do? He's integral, he turns fairly vague passes into moments of pressure because he understands exactly the angles of runs to make. A good striker can make a poor team a threat and fuck me, we were poor without him last time out, so every minute he's on the pitch is a minute I'm happier with life. 

Secondly, how in the name of fuck did Fraser Horsfall barely play for the first part of the season? The big man is marvellous today. Regular readers of this blog won't be surprised by the fact I've fallen for the big lad who plays with his brain as much as his body. He's rugged, he wins everything in the air but he's also positionally immaculate, making the game seem easy because his focus is unwavering. He carries the ball, he plays the ball beautifully, he talks, he holds the line. He gives as good as defensive performance as I've seen in some time but he also plays his part in making us a threat at set pieces and ensuring we don't get too penned in.

He's simply, outstanding. 

We make a few chances, Clarkson with a near post shot after excellent work from Fletcher, teasing the ball down the line, keeping it alive when he had no right too. Karoy has a chance but his touch is heavy and he seems to panic a bit. I like Anderson. He's a bit manic, but manic energy is energy and he's up and down the pitch. Not every decision is right or every touch high class but he's there and doing stuff, not just trotting about and pointing at others. 

The answer to the first question is 'about an hour' - Tommy Bloxham is summoned from the fields of medeval England and off goes Niall. We lose the edge that Ennis gave us and the familiar frustration of a big, fast lad, with good touch but for whom the ball won't seem to stick to at all are there again. He has one cracking moment though, a right wingers moment, racing on, wide, skinning a man, crossing. It comes to nothing but he looks more comfortable there than he does elsewhere. 

As Mansfield come into it more, Coulson's soft wash perm replaces CJ. He's done ok tonight, one glorious run infield to the heart of the box was almost a Blackpool career highlight but now they're turning us round and the change is the right one. Coulson makes a few good challenges, the back three are put under more pressure and are largely equal to it, they get behind us just the once really, a moment where, despite it seeming offside, it isn't and they miss a gilt edge chance at the far post. Other than that, whilst they press a bit, there's a few hopeful efforts that BPF has easily covered and not a lot else. 

Bowler replaces Clarkson and has a couple of runs, the first of which leaves you begging for the moment to cap it off, a twisting, mazy effort, past, 1,2,3, something from a high plain to anything else on the pitch, but the final ball is an inch too heavy. 

The ball in the corner. We wrestle, we win some free kicks. The clock ticks down. The whistle goes. We've seen it out like a team with a vague idea about what we're doing. 

Thank fuck for that. 

--- 

It wasn't pretty but it was at the same time kind of beautiful. It was exactly the riposte we needed to the shit show of the weekend. A tough, physical and confident opposition and we went up against them and whilst it was close, we edged it and we took the points. 

It was far from flowing football but I wouldn't single any player out for criticism. That's not to say there were 14 vintage performances, but there were 14 performances which showed a base level of application and playing for each other. Sexy football can wait right now. 

We limited Mansfield and what particularly pleased me is we responded to early dominance and managed to wrestle the initiative from them. Of the players I've not mentioned, I thought Raul Walters again played well, showing again that he's a nice blend of athleticism but no little skill too and that he's willing to take a risk, to back himself to drive forward and to back himself in a duel, whether physical or in a dribble. I've been critical of our transfers but I'd say all 3 recent signings make us a better side and most of all, they bring the much needed youthful verve that we've missed all season. We look less half arsed, less knackered, with them in the team. 

It's a 1-0 win against a side who almost certainly cost less than we do so lets not get ahead of ourselves - but it's exactly the kind of game we needed to win to convince ourselves we can win further games of football like this, of which league 1 serves up plenty. We can beat 'nice' teams who let us play but there are less of those games than there are of this kind.

This feels like a line in the sand where some kind of minimum has been established. It's certainly not where we hoped to be putting a line when the season started but where we are now, it's where the line needs to be. It was a fight and we fought. We didn't click into top gear and play dreamy football, far from it - but our heads didn't go and to repeat a key point again, we played for each other, we covered each others mistakes which in a season where there's been too much throwing arms up in the air, putting hands on hips and melting under pressure, is not to be sniffed at. 

All hail the Horse! 

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

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - but if you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Drifting dangerously - the Mighty vs Plymouth Argyle

Right... 

What to say... ? This isn't the easiest blog I've ever written. 

It's fine if you want to stop before it starts. I mean, at the best of times this blog isn't an exercise in in self discipline, so y'know, I'd totally understand if you want to metaphorically leave before it gets ugly with long sentences and metaphors from 6 paragraphs before being returned to in a way that doesn't fully make sense and do something more constructive with your time. This isn't going to be a linear journey from A to B. I think we may digress at points. That's yer health warning. It's up to you. 

Lets initially cut to the chase.

The game. 

Fuck me. Fuck my fucking life. Fuck the curse that was put on me. (and you. We're all in this. We must have done something collectively really awful in a previous incarnation.) 

I don't know what to say about it.

It was shocking.

Like, actually shocking.

Generally, when people say a performance was 'shocking' I think 'was it? really?' because it's not actually a 'shock' that you've just lost 2-1 at home to, I dunno, Barnsley or Rotherham and actually, the 'shocking' performance tends to be fairly typical of a league 1 game and what's happened is one or two mistakes have been made and one team has got the better of the other and actually, you can make a case for how it might have been different.  I mean, c'mon. If you've supported us for more than 10 minutes, you can't actually be shocked if we lose 2-1 to Stevenage or someone. It's been my fucking life apart from about 6 seasons for fucks sake. 

This game though, was actually, shocking. I've always done my best not to say 'spineless' and 'gutless' and 'abject' and all of that - because y'know, those words get used a lot and they cease to have any meaning but if I carry on writing, they're going to get used here.

There was no world in which that game ends up in our favour.  We don't even come slightly close to not losing it. The referee was a stupid twat dressed as a drink of Vimto who gave an absurd free kick when CJ got sort of near goal once, but lets be honest, that's hardly a moment like the Lampard goal against Germany and to cite that as reason for hope is delusional. 

Partway through the second half, looking at Crainey giving a good impression of a bloke with a kind of emerging PTSD on the touchline as Argyle poured forward again, I asked myself, 'why am I still here?' and I couldn't find an answer. This was as bad as it has been in a long time. 

In this blog, I've always tried to find the positive and to praise as much as condemn. Football is a brutal and unforgiving game. I deeply respect the effort and fortitude of the young lads who live out their professional lives on the pitch in front of a baying mob of one eyed, foaming at the mouth, often pissed up half paying attention but ever 100% certain critics. I am really, really going to struggle to do a positive spin today.

I mean, I could say 'they all had their shirts on the right way round' or 'there was a nice range of haircuts' but in terms of collective praise for their team play, overall effort, general sense of unity and execution of a game plan, I'm really struggling to think of anything that is even a neutral comment, let alone a positive. 

In terms of individuals, the task is equally demanding. 

Things I remember looking upon positively amount to: A really, really nice first time pass from Clarkson. Walters sometimes running forward with the ball and looking like he had some level of fitness. Bowler generally looking like he gave a fuck and trying to do something. I think that's it. I could be wrong, I don't know, I don't really want to think about it. 

I've nothing more to say. I could describe their goals, but why? Just watch them. It's the same shitty goals we always concede. 

I'l tell you what they felt like though.

Imagine an army marching upon what looks like a castle. They stop, prime the cannons and load up the trebuchet. The first shot is fired. The castle walls just fall over. It turns out it isn't actually a castle, it's just some pallets nailed together and painted to look like a castle. The advancing army rejoices. The vanquished defenders hang their heads, hastily re-erect some of the flimsy walls and then the whole thing repeats with an inevitable outcome as the pathetic facade of pretend defences gets flimsier each times

It's not fair to just blame the defenders and the goalkeeper. We also failed completely to attack. To further the ye olde military metaphor, what looked like muskets aimed from the ramparts, turned out to be empty water pistols.

I've not looked at the statistics but I don't remember us having any kind of semi convincing effort on goal or even more than a brief flicker of pressure. This was a home game against another team in the wrong half of the table. It looked like a non league team against an in-form Premier League side. There was an inevitability about it, they looked fitter, faster, better with the ball, better without the ball. They dominated us and we just seemed to accept it as if we were Matlock Town and they were Manchester City. Reading that back, it might be a little bit hyperbolic, but the gist is true, you can argue about the size of the gap, but the central point, that we were totally outplayed, is beyond reasonable doubt. 

What else to say?

It was, not for the first time this season, a total waste of my time and I'm getting actually, really, properly, no irony here, genuinely fed up with turning up, seeing us be shite and going home thinking 'I enjoyed that less than had I done something else' I mean, watching Obafemi literally hop round the pitch for 5 minutes whilst Ennis and Bloxham warmed up, then us bringing on Bloxham out of the two (which can only leaving me concluding that Ennis is far from actually fit or Evo's mental because why would you not bring him on) - I can't think of any way to frame that as anything other than grimly depressing. 

I looked at us and thought 'why can't we tackle?' - players would get to the right place, look like they were going to win the ball and then just, well, not win the ball. Time and again.I thought the same about aerial duels as well.

It's those things you notice in a mismatch. One team just does the basics better. One team looks like the peak of physical fitness and conditioning and the other not. It's the difference in touch and control and the pace of the pass. It's the way that's true throughout the team, so overall the  effect is multiplied and it seems hopeless to even try after a certain point. We've been outplayed too often this season for it to be not actually worrying now. 

I actually, genuinely thought 'if we put Horsfall upfront, at least we'd get some possession at the other end of the pitch and have some impact there' - I'm not being sarcastic either. We were totally toothless and yet again, when we can't play football, we can't do anything, because we can't win the fight so going direct is pointless. It's only been a problem basically since Madine left but hey ho. I mean, there's no rush to solve it and give us an option which every other fucking team appears to have. 

Were this a one off, were this a strange, anomalous blip of a game then I'd probably have written 8 sarcastic paragraphs about us being shite this week and then something vaguely optimistic about football being football and hey, we go again it's the great game, owt can happen and that why we love it really and if we didn't get caned from time to time it would be boring etc etc etc.

Onward...  

... being shite though, is becoming habitual.

We're on a trajectory of decline. Not just the last few weeks. The sending off at Port Vale hasn't derailed an otherwise faultless season, the last few years haven't been glorious near triumphs, we aren't playing some brand of bold exciting football which warms the soul as much as it frustrates, we aren't pluckily battling above our level, clinging on and fighting for our lives with sinew and bone and muscle. It's just depressing regression. The first season in League 1 was boring competency. We're now really *actually* shit with a 'meh' season in between. That is a slow but clear decline. 

To enjoy football, we don't have to win all the time. Football, is, of course, about wanting to win, trying to win and hopefully winning more than not, but generally speaking, fans will accept things other than a 100 point title season if there's other things going on. That could be a style of play, a sense of overall development, an atmosphere, a feeling that everything is being given, that there's a purpose and an intent and if you've reached a ceiling, then that everything is being tried to get the little bit of extra you need to survive or push that little bit further. Our motto is 'Progress' and progress isn't 'promotion right now or we riot' - but equally, 'Progress' is the opposite of 'regress' 

What I get from the club at this point, is not that sense of everything being given. Ian Evatt is not the object of that point. It feels, almost moot to discuss the manager. It feels like blaming the tyres for the fact the car won't start. We've gone through manager after manager and it hasn't got any better. We've gone through player after player and still, Jimmy (love him as a I do) is there trudging about getting sent off like it's 2020 and CJ is still the lightning rod for all the world's ills and we look less and less convincing as time goes by. 

We keep rebuilding with a different style but each time, it seems like the castle is made from flimsier bits of wood and gets knocked down more easily. We have brief periods where, freshly painted and propped upright, in the right light, you think 'yeah, that looks ok' but then, each time, the truth of the thing becomes painfully evident. It's not a castle, it's actually a load of fucking shit. 

In a recent interview, it was put to our CEO, that we were 'drifting' and he audibly bristled at the idea. 'No', he said, and cited a range of things we'd done, like 'stitching the pitch' and various infrastructure developments.

Now, it would be wrong not to acknowledge where progress exists. The pitch is, indeed, excellent. The developments around the ground are great. The rail seats are exactly what we need (barring rebuilding the actual Kop and ideally the scratching sheds and south and west paddocks too,) Rob Purdon's murals are fucking amazing and, i dunno, the retro shirts are quality items and actually, in the realm of overpriced tacky football merchandise, really well executed and a decent price. We've got the Oystons out of the attic as well. All good. All true. Well done. Knighthood for the CEO... 

... and yet I feel there's a counterpoint here. In the interview, the investment of the owner was repeatedly cited as proof of our purpose. I don't question that. Very few do and even those who do can't really argue with the numbers on the balance sheet. The investment is there for the club to compete at this level.

What is a bigger and more vital question is - has the money been well used over a period of time? 

If the money has been committed to do these things, then, in terms of things like rail seats or murals, it isn't a remarkable achievement that they've been done. It's simply what you'd expect to happen next. It's certainly better than them not being done - but whether it's evidence of truly high performance by the CEO is a different question. It certainly demonstrates investment - but that investment in itself is outwith the CEO's control.

Whilst the club is a sizable body, it's essentially no different to a school, a hospital, a supermarket, institutions who engage in redevelopment, put up new buildings, have their grounds redone and so on. Infrastructure projects happen, people manage them. Competency in that respect isn't proof of overall delivery...

...Lets stretch the metaphor and come back to the point of the club, the football. If, in a hospital or school or supermarket, people are dying or exam results are terrible or the fish counter is full of rotten fish, then saying 'it's disappointing, of course,, but we've got an excellent car park and we've refloored the canteen' doesn't really answer the core question. 

It's positive that there was an acknowledgement of some of the failings in the last few years, particularly around a lack of communication. It was positive to have some details of work undertaken but... yet, it wasn't especially convincing. 

In terms of our football strategy, we learned that we hired Steve Bruce essentially because Steve Bruce is a big name who was available and might not otherwise be. We learned that Ian Evatt really, really wanted the job. We didn't really learn much more. We learned that David Downes doesn't seem to think that there's much difference between what managers want and they just want 'good players' - we learned that we don't know why there's endless injuries, but 'we've got loads of data' and that 'it might be about preseason' - the word 'disappointing' was used endlessly and lots of mentions of 'reviews' were cited. 

Here's the thing though. I don't know if I'm missing something but preseason was 8 months ago and if, as was suggested, the players wear GPS bras and have GPS knives and GPS forks in the canteen and clean their teeth with GPS toothbrushes and void their systems on GPS toilets and are issued with fucking GPS condoms on a night out, then why the shitting fucking hell haven't we got some solid conclusions to draw upon now? The data is there. It's not sitting in a greenhouse growing for 8 months till the data flower blooms, It's not a fucking data foetus waiting to be born - we've literally got it. What's the plan? 

If all we need are 'good players' then why are we also then talking  in the same interview about 'playing players out of position' being a reason for our failings? Might that possibly be something to do with the fact that quite a few of our players this season now literally don't fit the current style of play because we don't field their preferred position? Emil Hansson, Scott Banks, Josh Bowler, Tom Bloxham, CJ Hamilton - that's 5 players who will never play in their ideal roles (or had to be let go) because we made a decision, again, to switch to a new idea in mid season. We've then got Michael 'long contract' Ihiekwe and his gammy toe anchoring a possession based back three, something that Michael 'long contract' Ihiekwe (and his gammy toe) is fundamentally not designed to do. We've not had a first choice keeper we owned since we sold Grimmy virtually in the fucking warm up of a game we were about to play, up till we signed BPF to the solidity of.... a short term contract.  Yesterday in the second half was the first time we've had two *actual* wing backs on the pitch for a long time - in a system in which the key defining characteristic of it is that it needs good wing backs. 

The question is about whether we've got an appropriate level of strategy guiding the bigger decisions and as above, guiding the investment. 

We've made ONE undeniably successful signing in the last two seasons (Fletch) and the rest have failed or had any impact undermined by injuries. The answer 'we don't know why, but we'll look at it' is a shallow answer. 

That's what leaves me feeling like I can't muster the enthusiasm to try and talk us up, because I can't work out what it is we're trying to do.

I can see what Evatt is trying to do and I'll defend his right to try it - because someone needs to try something, but in the end, if it isn't right, we'll just end up burning him on the great managerial pyre and then trying the next thing, by which time we'll have a squad full of wing backs, so we'll go to a back four system and repeat the rebuild and then abort it and so on till we stumble upon something eventually, sometime around 2031.

We've always got 'total confidence and alignment' and then we don't and we then have total confidence and alignment in a different thing and repeat. 

To cite Neil 'lets be brutally honest, he's looking more like a football guru by the week' Critchley, there has to be a 'process' but the process has to be purposeful, there has to be a picture guiding the process, an aim to work towards. To visualise a good football team, you can't just visualise 'good players' lifting the FA Cup and everybody cheering - you have to visualise the complex relationships between those players, the style they're playing within, the way they adapt to different challenges, the different combinations that can be used to overcome or nullify different situations, the blend of youth and experience, the right characters to pick the team up and the right characters to calm the team down.  

In football terms, that's definitely about being totally committed to the broad idea - you might be a strong running, movement based team. you might be a set of physical bullies, you might try skill, total football - you get the idea... I've made this argument multiple times. The guiding picture seems to live in the manager head, but I'm not sure it lives anywhere else

It's like we're providing the same paint for the artist, regardless of who it is and what their medium is and then blaming the artist when their delicate brushes get clogged with thick gloss or the painting is shit because they needed oil paints but got watercolours and then just saying 'well, we bought them paint, that shows ambition, don't see what the problem is, we'll review the paint in 6 months' 

Downes and Winter talked, correctly about injuries having impact and the subsequent load on players draining the fit and that forcing people out of position to cover and so on - but without any reflection on why that seems to have impacted us so badly, or why, we only seem (for the second season in a row) to be able to perform if the absolute first choice best XI is fit... 

... the season we went up 5 years ago, we were decimated by injuries and yet we won a lot of games with 12, 13, 14 fit players. Why can't we perform now like we could then? What's the difference? Why don't they have some analysis of that? 

*Deep Breath*

I walked through town on the way to the game. I walked past a burnt out building next to a massage parlour, I walked along cramped streets which felt like inner city somewhere, I walked past little pockets of brilliance, great things made from determination to make things work. I watched a drug deal out the corner of my eye, careful not to actually look up for my own safety cos I'm getting old and more wary... Blackpool is always an incredible and intense place to walk around in. It's not like anywhere else. It isn't somewhere where you just turn up and do a thing and have success. It's somewhere where success has to be eked out, fought for, it's a place where to succeed requires dedication, cunning and effort. 

We have stopped speaking of us being a club that knits together the disparate experiences of the very disparate Fylde coast. We've stopped feeling 'local' and as if there's a real understanding of what is on our doorstep. As much as we didn't talk about football strategy in any depth, we didn't really discuss anything about the culture of the club as a whole - we discussed projects to change fllodlights and 'matchday experience' but the club isn't just 3pm to 4.45 on a Saturday.

The football club is potentially the thing that really unites Blackpool. It's potentially the thing that brings in people, that connects people, that is Blackpool and for Blackpool and that Blackpool is truly proud of in a way that nothing else is.

It's the small things that matter. I'd suggest watching this to see how simple it is to make people feel cared about and how it's painful to see how they feel when they don't. Does seeing a lad who misses his dad feeling like this cut painfully into the soul of the leadership of the club.? It should. The club is the people like this. We're all this fan. The game is the crowd. We're all united by one thing. If we don't make the simplest efforts to show that matters, then what have we got? We're literally the reason everyone has jobs in football. Without fans it's just a game no one cares about where there's no industry, no strategies, no 'product' to be sold to anyone. 

The saddest thing is, it felt like we had that in the not too distant past, like we were working towards being *something* both on and off the pitch and that enthusiasm towards and belief in and understanding of where and what and why, was, more or less there and yet, whilst I can say 'yes, *some* positive things have happened and we've got a decent enough playing budget' it's really hard to honestly say there's anything 'special' about us in terms of the culture and the connection between the club and the community that follow it, nor can I really honestly say it feels as if we're doing anything inventive or innovative that's giving us an edge in terms of our football either.  In fact, there's stuff distinctly lacking in both areas. 

Maybe I'm just a shallow fan sulking cos we lost. Maybe I'm just lashing out at 'faceless suits' in a childish way because my team lost again and I've not emotionally got past the 13 yr old stage.  Maybe I don't understand the world of football properly and I'm missing the point somewhere - but when you're at a moment where it feels like you don't really care who the manager is or who he picks and going to the game is something you do with more than a bit of a resentment, when there's no atmosphere, when there's no fun, then it's not unreasonable to hope for a degree of enthusiasm for the task of fixing that and some sense of a vision and purpose about what that involves.

Mistakes happen in life. It's good to see at least some acknowledged. I make them all the time*...

(I wrote a  enthusiastic piece telling Sadler to spunk his money on signings for Bruce because *nothing could possibly go wrong there* to name but one....)

...but,  if there isn't the willingness to really, genuinely, deeply, properly self reflect and essentially, a willingness to accept, to fully grasp that this has, regardless of  the fact of investment, been a stagnant period of drift with, yes, some infrastructure improvement , but long term and increasing under performance on the pitch and dwindling enthusiasm in the fan base, then I'm really not sure we've got the right people running the club and managing the investments made. 

We can and must be far better than this. 

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

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - but if you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Painful but still better - Huddersfield Town vs the Mighty

To get from here to there you have to cross the tops. Great, dark yawning miles of nothing, obscured today by fog, a trail of disappearing brake lights heading into the murk, like a lane of red heading through a cloud. Such is the journey, through every kind of weather and ever changing lanes, the drama of flashing hazards and a crumpled bonnet laid out beside me as we crawl over the moors, I almost forget I'm here to see a football match.

Finally, down into the valley. I once lived here. Nothing speaks to your impermanence in the world than to return to place you spent a lot of time in and realise that..., aside from your memories, there is nothing here to welcome you, no mark you've left at all upon the place. Memory is so fragile an imprint on a place as to be a barely perceptible gossamer thread, a tangled mess of shimmering web, brushed aside easily... almost everything you remember has gone, changed, been washed away by the march of time. 

Anyway, all of that. Self regarding navel gazing shite. This is a football blog for football people. We'll have none of that here. This. Is. Now. Not last week or last month or 25 years ago. All the new players start... There was the summer optimism then the short lived excitement of the first set of loans. Neither lasted long before gloom set in. C'mon the Pool. Make it third time lucky in the new beginnings. May the season finally start here. 

---

After a mental build up on the PA, (Town have invested in what felt like the sound system for some huge London super club, but seemed also to have only bought a 'now that's what I call 1986' CD to go with it) Pool start with a crisp move, moving the ball quickly, showing movement and looking comfortable in possession. It comes to nothing, but it's something nonetheless 

Soon though, we're pinned back. Huddersfield are getting joy on their right. CJ gets run through like a freshly sharpened Turkish barber's razor blade slicing a blue Rizla paper stuck to the head of a bald man... Pressure, a shot on an angle from close in, BPF seems to clatter his head on the post and the ball cannons away. More pressure, Pool cut open again in similar way, ball across, a Terrier stretching at the far post, but like Gazza in Euro 96, he just can't reach it and make enough contact to turn it the right side of the post. 

The ref is whistle happy and hates us. I think he must have had a shit holiday in Blackpool as a kid or be best mates with Ed Duckworth or both. He's on self aggrandising a mission to blow every time we make a tackle. We don't care though, we start to come back into the game. I like Clarkson - it's a low bar in terms of our midfield this year, but he faces the right way and passes towards their goal and that's a big step up. Karoy Anderson has the legs we've not had, managing to make running around the middle of the pitch doing things footballers do (like tackles and passes) in a competent manner seem like something he's trained all week for and is readily able to do - again, a step up. 

A corner. We never score from corners... this one is deep and finds Husband in space, who brings it down. Is he going to lash it. No .. he's lifted it back where it's come from, Clarkson, the kick taker has snuck up the line and flicks it back into a melee, where Fletcher makes contact and the ball dribbles home. The ball crosses the line in slow motion but lights an away end tinderbox as it does. 

We play some scary stuff at the back but we get away with it. Husband is in Blackpool Baresi mode. lofting passes into space, sauntering about like he's read this book so many times before. We're pressuring, we're building a passing move. Obefemi, controls comes out the box, lays it out to Walters, who takes, then stands up a glorious cross, Karoy Anderson leaps, flicks, guides the ball into the yawning space and goal!!! 

It's absolutely dreamland stuff. A headed goal, 2 up away from home and the new signings all with an impact on the game, a loud away end and a silent home crowd. C'mon you Poooooool! 

We're playing with bite. Obafemi and Fletcher are starting to form a link. There's brilliant break from Obafemi where he threatens to run past their whole defence (after the ref inexplicably penalises Walters for throwing the ball from the wrong place and turns the throw over to Huddersfield instead), there's a moment that decieves, where Fletcher catches one and it's looks great but goes out for a throw. Clarkson is spreading it, Anderson is reaching second balls, Walters looks more like Jordan Gabriel than Jordan Gabriel himself did in the last few months of his Pool career, darting forward, daring to run inside. It falls down slightly as CJ puts in a truly shocking cross after a lovely move, but there's an energy to this team that just hasn't been there for most of the year and it's refreshing to see. 


--- 

Frankly, I'm in a bit of shock. More of this type of thing. 

--- 

We get more. For the first 20-ish minutes of the half, Pool are on top, or at very least, a strong equal. Ash Fletcher plays a pass I could watch again and again, threading it so exquisitely through for Obafemi to run on to that he might have been playing crown green bowls. Anderson bends one that stands up nicely over the top. It would have been the icing on the cake. Fletch draws a great save from their keeper, smacking a volley on the bounce, from an angle, sending it arrowing inside of the post but for the palm of the Town keeper.

I feel strangely comfortable...

...Until I don't.

We're starting to tire. The zip has gone from our legs. We're starting to be second to the ball, our play is more laboured, we aren't as aggressive. I hope blindly, that Albie is on the bench. He isn't. Town are making changes and their changes are improving them. We're between a rock and a hard place, not sure whether to stick or twist. Finally we thrown on Bloxham for Obafemi, who, still hasn't really had a shot in anger but hasn't let their defence settle all day. 

The change doesn't really work. Bloxham is neither fish nor fowl, not stretching them in behind as the man he replaced did, but not holding it up either, the ball seemingly repelled by him, bouncing off him harmlessly and back to a blue and white shirt. Walters and Anderson, so vital and full of verve have just started to look a bit more human and Clarkson, a silky purveyor of passes, an energetic finder of space now is getting bypassed and brushed aside. 

It's not as if Town are constantly working the keeper or whistling the ball past the post - there's just a palpable shift in momentum. We can't get hold of the ball, can't control the game at all and they're coming forward all the time. 

When they score, it's tarnished with another moment of CJ being bypassed and what looks to be a clear foul on Fletcher. Again, from their right, they get the ball over and a header is bulleted home. Now nerves kick in. 

It's not just nervy in the stands. We send on Finnegan for Clarkson in a bid for solidity. It doesn't really work as we look wild and absolutely can't get any kind of grip. We're hacking and backing off, every clearance seems scrambled and rushed. The ref isn't helping affairs as he continues to whistle and book just about anyone and everyone he can, at one point, he books Casey for kicking a ball that is just out of play, which, seeing as about 10 minutes before, the linesman didn't flag the ball when it had clearly gone out of play seems reasonable. He then books Ian Evatt because he can. He's a ref. He can wave his cards if he wants to. 

The goal, when it comes has a feeling of inevitability about it. Huddersfield drive down the left. Walters is exposed, 1 on 1 and then two on one as an overlap isn't properly tracked and the kid looks dizzy by the time they've slipped it expertly beyond him and the ball is being pulled back and there's one of those rushes at the far post as loads of their lads charge in, leaping, like horses at the first fence in the Grand National and the ball is not so much headed home as buffeted in by the forces of displacement. 

Fuck's sake 'Pool. 

There's time for more outrage at the ref. Ennis - who is probably the most effective of the subs, peels away and beats one, two, three and then is hacked down. No card. We actually manage to put some pressure on at the end, a Husband header across the box is beautifully inviting, but no one can make a claim on it and then the final insult from the man in black or highlighter yellow or purple or whatever stupid refs kit he was wearing this week decided, that having awarded us a free kick in a dangerous area, he won't let us take it because he hates tangerine and so, it's over and honours are even... 

--- 

It's an odd one. To be 2-0 up and in charge with well over an hour gone and not take home 3 points obviously stings. To have played well enough to be well in control of the game, away from home, against a form side and a shit ref is however, still pleasing. We showed some familiar weaknesses (literally) in the last 25 minutes as tackles were easily ridden and bypassed by the opposition (watching Finnegan try to cynically trip a player up and fail completely and get booked anyway sort of summed up our year defensively,) we got bullied in the middle and we get penned back - but, up to that point, we pressed well, showed aggression and played a good mix of direct balls and some quality build up play. 

The new lads improved us massively. Clarkson looked exactly as you'd want, silky, good feet and vision. Anderson was a lovely foil to that, an athlete in midfield who showed desire - my favourite moment aside from the goals was probably the snarling tackle in the box he made to deny a Town chance after he'd given the ball away in midfield - no standing with his hands on his hips and watching play get away from him - he was absolutely determined to get back in and atone for the error. Walters was largely impressive, bringing the adventure from deep and looking a gifted player - if, like Gabriel, perhaps a little prone to getting caught out for that adventure - but them's the breaks. 

All in all, there was more to us that has been there for a while - we might be a relegation threatened side, but we didn't, in the main, play like it. It's clear that what we've brought in is designed to make us a more mobile side and we looked far more coherent going forward. I'm not sure we got caught out trying to sit on it, more that we wilted as the game went deep. There's negatives, yes and we all know what they are, god knows we've seen them enough this year - but there were probably as many, if not more positives and after a shocking post Christmas run, that's not so bad.

Having Morgan, Honeyman, Randall, Horsfall and others to come back leaves us surely strong enough - certainly we win that with a little bit more quality to exchange in the second half from the position we were in. Most importantly, we showed something today and despite the end, for the majority of it, didn't sit back and took a fight to them and that is always the starting point for getting behind 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

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - but if you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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