OK will do just fine. The Mighty vs Horrible Horwich

This is it. The night we ignite. A carnival, a fiesta of football. It's fucking Bolton. Not that tinpot lot up the road or some non-entity of market town with a stupid nickname like 'the Barley boys' or 'the jolly jousters' 

It's Bolton. It's 53, Nat Lofthouse and some other things that are much less worthy of celebration. It's grim industry versus Seaside paradise. It's a grudge match and it always will be. Let's just leave it at that. 

To be honest, whatever the context, we could do with beating Bolton. Grayson lost a lot of goodwill at the Reebok when he seemed to barely toy with idea of trying to win the game at a point when we were very much 'on the up' and they were pretty weak. We could do with doing a lot better. They are still pretty weak. 

In front of me the lad says "the season's dead, not going up or down" but I'm not convinced. We could really do with these points. Just to be sure. Just as insurance. Just to soothe nerves and maybe let us play a bit. Play without fear. That's what we've craved all year. Players who slip the leash and have a go. 

It's same again on the pitch and the bench. I thought  we did ok against Wimbledon. Nothing more, but ok. I'm predicting we miss about 10 chances in a row tonight and just as the game looks lost, we score the worst goal in history. As bad a goal as Fonz's miss last week and that lifts a floodgate and we batter them like we've not battered anyone in ages. 

*And we all live happily ever after*

The players are read out. I'm worried it feels a bit hollow. It's not really feeling like a blood and thunder derby match.

There's bright start and 45 seconds of liquid football. We even win a corner. 

Reality then kicks in as nothing happens for 5 minutes. 

During this time Maxwell takes a weird goalkick to Husband. I note Taylor Moore has the squarest body in world.

Dunn is quite active. He has a habit of coming out and shouting, but he starts pointing before he's left the dugout and has finished what he had to communicate before he gets to the edge of his technical area. Still, I think he's doing ok, he's done the right thing in letting the same team try and build on the weekend. 

Then Fonz, bustles, shoves and shimmers through, into the box. Of course, he doesn't score. The resulting penalty appeal seems more in hope than anger. 

Husband, who I like at centre half, runs out from back, interchanges with  Macdonald and then the ball is worked worked across the edge of the box to Ronan. We chorus Shooooot, almost in jest, because we don't score goals like that - and he only goes and belts it in. From outside the box and everything. It curls but it seems a bit like the keeper dives round it. He's good is this lad. 

Bolton manage a few forays forward that end in ineptitude. 

Maxwell makes his choices at goal kicks like a contestant on the Crystal Maze who doesn't quite grasp the purpose of challenge. I worry that he is taking goal kicks too seriously. He really does look flustered. One time he gets visibly cross with the outfield players, another he looks like he might get stuck in an endless loop of 'short, no long, no short.' Several times he places it, steps back, then moves back to the ball and shifts it a yard right, then takes the kick. 

When did goal kicks get so complex? I don't remember Steve Mclhargy making it that complicated.  

Virtue has an absolute belting shot. It swerves, rasps and dips. I can hear it fizz from the other end of the ground. 

We have two penalty shouts. Madine bundled over then a hand ball. The ref seems to feel sorry for Bolton. He alsi doesn't book anyone for ages despite Madine being cynically tripped just outside the box and Virtue taken out with deliberate and entirely unnecessary force on the touchline. 

We play quite well. We look sort of 'coached.' The players know where each other are. We attack when we get the ball. 

Bolton are a shit, fat, slow Accrington. Let's keep things in perspective. They are rubbish. 

Dewsbury-Hall is full of energy and drive and he completes the trio of 'midfielders actually having a decent go at goal' with one that nearly drops to the onrushing Fonz in 'incident no 854 in which Nathan Delfuoenso nearly scores' before the keeper smothers in at the second attempt. 

Nothing happens for last 5 minutes aside from an excellent tackle from Husband to rob one of the surly binmen with a hangover masquerading as footballers scoring. 

I have time to reimagine Fonz's career as a filmscript. It would be about a dashing, super talented, quick witted and wily burglar who can shimmy up drainpipes, outwit Lazer beams and unlock any safe. Only after every raid he FORGETS TO ACTUALLY TAKE THE JEWELS. Or he forgets to arrange a get away car and has to put the jewels back before the police come and find him standing on the street corner. Or he orchestrates the perfect burglary….. on the wrong house and what he thinks are the jewels end up being a box of false teeth. Oh, Nathan Delfuoenso. 

I love Fonz. His day will come. He'll pull off that perfect heist at the end. Wait and see. 

It's half time. 

---

Second half and Bolton manage to look like a football team a bit. Not too much, but let's be fair, it doesn't take much to shake us up. 

Maxwell makes a stunning one hand stop from the ground stretching his arm up more strongly than he has any right to. It is brilliant. 

Feeney has a weird spell where he fluctuates between brilliant and hopeless. Haring through one moment, completely failing to stop a simple pass the next. 

Virtue leathers another shot that is deflected just over.

The midfield 3 pull off a lovely one touch move, that ends with Virtue playing a really delicious cross to no one at the far post. 

Fonz nearly runs through on goal for the 980th time in a Blackpool shirt. 

Dewsbury Hall is absolutely clattered and catches the free kick well but it's dead centre and into the keeper's arms. 

They start to get a bit of a foothold and nearly bundle through a couple of times. They are really bad at shooting though.  

It feels like time for sub. Surely, this is made for Spearing. It feels like an actual manager would have made a sub. It feels like Dunn is thinking *if I balls this up with wrong sub, I'll be fuming* and hoping we start to play like the first half again. It's definitely time for Spearing. 

They fashion a good chance A cross, cut back, they must score but it's  headed straight into Maxwell's arms. 

Dunn finally hears me telepathically and Ronan's last act before Spearing replaces him is to get on the end of direct break with Feeney belting through, sliding it to him but the little wizard leans back as he stretches to reach it and it flies into the north stand. 

With Spearing on we settle after a few minutes

Feeney's low cross has Gary Madine sliding in and… he hooks it off the line. The ball is further away from goal than when he started after it. I don't know about Madine. He's more aesthetically pleasing to the unimaginative mind than Super Gnando and he certainly know how to play up front and have people play around him but he doesn't actually *do* that much tonight. Like a lot of our team. I suppose he needs a bit of confidence. 

We put pressure on, the crowd are baying us on for the killer goal. We string 3 attacks together…

… then there's a bomb. Or a firework. It didn't help that 5 minutes before the big screen was showing the 'run, hide, tell' message. The stewards mill about a bit and no one appears to be dead so we carry on. The atmosphere is cracking. Life is good. 

Then the fucking jammy scummy bastards score a goal. It's one of those crap goals where they just score. It defies description. It just 'goes in' They attacked and scored. Why do you even want to know about it anyway? Football is a shit game and we're absolutely shite and we've got no backbone and I'm sick of this shitty non entity of a season. Dunn can fuck off as can all of the players. 

But wait. We can do this. We're the MIGHTY!... 

We attack again. We get a corner. I think Feeney takes it. I think it might be flicked on, maybe by them, maybe by us. Who cares. Watch the video… but I do remember it drops to the tireless Dewsbury-Hall who pick his spot and smashes it home. 

It's mayhem. I shout for about 20 seconds. Block a and b spill forward and the players run into them. I can hear Chisnall squawking about 'idiots on the pitch' in my head but who cares? This is magic. The players look elated. As the spill recedes Macdonald (I think) clenches his fists in salute. 

This is why VAR is shit. It's awful. It's an invention of dementors and literal minded jobsworths who make parking officers seem like angels and who should be banned from every football ground in the country. That moment. Just imagine if we had to wait for it to be 'verified' by someone in a booth somewhere in a soulless industrial estate. That's NOT football. 

That elation is football. We were playing Bolton. We deserved to win. We fucked it up and then we we snatched it back at the death. And we went mental. Because we haven't done that for what feels like forever.

Cos life is that crap sometimes that to leap around and scream feels like the best thing ever. That's football. 

I don't care that we made hard work of beating a really poor side. We gave it a go, we took some risks, we showed some spirit, we attacked, we looked like we cared and we won. 

Husband was excellent. Turton is a different player at right back. I like the way Moore is able to step out comfortably from the back. It's odd to see that Macdonald looks the perfectly competent player we thought he was, when he's spent so long not playing. The young lads in midfield might have the odd mistake in them but they add so much purpose. If we'd had Super Gnando Football Genius playing we'd have won by 3 or 4. 

We did ok. After the run we've had, ok feels like magic. 

UTMP!