Cheers Josh

The tragedy of modern football is that when you get something you love, someone bigger will come and take it from you.

Josh Bowler leaving us is like a kind of folk tale from days of yore, about a beautiful peasant girl who falls in love with a peasant boy. One day, some evil wealthy lord sends for the beautiful girl to come and join his harem in return for a bucket of gold coins. The choice is agony. Accept poverty or take the riches? The peasant boy gets enough gold coins to pay for himself and all of the village out of penury and she gets a life that she never dared dream of in return for being a passing whim of the evil wealthy lord but all the coins and all of the palace finery and fancy foods don't really make either of them happy because love and money aren't the same thing.

It's a bit like that. Maybe. Possibly. Fuck it. It might not be. That might be an absolute bag of shite. Love is grand but in reality you probably need both. I don't know. I've possibly run out of words to say about Josh Bowler and am chatting absolute gash to disguise that.

Lets see if I can manage one more blog. I'm not crying. I've just got a bit of something in my eye.  

Since we returned from our self imposed exile, there is no question that Bowler is the most exciting player we've had. I loved Armand for his general demeanour, Kaikai was fucking class despite what idiots think and obviously, there was and remains some quality cult heroes from the two seasons just gone, but no one had or has the blinding quality of Josh Bowler. Electric is exactly what he was and, whilst I'm not married and 'long term partner' doesn't fit the song quite as well as 'wife', I did, (almost literally) go home and tell her that he'd done a left and right step over. More than once. She didn't care cos she thinks football is a bit weird, but that's not the point. 

If it was just a few step overs, then well, Bowler would be Owen Dale and no one would be that fussed about him leaving but it was far more than that. He was a firework released in an enclosed space, a bullet train cutting through the landscape, a 110 metre hurdler with balletic grace. He was the wildcard in Critchley's deck of conservative cards and the ace in Michael Appleton's more daring hand. The spark that lit the blue (tangerine) touch paper. Magnetic control and a change of pace like a match dropped in a trail of gasoline. He was any fucking metaphor that suggests 'pretty fucking special when he's on it' 

His last game was quite sad. We didn't sing his name. He barely touched the ball. Crowded out. Frustrated. His final act though, summed up what he was for us. The danger man. The player the other team feared. A figure who gave you hope, no matter how badly we'd played or how diffident he'd appeared to that point. His valedictory run, picking the ball up deep, close control, ball pushed away and then that familiar 0-60 in a split second kick, ends with a Blackburn player clothes lining him, sending him tumbling into the hoardings by the east. A great player brought crashing down by one far inferior, unable to cope with his magic, fearful that once he'd got away, nothing and no one could reel him in. In some ways, that final failed, fouled run said so much about what he'd done in such a short space of time. That, even on a night where he'd done almost literally nothing, the other team were shit scared of him and what he could do, because of what he'd already done so often. 

Lets not pretend he was perfect. In fact, lets not pretend that (like just about every flair player we and probably every other team in England has ever had) there weren't people who got on his back from time to time. Those people were quite simply wrong though. Yeah, he could lose the ball, yeah, he sometimes held on to it too long, no, there wasn't always 'end product' but let's be honest, if he'd ended every run with a goal and been as good at defending as he was attacking, he'd be the greatest player we'd ever had in our entire history. He made things happen almost every week. Some weeks, he made so much happen, he was like an entire attack, distilled into one man. Just imagine if he'd have been able to head a ball too. 

He was raw when he came. He ran at defenders without really knowing what he was going to do next - looked like someone doing a really quick version of that weird sidestep dance when you meet someone in a corridor and try to get out of their way but they go the same way as you and then back and then back again. The ball would be overrun or sometimes he'd forget it. The cross would be tame and he looked all one foot. He was exciting though. He was a vodka and red bull to a Critchley side that could sometimes be a bit tepid warm ale. He was your mate turning up on a boring night in the local with something to liven things up and finding yourself in a club, sweating and the music sounding like heaven. Again, whatever imagery you want. He was poetry in motion and nothing less. 

He started out looking like a luxury, but he soon became all but undroppable. The few times we did bench him after a couple of fitful or frustrating games, he just came back better than he'd ever been before and he made you wonder how we'd ever considered that a more dependable character could be a better bet than the headband wearing whisp of smoke and magic that could glide, ghost and gallop full tilt in a way that would send defenders sprawling, his slight frame having an impact like the heaviest of bowling balls sending the lightest of pins scattering every which way. 

Bowler wasn't a player playing above his ability, he wasn't someone on the edge of what he could do. He was a player discovering just how good he could be and that journey isn't complete. The Josh Bowler that has departed is a much more well rounded player than the one who signed and I dearly hope he gets to stretch his legs properly and his career is the dazzling run for glory that it should be. This is the player who time and again, I'd come out of an away ground and hear their fans say 'that lad with the long hair for them, he was fucking good' or 'thing is, they had that no11 - we just don't have anyone like that' 

The fact he's gone as literally 21st choice to a club who last year weren't so far away from us grates, but that's the way it is. The rich clubs treat signings like a chance to stock up the farm for winter and everything is stacked against clubs like ours keeping their talent for long. I hate this deal, not just because we've lost a rare talent, but because he's gone to somewhere that won't treasure him as we do and seem set to offload him the moment they've got him. That's the game now though. I don't like it, I fucking hate it in fact, but it is what it is. 

There'll be a new hero soon. Maybe even by Sunday. Josh Bowler is seared into my mind though. A lightning flash of electric talent, killing a ball dead, pivoting on a sixpence, working an angle, always trying the shot, the jink, running like a hurricane with his hair in his wake and the ball under his spell. If I can name one moment, I can name twenty, but that time he made two Preston defender look like absolute carthorses as one after the other they tried to take him out brutally but he just leapt over them as if it was the easiest thing in the world will never leave me. Ever. It's one of the most thrilling things I've ever experienced anywhere. An amphetamine heartbeat rush of a moment that lasted for a few seconds but burned into my mind for a lifetime. Bowler as Road Runner to the lumbering defenders' Wiley Coyote. 

All those moments where he took your breath away and made your heart race and you had hope. We're so rarely the better team overall in this league but when we had Josh Bowler, very often, we had the best player on the pitch and the boy made such a difference. 

The club is not Josh Bowler and he's gone and we will move on but we will miss him. I will miss him. I think he will miss us. It was an absolute privilege. I've never written a player a letter in my life. Not even as a kid. I did write one for Josh. I hope it doesn't ring true in a few years. I really, really do. On this occasion, I really would take no pleasure in saying 'I told you so' 

Go well Josh. You were fucking special. I hope you stay ever thus. Perfect. Flawed. Magical. Electric. 

Onward

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