Disclaimer: I've never made any claims about this blog in relation to accuracy. I blog what I remember and what I experience. I think I usually manage to capture at least a loose impression of the game as it actually was. Today... Well... Fuck knows what even happened, so who knows how accurate this will turn out to be. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll even get to the end in one piece... You can read the live text or some lads with laptops at the game if it's facts you crave...
I like Sheffield. I like kestrels a lot too. There's one on the motorway verge near the Barnsley turn off. I wonder if it's related to Kes from off of Kes? I called Jerry Yates a hoverfly the other day. I've decided he's now more like a Kestrel. Graceful, lithe, lightweight but sharp, incisive and deadly. Kestrels are beautiful things. So is Jerry on form.
I like Bramhall Lane. It's a glorious old arena, hemmed in by Victorian stuff. From the outside, it's all weird angles and lines of coppers but once you get inside, it's like walking through a portal into a different world. The pitch is perfect, the stands are steep and the outside world shut out almost completely. You can build a hundred Etihad stadiums, but you'd never manage to recreate the feeling of a ground that seems to have always been there that has been rebuilt around the shape of the things around it.
The pre match is mad blend of portentous synthesised pomp, a full on Ibeza rave, that shitty chip butty song and the most chirpy matchday announcer ever whose South Yorkshire accent keeps going mid Atlantic radio DJ as he exhorts the oddly subdued Blades fans to back the team.
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We're off. In no time at all Sheffield United score. Except they don't cos it's offside. HAAAAAAAA! C'mon Pool, lets get going! Dom Thompson seems to have put his boots on the wrong feet again this week though as he gives the ball away inexplicably and then the Blades slice us open (honestly, I should be working for a tabloid, not doing this shit for free with material like that,) slip a ball across and score. It was very easy.
We sort of get going. Lavery is looking very waspish today and he's our main threat giving his full back a torrid time. A ball is pinged from the right. Madine meets it and whistles it over. A deep cross, Madine again at the far post. It's smuggled behind.
We're doing ok but I think I've spotted the main issue. I think Bridcutt has put on one of his boots and one of Dom's and vice versa. We're prone to giving the ball away but we're also winning it back well and if we weren't a goal down, I'd say we're matching them.
They score again, a corner, some interplay and well, they just score. Fuck this. We're done. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. You look forward to this all week and then twenty odd minutes in and it's over already. I decide that if it turns out to be the hammering it looks like it could be then it will be character forming for my lad and at least now, I don't have to hope anymore. Someone angrily shouts 'Appleton, this is on you, you cunt' as they disappear to the concourse, only to reappear even more furious as they're 'not fucking serving pints till half time.' That's probably Micky Apple's fault too to be fair.
I have no idea what happens in the period between that and when we loop a deep ball to the far post and Jerry springs, arcing a header back across goal and... fuck me, into the net! YES! I hadn't even got excited until it dropped in the goal. I was in one of those weird troughs of thought you get sometimes at a game you've given up on where you just wonder about nothing much and time passes and everything seems essentially pointless and you wonder why you are here at all but then suddenly we're alive again and I'm right here, right now.
Madine with good hold up play. It's shuffled on, then to Lavery. What a genius touch, spin and run from the wasp, stretching a leg, reacting as as if he's lost the ball, then flipping the situation on its head to be streaming into the box... He's got his head up... this is where it usually goes wrong... Not this time, he's launched the perfect ball, Yates is in space, Yates is falling away, the ball is arrowing home and YESSS! That was a perfect finish. Absolutely sublime football. Jerry Yates. He's hangs, he hovers, he pounces. Sniper, kestrel, guide to the afterlife, Blackpool's no 9.
Wow!
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Football is weird in that had we gone in 0-0 it would have been essentially the same outcome, but I'm elated at half time. We've done ok and aside from the fact we conceded two goals and Maxwell made a good stop, we've probably had the better of the play.
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We sort of get going. Lavery is looking very waspish today and he's our main threat giving his full back a torrid time. A ball is pinged from the right. Madine meets it and whistles it over. A deep cross, Madine again at the far post. It's smuggled behind.
We're doing ok but I think I've spotted the main issue. I think Bridcutt has put on one of his boots and one of Dom's and vice versa. We're prone to giving the ball away but we're also winning it back well and if we weren't a goal down, I'd say we're matching them.
They score again, a corner, some interplay and well, they just score. Fuck this. We're done. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. You look forward to this all week and then twenty odd minutes in and it's over already. I decide that if it turns out to be the hammering it looks like it could be then it will be character forming for my lad and at least now, I don't have to hope anymore. Someone angrily shouts 'Appleton, this is on you, you cunt' as they disappear to the concourse, only to reappear even more furious as they're 'not fucking serving pints till half time.' That's probably Micky Apple's fault too to be fair.
I have no idea what happens in the period between that and when we loop a deep ball to the far post and Jerry springs, arcing a header back across goal and... fuck me, into the net! YES! I hadn't even got excited until it dropped in the goal. I was in one of those weird troughs of thought you get sometimes at a game you've given up on where you just wonder about nothing much and time passes and everything seems essentially pointless and you wonder why you are here at all but then suddenly we're alive again and I'm right here, right now.
Madine with good hold up play. It's shuffled on, then to Lavery. What a genius touch, spin and run from the wasp, stretching a leg, reacting as as if he's lost the ball, then flipping the situation on its head to be streaming into the box... He's got his head up... this is where it usually goes wrong... Not this time, he's launched the perfect ball, Yates is in space, Yates is falling away, the ball is arrowing home and YESSS! That was a perfect finish. Absolutely sublime football. Jerry Yates. He's hangs, he hovers, he pounces. Sniper, kestrel, guide to the afterlife, Blackpool's no 9.
Wow!
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Football is weird in that had we gone in 0-0 it would have been essentially the same outcome, but I'm elated at half time. We've done ok and aside from the fact we conceded two goals and Maxwell made a good stop, we've probably had the better of the play.
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IF I was elated before halftime, I'm soon in dreamland. More neat hold up play from Gary 'late run at the World Cup Squad as there's no point taking Yates (who obviously deserves to be on the plane) without also taking his mate too' Madine gives Patino a bit of space. Patino slips the ball through and a clumsy slide deflects it to Kenny 'Wembley' Dougall. Dougall hasn't looked at his best in front of goal this year (in fact, probably since Wembley) but he slips the ball under the keeper with a weird but effective finish that involves him falling over and we're unbelievably 3-2 up!
3-2 up and you fucked it up!!!
I'm worried we've scored too early. That's the mental logic of football. The pressure will come though. Surely. It doesn't take long. Maxwell makes a terrific stop from Sharp, flinging himself across the goal, the rebound striking one of them and rolling out for a goal kick.
The pressure doesn't mount immediately though. We're doing ok. In fact, we're looking pretty good. Yates... go on Jerry... Go on... He lays off. Patino!!! Oooooh. Close. We're doing better than ok. In fact, we look every bit as good as and then some as the top of the league. Tackles are flying in. Marvin leaves a nasty challenge on one of them but the play goes on. Advantage. It comes to nothing. The ref books him about 3 minutes after the tackle. One of them has a really horrible scythe at Yates. Another booking. They clatter us twice on the same breakaway. More bookings.
Bridcutt (who has played really well despite giving the ball away a bit early on) goes down in the box. The entire away end and all of our player implore the referee to look. The linesman is looking and doing fuck all. It's a head injury, but they don't count if it's us seemingly.
The game continues in this vein. It is getting, to use a cliche, a little spicy. They are quick. They send on quicker players. We block. We harry. They switch the play. They can't quite put it together though. I keep checking the time, but where the time should be on the big screen is only adverts so I've no idea how long there is to go. They have an outrageously good move that is thwarted by a block so heroic that two separate and different Thorniley chants start up at the same time.
They win some corners. Maxwell gathers some crosses. We continue to hustle and disrupt. A little space opens up for Patino. He switches the most gorgeous ball to the right wing when the whole ground was looking left. Lavery can't quite get round the man who has to fly back. Patino again, Yates free on the left but Charlie slides it for Madine instead who tries to barrel his way through in a way that was never going to work...
The Blades suddenly have the run on us. Ekpiteta is wallowing, he's in their lads wake. He's sliding and from the moment he commits, it's plain that he's, for once, really mistimed the slide tackle and there is only one thing that's going to happen next. Yellow. Red. Fucking hell. I was enjoying this.
The free kick in... Jesus Christ that was close. The side netting is nearly burst by a near post shot that is mercifully inches the wrong (right) side of the post. The charming home support in the stand next to us think it's in. We celebrate their mistake mercilessly.
I'm worried we've scored too early. That's the mental logic of football. The pressure will come though. Surely. It doesn't take long. Maxwell makes a terrific stop from Sharp, flinging himself across the goal, the rebound striking one of them and rolling out for a goal kick.
The pressure doesn't mount immediately though. We're doing ok. In fact, we're looking pretty good. Yates... go on Jerry... Go on... He lays off. Patino!!! Oooooh. Close. We're doing better than ok. In fact, we look every bit as good as and then some as the top of the league. Tackles are flying in. Marvin leaves a nasty challenge on one of them but the play goes on. Advantage. It comes to nothing. The ref books him about 3 minutes after the tackle. One of them has a really horrible scythe at Yates. Another booking. They clatter us twice on the same breakaway. More bookings.
Bridcutt (who has played really well despite giving the ball away a bit early on) goes down in the box. The entire away end and all of our player implore the referee to look. The linesman is looking and doing fuck all. It's a head injury, but they don't count if it's us seemingly.
The game continues in this vein. It is getting, to use a cliche, a little spicy. They are quick. They send on quicker players. We block. We harry. They switch the play. They can't quite put it together though. I keep checking the time, but where the time should be on the big screen is only adverts so I've no idea how long there is to go. They have an outrageously good move that is thwarted by a block so heroic that two separate and different Thorniley chants start up at the same time.
They win some corners. Maxwell gathers some crosses. We continue to hustle and disrupt. A little space opens up for Patino. He switches the most gorgeous ball to the right wing when the whole ground was looking left. Lavery can't quite get round the man who has to fly back. Patino again, Yates free on the left but Charlie slides it for Madine instead who tries to barrel his way through in a way that was never going to work...
The Blades suddenly have the run on us. Ekpiteta is wallowing, he's in their lads wake. He's sliding and from the moment he commits, it's plain that he's, for once, really mistimed the slide tackle and there is only one thing that's going to happen next. Yellow. Red. Fucking hell. I was enjoying this.
The free kick in... Jesus Christ that was close. The side netting is nearly burst by a near post shot that is mercifully inches the wrong (right) side of the post. The charming home support in the stand next to us think it's in. We celebrate their mistake mercilessly.
Strap in. This is going to be a bumpy ride. We're getting Williams ready. Thommo is shadowing the ball out of play, protecting it with his body. Some lad for them shoulder barges him, entirely on purpose into the advertising hoardings. He hits them so hard, they break apart. He gets up and kicks the ball. It hits the United player. Thommo walks away. The Blades player runs over and grabs him. Thommo just shakes him off. The ref comes and rather than deal with the dual assault from their lad, sends Thommo off for kicking the ball. It makes no sense. Marvin's was fair enough but this, I am absolutely baffled about. Incredulous. I have no words. It is bizarre. Maxwell screams at the linesman to do his job. He was right in front of it. So was I. It was Thommo who was attacked. Twice. Maxwell points to his head. It's no use. The linesman stares, impassively, a shit blue shirted flag holder with no mind of his own. Why do referees use a shade of blue that exists nowhere else in the world? I digress.
This is going to be horrific. How long? For once, the clock is visible. 8 minutes. That's just about doable. Maybe.
Finally Williams comes on. So does CJ. I think Jerry is playing left back. No one is up front. I feel sick.
What happens next? C'mon POOL!!! Maxwell immediately tips one over. It's as good as a goal. At some point between Marvin being sent off and the end of the game, they have a goal disallowed. It's probably better than a goal.
The ref then decides, after sending Thommo off that he might as well give them a penalty that has absolutely no basis in reality. I can't see why he's given it. I can't even explain anything about it. They crossed it and didn't score, so the ref just gave them a penalty. What is this game? I feel genuinely ill. I feel light headed. They take it. YESSSS FUCK YOU! THEY MISSED!!! The ball cracks off the outside of the post. It's better than two goals.
C'MON POOL. The minutes tick down. "Ladies and gentlemen, the fourth official is indicating 8 minutes/as long as it takes for the home team to score..."
I can't do this. I actually think about just walking out and lying in the street outside with my eyes closed. They just keep coming. Jerry gets a heroic toe on the ball. He can barely run. They keep coming. Maxwell makes another great stop. They keep coming. Patino scuffs it away. I feel like my eyes are going to fall out Williams heads it away. Corner. An incredible stop, Maxwell, on his knees, kind of flipping the ball up and away. I am possibly going to pass out. Another corner. Surely time is up? In. Away. Out again. Corner. HOW LONG ARE WE PLAYING???
C'mon... Corner. In. Maxwell is barged at the near post. Ref??? The ball is scrambled out. Norwood is hitting it.. Oh no... Maxwell is getting up and flinging himself but he's not going to get there and...
The lights go out. The glass hits the floor. The world stops. My heart breaks. 1500 hearts break in tandem around me. We were so close.
Unbelievably though, it's not over. Jerry. Of course Jerry. This man. He's an utter fucking legend. He scraps, he wins the ball. He runs. He runs. He's running even though he can't run anymore. CJ is in front, he finds him. He's got in... He's in! I don't know what actually happened, but we didn't score. It's probably for the best, because I think I'd have died.
The whistle.
Wow.
I think I'm still alive. I'm not sure.
It's not over though. Bottles fly. Someone is cracked on the head. The stewards and the police stand there, like the linesman earlier. Impassive. I'm losing my head here to be honest. Then I look pitchwards and there's a full on brawl. It feels like everyone, subs, staff, players, random fellas in suits, probably mascots too, are flying in. I'm no fighter but honestly, I'm up for this. Let me on. I don't realise until we get back to the car that more players were sent off.
Eventually it all dies down and we applaud. The players look dead.
We love you Blackpool. We do.
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Today was incredible. It was mental. It was 100% effort. It was beyond effort. At times, it was more of a war than a game and it was unbelievable the spirit we showed. To feel like we've lost at full time after everything going against us that went against us (and honestly, I'm not being one eyed, whilst we had our share of dicey tackles, they had some fucking horrible challenges) is testament to how hard we fought.
I loved today. It broke my heart but I have nothing but pride in what we did. We haven't got a team of world beaters but the sheer fight (and I mean that literally as well as figuratively) is what you need. I don't give a fuck if mistakes were made. Fight that hard and I'll forgive you anything. Even the manager waded in. That's exactly what you want to see.
The body warmer twat would have run a mile.
As I drive past Meadowhall a lady is walking along in tears. She is looking bereft, trying to hide her sobs, but failing. I pull up in traffic and I can't help but watch in my wing mirror. A man runs behind her and grabs her shoulders. Pain wracks her body, each breath a shuddering agony. He pulls her too him and holds her. She's crying like she's broken. He is holding her very tightly like he knows that if he lets go, she'll fall apart, melt into the pavement. The lights change. I drive off. I'll never know what her tragedy was and why it played out on a busy street. All I can do is guess and think about when I've felt like that. It's horrible. I hope she's ok.
Maybe, in the context of all the shit that life can throw at us, a 3-3 draw isn't so bad? In fact, maybe it's pretty fucking good.
The whistle.
Wow.
I think I'm still alive. I'm not sure.
It's not over though. Bottles fly. Someone is cracked on the head. The stewards and the police stand there, like the linesman earlier. Impassive. I'm losing my head here to be honest. Then I look pitchwards and there's a full on brawl. It feels like everyone, subs, staff, players, random fellas in suits, probably mascots too, are flying in. I'm no fighter but honestly, I'm up for this. Let me on. I don't realise until we get back to the car that more players were sent off.
Eventually it all dies down and we applaud. The players look dead.
We love you Blackpool. We do.
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Today was incredible. It was mental. It was 100% effort. It was beyond effort. At times, it was more of a war than a game and it was unbelievable the spirit we showed. To feel like we've lost at full time after everything going against us that went against us (and honestly, I'm not being one eyed, whilst we had our share of dicey tackles, they had some fucking horrible challenges) is testament to how hard we fought.
I loved today. It broke my heart but I have nothing but pride in what we did. We haven't got a team of world beaters but the sheer fight (and I mean that literally as well as figuratively) is what you need. I don't give a fuck if mistakes were made. Fight that hard and I'll forgive you anything. Even the manager waded in. That's exactly what you want to see.
The body warmer twat would have run a mile.
As I drive past Meadowhall a lady is walking along in tears. She is looking bereft, trying to hide her sobs, but failing. I pull up in traffic and I can't help but watch in my wing mirror. A man runs behind her and grabs her shoulders. Pain wracks her body, each breath a shuddering agony. He pulls her too him and holds her. She's crying like she's broken. He is holding her very tightly like he knows that if he lets go, she'll fall apart, melt into the pavement. The lights change. I drive off. I'll never know what her tragedy was and why it played out on a busy street. All I can do is guess and think about when I've felt like that. It's horrible. I hope she's ok.
Maybe, in the context of all the shit that life can throw at us, a 3-3 draw isn't so bad? In fact, maybe it's pretty fucking good.
Breathe.
Onward!
Onward!
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I've always liked how Matt picks up on the slightest things that really make the story of an afternoon in Sheffield come alive. He has a photographer's eye for detail but can morph that detail into words. I myself see minute details as a bloke who has had to take pictures for the last 40 years, but I rarely put what I see into prose.. - captions, yes, but not proper words that mean something. The lady in tears is a prime example, some people walk away to avoid upset humans, but the man reflected in the car mirror, as seen by Matt, has made that decision not to avoid the grief of the woman, but to offer comfort - we will never know what happened to her, but then again, why should we?
ReplyDeleteI can tell before the whistle blows, that the Knobbers visit to the Pool this Saturday will create so many visual incidents and memories for all of us, and I'm sure that MCLFoot will be running short of pages to capture his thoughts in pencil.
Sharpen thy quills that man ! - .. salute, Richard Watt #utmp