Who can know what the season brings? Optimism can dissolve into nothing or resolve into glory.
There are many teams, but few can take the prize.
Most will fail. Most will fall short.
Many words are expended in self persuasion, but they mean nothing on the pitch. Talking yourself up can lead to a fall. Those in front of the camera use many words to say as close to nothing as they can. The weeks rolls on, but only 90 minutes matters.
Players, alone amidst yawning empty amphitheatres. Playing for no one but far off screens. A cold dissection follows failure, muted, mild satisfaction the product of victory. Distance makes drabness, it dulls the senses and dampens the appreciation of the sinews stretched, of lungs busted, of tackles crunching. Glory is lonely when it's shared from afar.
Like war games. Armies clash but under no flag or banner. Soldiers but no nation.
The season begin as autumn unfurls, as leaves curl and winters tendrils creep into evenings. A time of doubt, uncertainty and strange shadows. In fear, we want to draw together and yet, we are banished to solitude.
No drum to beat time, no ebbs and flows in the noise, no frenzy or lull, no anguished curses of frustration. No route march, no routines. No chatter in the concrete depths, no spring loaded snap back of coloured plastic, no fiddling with cold gloved hands to present the ticket to the machine. No swirl of the glass and tipping the last cold dregs. No needle, no empty rage and no blessed relief. No warming yourself with the car heater and thinking 'at least I went'
Only speculation and worry. This won't go on. It can't go on. It might go on.
The clock ticks, metronome steady. There are fixtures to be fulfilled and it is fitting that we are so far away from home to begin a season like no other.
Hamilton, like lightning, Yates scrapping, linking, moving, working. Kaikai, newly underrated and newly outshone but deadly, like panther in the dark, others now provide the shade for him to hunt. Anderson, barrelling into foes, a dodgem car footballer with a touch of silk, a buzzing hornet, a cyclone. Robson, like liquid gold, slipping into space.
Coached and drilled. Neat triangles and bursting runs, swapping and changing, swarming and shoaling, reforming, probing and passing. Yet confidence can be brittle, blame is always lurking. Heads can go. Fear can infect the fearless.
Unlikely heroes are made, ugly moments change fortunes. The unloved bask in adulation. A single whistle blown or a flag raised can alter everything. A foot stuck in the turf, a muscle that gives way, a ball holds up in the mud. A lapse in concentration, a chance conceded or a moment pounced up.
What comes is chaos. For all it is dressed up in numbers and for all the words expended, all the wisdom offered, it is the beauty of the thing that it can never be tamed. Mastery is never assured. Defeat is always there, a prospect that only make victory more keenly desired. Glory is just the absence of loss, gravity can only be cheated for so long. The next game starts even. This is what we love.
Nerves, tension, sinking into despair, sudden elation, unfairness and frustration, dominance, pressure, forcing the issue and riding our luck. It's all to come.
Who knows what happens next.
Not me.
Let the whistle blow.
utmp
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There are many teams, but few can take the prize.
Most will fail. Most will fall short.
Many words are expended in self persuasion, but they mean nothing on the pitch. Talking yourself up can lead to a fall. Those in front of the camera use many words to say as close to nothing as they can. The weeks rolls on, but only 90 minutes matters.
Players, alone amidst yawning empty amphitheatres. Playing for no one but far off screens. A cold dissection follows failure, muted, mild satisfaction the product of victory. Distance makes drabness, it dulls the senses and dampens the appreciation of the sinews stretched, of lungs busted, of tackles crunching. Glory is lonely when it's shared from afar.
Like war games. Armies clash but under no flag or banner. Soldiers but no nation.
The season begin as autumn unfurls, as leaves curl and winters tendrils creep into evenings. A time of doubt, uncertainty and strange shadows. In fear, we want to draw together and yet, we are banished to solitude.
No drum to beat time, no ebbs and flows in the noise, no frenzy or lull, no anguished curses of frustration. No route march, no routines. No chatter in the concrete depths, no spring loaded snap back of coloured plastic, no fiddling with cold gloved hands to present the ticket to the machine. No swirl of the glass and tipping the last cold dregs. No needle, no empty rage and no blessed relief. No warming yourself with the car heater and thinking 'at least I went'
Only speculation and worry. This won't go on. It can't go on. It might go on.
The clock ticks, metronome steady. There are fixtures to be fulfilled and it is fitting that we are so far away from home to begin a season like no other.
Hamilton, like lightning, Yates scrapping, linking, moving, working. Kaikai, newly underrated and newly outshone but deadly, like panther in the dark, others now provide the shade for him to hunt. Anderson, barrelling into foes, a dodgem car footballer with a touch of silk, a buzzing hornet, a cyclone. Robson, like liquid gold, slipping into space.
Coached and drilled. Neat triangles and bursting runs, swapping and changing, swarming and shoaling, reforming, probing and passing. Yet confidence can be brittle, blame is always lurking. Heads can go. Fear can infect the fearless.
Unlikely heroes are made, ugly moments change fortunes. The unloved bask in adulation. A single whistle blown or a flag raised can alter everything. A foot stuck in the turf, a muscle that gives way, a ball holds up in the mud. A lapse in concentration, a chance conceded or a moment pounced up.
What comes is chaos. For all it is dressed up in numbers and for all the words expended, all the wisdom offered, it is the beauty of the thing that it can never be tamed. Mastery is never assured. Defeat is always there, a prospect that only make victory more keenly desired. Glory is just the absence of loss, gravity can only be cheated for so long. The next game starts even. This is what we love.
Nerves, tension, sinking into despair, sudden elation, unfairness and frustration, dominance, pressure, forcing the issue and riding our luck. It's all to come.
Who knows what happens next.
Not me.
Let the whistle blow.
utmp
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