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| Bet it wasn't 30 fucking quid to park in the 1920s.. |
Sort of. It's a shit metaphor. I could probably expend some words on Colin Calderwood as a lift engineer or Kenny Dougall providing the oil to ensure the mechanism worked properly but that would be stretching already painful imagery to wincing point.
What I'm trying to say is that before the season, it looked like we'd be very good, then when the season started we weren't actually very good but slowly but surely we got better and better until we were probably superior to anyone else in the division and certainly, with our incredible defensive solidity and late season flurry of goals, way beyond my expectations for the season.
It's striking how we've evolved over the course of time. Whilst players like Maxwell, Yates and Turton remain mainstays from the opening day, we've built, bit by bit, from an attractive but innefective idealist vision to a pragmatic and flexible side capable of playing in several different ways.
Ballard, Dougall, Simms, Thorniley and Madine just some of the players who either weren't Blackpool players or weren't expected to remain so for long who have made crucial contributions.
We can see this as cause for 'what might have been' self recrimination about the summer rebuild but... perhaps... the way that the ratio of hits to misses in terms of signings improved exponentially as the season went along is actually a real positive. Maybe it shows an artist's eye? Any fool can paint a picture by numbers. It takes real thought to take a blank canvas, try several different approaches, to adapt, to develop something by trial and error and then to settle on what works... An artist's notebook is full of sketches that never make it to the gallery.
The sideways passing reached a nadir... Critch even once or twice looked flustered. We responded though. First, back to basics, with the odd masterclass that hinted at greater things thrown in, a little Christmas wobble, results ground out again, the turnaround vs Burton, caution gradually giving way to confidence, a rolling stone gathering pace and momentum.
Even as late as March though, doubts remained as to the attacking prowess of the side. Yes, Jerry scored goals, but who else did? We missed CJ's pace. Sullay was isolated and lonely on the wing and this Simms character was raw and simply not ready and why the fuck had we put so much faith in an injured Sunderland reserve reject?
I felt these doubts as much as anyone else. The quiet way Critch has gone about his business, slowly showing more ambition, more experiment, more nous has silenced me. It's less than a month since I confidently dismissed an article suggesting we could play five or three at the back on the basis that if we knew anything about Mr Neil 'tactics gnome' Critchley it was that he builds his systems on a defensive four and that wasn't changing anytime soon. What do I know?
We have found success playing in numerous different ways. We have a well rounded squad, we have depth and the ability to shake things up from the bench. We've come so far from where we started and really, long as the lockdown season has seemed, we've done it very quickly, overcoming injuries that would have done for many a season, revealing a steely character and will to compete that has spread from one player to another like an obvious covid metaphor.
No season should hinge on one game, but whilst a loss won't be an abject disaster due to the solid foundations upon which the club is now seemingly built and what appears to be an ownership committed beyond any reasonable doubt to our motto of "progress" - there is a lingering sense that this team could be something special and promotion could be the prerequisite for keeping it together. Lose and there's a danger of feeling of 'what might have been...'
Ballard,Simms Gabriel and Embleton are far more likely to sign up (whether on loan or permanently) for football at a higher level. Promotion would silence all but the most outlandish stories about our better players as targets for other clubs. The Championship TV deal would relieve the pressure on Sadler's individual input and perhaps accelerate plans for the clubs infrastructure development. The value of all our players would go up. It's an ugly truth, but a truth none the less, that the financial factors around promotion matter more than they once did.
It is the latter point that maybe means most. The true crime of the Oyston regime (well, one of them) was to fail to capitalise on the opportunity afforded them to establish the club as a genuine going concern at a higher level and a genuine part of the community having won a pot of gold that refilled itself for season upon season.
Having lucked upon a position whereby the name Blackpool FC was positively regarded by the wider football world and was embraced locally in a way that has never been seen in my lifetime and probably that of people at least a decade older than me, the fact that position was not just squandered in a footballing sense, but turned into something not far short of a civil war is still frankly baffling to anyone not reconciled to the fact that no standard logic applies to our former owners.
Mr Sadler is a very different proposition. He seems to want to build something different. Something that lasts for decades. Something that consists of more than breeze block, rust and a few amazing memories albeit ones tainted by the fallout that followed. You have to feel confident that if we were to see even a proportion of the successes the former regime was gifted by the perfect freak storm of Uncle Val and Ollie that the money will transform the club and by extension to some extent, the town for years to come.
There's a tendency to want everything now in the modern football fan. A tendency to see things as binary. Win and everything is rosy, lose and everything is a disaster. Tomorrow is only a game of football. Mr Sadler's vision for the club is bigger than any one game but having come so far this year, it feels as if defeat might cut quite hard. For the first time in my life, we'll all feel the joy as one. From bottom to top and everything in between. The converse is obvious.
For so long, it's felt as if success has come despite our ownership... Tomorrow, we'll be in the strange position of potentially celebrating success because of our ownership. Perhaps that raises the stakes. I don't know. Perhaps that sits strangely when for so long, we've been used to defying the odds with footballing waifs, strays, cast offs and bargains. A rag tag and bobtail Pricebusters FC held together at our high points by eccentric brilliance and prone to implode without it. That's not who we are anymore. Does that make it feel different? Is this me turning expectant? I fucking hope not.
I don't know. It's only football and yet here we are. So many words. It's a funny old game and so on...
I'm predicting 10-0 to Pool because frankly my brain won't comprehend breaking this game down into a serious tactical battle. Lincoln aren't shit and are worryingly adaptable and resilient but I think we're better. If we turn up and get it right, I think we'll win. If we don't show what we're capable of then they might, though I'm not ruling out a topsy turvy game,won by a freak Gary Goals deflection in the dying seconds and general chaos...
Break it down seriously and you have to think of our weak points against sides that don't encourage the break... You have to acknowledge that Lincoln are the only decent team we haven't beaten (and most of them, we've beaten well.) I don't want to acknowledge anything other than that we are the Pool and we're going up and I just can't seem to get enough...
Towers are better than cathedrals. Tangerine beats red and white (or black.) Appleton might be a brick shithouse but Critch is a nimble little trickster...
Utmp
Very good article, well written and I agree with a lot of what you say. I also think we will be too strong but no doubt they will put up a serious fight
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