I'm relaxing on an industrial estate car park in East Lancashire and it's the best thing I've done in the last 24 hours. The man who took my five pounds was a chipper chappy from the 'warm Lancashire folk central casting agency' and I'm just having what my grandma would call 'a minute to catch up with myself' - I'm not sure I'm quite ready for football to be honest, as I feel like I've been through a blender mentally but football it is whether my mind can take it or not.
The team is out and I need a moment to process it. Thommo. Hmm. Gabriel. Good. No Fiorini. Bad. Rogers and Poveda. Yes! Jerry, Connolly and Dougs. Obviously, as they're made of some kind of stronger stuff than the rest.
What happens next? I dunno. I'm a shite blogger, not a psychic.
The first 20 minutes both side trade incompetent blows. It's like watching a slapstick boxing match with clowns punching themselves in the face rather than each other. No one can get a foot on the ball. No one can get the ball down.
Rovers are the first team to realise that wacking themselves in the face isn't a plan that is likely to yield much glory, so they try and (shock!) pass it and (this is the key bit) move a bit.
It yields a decent effort from the edge of the box that Maxwell tips over, a comedy corner routine where Sorba Thomas manages to miss the penalty area with a shot (no, really), and a good corner that we scramble away.
They switch the ball. Around me people jeer because, like Dom Thompson, they haven't spotted the wide man lurking by the touchline. Fuck. Panic. There he is. Everyone run about headlessly! In they cut. They ball is pulled back and then bang, it's rifled into the roof of the net by a runner who leaves Dougall trailing in his wake.
We hit it long to Poveda which is more punching ourselves in the face. We briefly pass it about. We manage a terrible shot from Jordan Gabriel and then, just to make everything more ridiculous than it already was, Jerry goes off injured. I might just go and sit in a toilet cubicle and cry.
Lavery comes on and chases one. He's gets bundled over. We're outraged but realistically, no one has a clue what happened cos it's miles away.
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I quite fancy going home. I'm tired. It's not very good at all.
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At least they're kicking towards us...
A Rovers dive in the box is at first a scare and then cause to celebrate when the ref spots it. Jordan Gabriel tries the revolutionary method of running at the defence as fast as he can and it works. He slips Poveda who goes into tricks mode but manages a sort of shot by default when the tackle rebounds off him and over the bar.
You can intersperse anything I write from now on with 'a period of play in which we can't get the ball happens and Rovers have a good chance' cos I can't be arsed writing it out loads.
We bring on Josh Bowler (warm applause) and CJ (we all knew that was going to happen whether we liked it or not applause)
Nelson sees what Gabriel tried and has a go himself, striding forward like Crazy Uncle Richard tribute act, sliding a ball down the line. Thommo collects with a flourish, puts it near post wear CJ flicks and there's Josh Bowler to slice it way wide...
(Remember, you're doing some of the work for once - see above. Rovers come forward etc)
The ref decides that CJ getting tripped isn't a foul. Thommo nearly gets snapped in half. Not a foul. Carey jumps for the ball with a big lad. It's like wet paper mache versus a wrecking ball. Carey doesn't win the ball. The ref gives a foul.
(Rovers come forward, nearly score etc)
We put Nelson up front. That makes us marginally more threatening. Thommo takes a long throw. I think Mick's been making him practice and it gets all the way into the box and all the way through and no one gets a touch because, frankly, it's us.
(You got the hang of this yet? That's right. They come forward...)
Bowler cuts inside. He's doing that thing where he could go either way, outside or inside and you feel as mesmerised as the full back by his hypnotic movement and balance, I can visualise him curling it into the top corner when he pokes it across the box and CJ tries to back heel it into the net. It goes all over the place and I swear there's and handball and the I swear there's another handball after that but obviously, there's nothing doing because it's us isn't it?
Nelson wins a flick. The ball flies around. Carey has a shot. It's wide. Sigh.
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I never, for one moment felt as if we were going to score. That's not true actually. The chance where Bowler cut inside, I briefly felt the optimism of a possible goal but aside from that, I don't know, it just felt strangely inevitably flat.
We tried knocking it. We tried not knocking it. We tried knocking it again. It didn't work.
The midfield looked flimsy and fatigued. The long ball stuff was pointless, the short passing we tried we didn't have any particular pattern of movement. I can't be bothered with naming and shaming or excusing players. We were pretty poor. Look on twitter for who gets the ire (please bring Jimmy Husband back though and put our broken midfielders in one of those mad cryogenic chambers...)
I'm really tired now. I'm going to bed.
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