Everywhere we go.

It's been a while since I've written some aimless shite about nothing. *At this point as a reader you can make a joke about 'exactly as long as it's been since your last article' and feel clever about yourself*

This is really about nowt. Read it or not. Up to you. 
 

If you've read this blog for a while, you'll know I don't always write positively about things like the 'Mega super best ever league in the world on Sky Sports (TM)' or the way that football is essentially a big corrupt gravy train with billionaires ladling filthy money into the engine's firebox as they go, the fetid smoke belching out and turning everything in its wake black and dirty. 

You'll probably imagine me writing a lengthy piece about how the Saudi takeover is a grotesque conclusion, an endpoint in a journey that has been taking place for years, the logical extension of the way more and more shady characters with ever bigger wallets have been actively sought by clubs desperate to climb an ever greasier poll. I'd probably write something like 

"if you're acting all outraged, what the fuck did you think was going to happen? Greenpeace buy Newcastle? We've all enabled the game to be sold off to anyone and everyone for years to a point where only super villains can afford it cos only super villains have spare billions to invest in something pointless like a football club in another country cos if good billionaires exist, (which is a long debate we should avoid), they're investing their spare billions in AIDS treatment or something and whilst it's not a good thing when a deeply questionable regime buys a club, it's a systemic issue that comes from football being a model of neo liberal values in that it now needs ever more investment to support perpetual growth into ever wider markets and actually, eventually, what may well be the result of this is we stop pretending that elite football has any morality or values at all and thus treat it with the contempt it deserves - and in a roundabout way, whilst that doesn't help Yemen or anything like that, it might actually speed the inevitable collapse of the game in its current form because if people really are forced to see that the biggest clubs exist literally in brand name alone and that those brands are actually pretty toxic concepts that's going to cause issues eventually in an industry which is kind of the ultimate exercise in brand loyalty" 

I'm not going to write that though. It's depressing and it possibly misses the point of stuff and things. I dunno, I'm just a knobhead, I'm not presenting the moral maze or owt. 

I am instead going to write a short article on the following.

1: We don't know how good we are as a fanbase. I've not seen every Blackpool game for the last 30 years though I have seen a good few and this year, the atmosphere has been magic and it could well be the best I've ever experienced over a consistent run of games. It's certainly close to the best ever. 

2: We must never take this for granted. It's immense. It has a palpable and positive effect on my mental health. It's Wednesday and I've worked for about 12 hours, I'm tired and I've got loads on but I'm already anticipating Saturday. I think it has that effect for others too.

3: When we concede, we get louder. When you listen to whining, spoilt fans complaining about only just scraping into the Champions League and compare that to our journey it's astonishing. When you see and feel the connection between players and fans, when Critch punches the air and everyone cheers in perfect sync because we've won and your heart skips a beat, it makes you wonder if other fans wouldn't actually be better going through what we've been through and learning what we've learned, when you stop and realise that the moment is everything, that the event is everything, that nothing at all compares to being there, when you drink it in and appreciate it, it's fucking magic. That's all you can say. 

We didn't know what we had till it was gone and we lost it twice (which is one more than most) but we appreciate it so much more as a result.

4) That's in part down to Simon Sadler because of who he is and how he conducts himself but it's also down to us. It's down to the noise, the crowd, the group, the kinship. It's the random fella who I hugged at Wembley as tightly as I've hugged anyone. It's the bloke I stood next to at Bournemouth and sang my heart out with, not saying a word to until the end of the game and then just sharing a terse 'see you mate'. It's the flags, the banners, the collective. The sense of belonging to something. It's all of us. The lads under the stand chanting before the game, the arl fellas sitting quietly musing on years of memories, the lady who shouts 'defend!!!' every time the other team attack who sits near me. The kid leaping excitedly on the seat and shouting words that his mum looks at him with a firm stare and he doesn't repeat. 

All of them. It's all of it. All at once. 

I was done with football 3 or 4 years ago. I'd had enough of the pathetic governance, the breathless coverage of money as if that was all that mattered, the grinding predictability of who won what. Without games to go to, without a club to support (for how could I support what the club had become?) I honestly thought it was over for me.

3 or 4 years ago, I never thought I'd feel like this again.

I do though, and for that, every single Blackpool fan is responsible. Cos we're fucking ace. 

Let's be loud. Louder than ever. Louder than them. Louder than war!

Cos we're tangerine. Cos all we expect is the players to give their all as we give our all. Cos Josh Bowler will run with it. Cos Jerry scores goals. Cos Marvin is a colossus. Cos we're there and that's everything. 

You feel the same thing in a few grounds or with a few away fans. Coventry this year, Tranmere a while back to name a couple. It's always the teams who've been to the wall and back. Always those teams who have ended up staring into the abyss and maybe as a result coming to terms with who they are and what this really is. 

Football hasn't changed a bit since 3 or 4 years ago. We have. 

Football could learn a bit from us about who and what it really is I think