The weather cannot make its mind up. One moment it's the best kind of autumn day, the next a horrible flash to February. Rainbows abound. Lets hope we don't bungle this one. Boom. Tish. One for the 80s kids. I'm getting desperate. That's probably the worst line I've ever written. I'm just short of going into a digression about those weird 'You know your an 80s kid when you remember playing outside and phones you literally dialled and when peados were just called 'funny men' and when car crashes were way more deadly' nostalgia memes are to fill space because I'm a bit stuck for an opening gambit.
It's Stevenage today. Stevenage. I don't know what to even begin to say about them. They exist. I think they play in red. Or maybe yellow. Graham Westley. I'm done. I don't even know where it is. I don't think they have any ballon d'or winners in their history. Dino Maamria is literally the only player I can think of who played for them apart from a couple who went to the nobbers with Westley.
Outside the ground and I can hear them inside. They're making the usual noises a crowd makes but the relatively humble scale of their travelling support renders the sound less, 'earth shaking' and more 'a bit like a bunch of pissed up teenagers in a bus stop'
The team is fine. Critch has obviously consulted the pocket book of football management and turned to the chapter marked 'don't be afraid to do the obvious thing sometimes' and picked a solid looking line up of players who are a) in some kind of form and b) mostly suited to the job they're given.
---
The opening stages aren't a thrill a minute but I quite enjoy them. I have a liking for effectively brutal sides and early on Stevanage are exactly what I expect them to be. They compete for everything with a bone crunching intensity, lob themselves on the ground if there's even the slightest opportunity to do so, take an absolute lifetime over every set piece, except throw ins, which they take faster than I've seen a side do for ages.
It's a battle. They're simple and direct but (early on at least) look on a wavelength. A slightest moment of space and the ball is slammed into the channels and they're haring after it. They're succeeding in keeping our wingbacks aware of the need to defend and in preventing us getting much rhythm going. Every time we do look as if we might threaten, they're keen to shut us down and after about 20 minutes, they're two yellow cards to the good, with a trip on a clearly emotionally charged and highly focussed looking Owen Dale a particularly notable piece of shithousery.
We're competing though. I'm enjoying this. It's the way we didn't play at all last year really. I'm noticing how well Dougall is playing of late. He's scrapping, ratting, finding half a yard of space and giving the ball. He looks as good as he's done for ages. Dale is, to use a technical description, feisty as fuck, sliding into tackles, using his hips and elbows in tangles with their much bigger lads. Casey has established himself as dominant in the middle of the defence in a way I wasn't sure he would be able to. It's not very exciting, but actually, it's a really good scrap and football is that sometimes. It's more of a spectacle than two sides passing square in front of each other at least.
We get a bit of joy, or to be more accurate, near joy. A corner is lifted in and cleared out, Carey has taken the corner, now he's drifted into the box to pick up the clearance. He lashes it, first time on the volley. It's into the stand. I sink to my knees. One day he's going to break the net with one of those. He looks skyward. Dejected. Head up Sonny. C'mon. Then a canny little move and CJ away and the all new all aware all football genius Ole CJ pulls it back and like prime Phil Clarkson Sonny materialises at the near post and connects beautifully... the ball is an inch the wrong side of the post, the side netting billows with a rippling sense of what could of been. Head up Sonny. C'mon.
It's scrappy. It's all very, very, very 'League One' - that's not a complaint. I have, after all paid my money to watch a game of League One football and it would be a bit daft of me to expect to see 1970 Brazil playing
against 1974 Holland.
It's just that the longer this goes on, the longer you think 'I've seen this before' and you know it ends with one of them pushing someone over and then the ball going in off someone's arse and everyone grumbling... C'mon Pool.
Ollie Norburn never shoots. He just doesn't. (He's averaging less than a third of a shot per 90 minutes.) He always chooses the diagonal or the little chip over the top. This time though, he does, lining it up after the ball has pinged about and fallen to him and that pocket of space he finds by hanging back. He hits it hard and the keeper is falling away, there's a subconcious awareness that their lad has probably got it covered but then, there's a complication in that instant calculation and the ball is going in a different direction because Jordan Rhodes has reacted faster than time or light itself and actually, deliberately, how does he see things that quickly, chested the ball past the keeper who is totally wrong footed and fuck me! We're actually winning! Blackpool!
Obviously, this being a game against one of those types of teams we usually manage to lose to, they score pretty quickly after we do. It's one of those goals as well. We don't cut off the ball into the box, we don't get the the player in the box, it's one touch, two touch, back of the net and the kids at the bus stop are chucking their spliff ends and cheap cider bottles around. Fuck's sake!
Hang on. Grimmy, usually the most amendable and phlegmatic of souls is going full blown 'Chris Maxwell' at the linesman (or flagfolk or whatever they're called now) and the rest of the team are following him and now, like he's just realised there was something obvious he should have done just before, he's raising his flag with a flourish of certainty intended to disguise the possibly inescapable conclusion that he's been daydreaming a bit. The bus stop gang are outraged. We're delighted. Maybe this is our day.
---
I'm not sure I'd change anything. We've competed. We're in front. It's been low on quality in a technical sense but we've done very well at the underappreciated things like 'tackling' and 'heading it away' and 'tracking people' so it's not fair to say it's been shit - cos those things allow you to do the other stuff.
---
This lot will give us hell. We're going to have to dig in I think.
Wait. Sonny is set away by a nice ball from deep. He's trundling forward, Dale with him. They interchange passes and just as I'm thinking 'Sonny, take it yourself lad' and cursing the way Carey seems to be second guessing himself, I'm watching the ball explode from Dale's boot and arrow into the top corner with the keeper absolutely nowhere near. I've not watched it back. I've seen no deflection. Apparently there was one, but I prefer to remember it as it played out at the time. A fucking sensational goal and one that served as a moment of cathartic release. I've wondered out loud in the past about whether Norburn is just a grumpy prison guard who rages and bangs doors, but when he gets all the players round Dale and there's a huddle of men hugging Dale, and he's talking and showing that he knows and cares that it's a fucking miracle that Dale can walk in a straight line, let alone play football I think to myself 'MCLF, you should shut up passing views on things you don't actually know anything about like how Ollie Norburn captains his players.'
I should also shut up talking about Dale's personal circumstances but how can you not feel something for him. Life is sometimes unspeakably hard and it can be very difficult to know why anything happens. Football is just football and compared to other shit it means fuck all, yet we imbue it with such emotion. Perhaps that's why it's the game it is. We've all gone to the game after hard times and we've all lost ourselves in the rhythm and movement, the noise and moment. It's kind of like a really odd combination of zen focus and primal release. A strange sort of therapy. I've struggled to hold the tears in after we've scored because it's stopped hurting for a few seconds. I think probably, we all have. To see that it maybe functions like that for a player too. Perhaps. I don't know. I shouldn't guess.
Nothing but love for Owen and his family. Love is a nebulous and vague concept, but I think it generally just means giving a fuck about other people and that we share that life can be fucking shit and we can try for each other.
At some point, maybe now, maybe later, Grimmy makes a sharp stop from a desperate Hubby lunge that succeeds in stopping the ball getting to their free man on the far post. At another, Pennington makes a heroic diving block. Casey wins more headers. The three of them are superb.
The third though. It's a beauty. 'Fucking hell, just shoot.' 'Why do we do this fucking passing it back instead of having a go.' We are being very us. Down one side. Across the box. back down the other side. Reload. Go again. Repeat. It's a bit frustrating. The back of the south stand is not impressed. We've had the ball for ages though. We go across the back line. We look forward and then... we spring, CJ takes it. Perfect control (he's a football genius after all) and then a beautiful one two, the second beat a divine touch from Rhodes that is perfectly matched to CJ's stride... He's cutting inside, he's bearing down on goal... We're stood up, but this is CJ, so we're hoping and praying, but not getting carried away and.... now we're leaping and punching the air and coming up for breath because he's curled it into the little bit of space the keeper couldn't cover, the ball kissing the inside of the post and falling to the ground. There's a confused din as people grin and tell each other with delight that it was 'CJ!' and then the usual order of things is turned upside down as we sing his song first and then celebrate the general notion of 'Blackpool!'
That'll do.
---
This was a good performance. To win this league you've got to be able to play in games of shithouse football and come out on top. I've barely mentioned certain players, but they did their job. Kylian arguably showed a more complete performance today than he had done in games where he had more notable moments. He competed and won flicks and possession, giving us a way out when they closed down our passing and he won at least 3 headers in defensive situations. He's not Gary Madine. But he's a goal machine. Etc.
I've already said how the back three were a really impressive unit. They brought it out well and the defensive passing, moving it to launch the next attack was crisp and quick. Grimmy looks in tune with them and they got the balance between 'moving the other team about' and 'fannying with it pointlessly' spot on. The much maligned wing backs worked. Two goals from players cutting inside. Another thing that maybe I should shut up about.
As a team, we all did our job and in the end, the quality told. Perhaps we're beginning to come together. That was that type of game we've so often struggled with and whilst we didn't make it look 'easy' - we looked as we'd prepared for it and had the character to stick to the plan and the belief to make it work.
We all know such optimism is dangerous, but right now, despite all the scepticism, we're probably right where it feels right to be. Lurking, just outside the spotlight, slowly getting better, slowly coming together more and it feels increasingly like there's a proper team being forged. Fair play to Critch. I never doubted him.*
Onward!
*Quite clearly, I did.
Ollie Norburn never shoots. He just doesn't. (He's averaging less than a third of a shot per 90 minutes.) He always chooses the diagonal or the little chip over the top. This time though, he does, lining it up after the ball has pinged about and fallen to him and that pocket of space he finds by hanging back. He hits it hard and the keeper is falling away, there's a subconcious awareness that their lad has probably got it covered but then, there's a complication in that instant calculation and the ball is going in a different direction because Jordan Rhodes has reacted faster than time or light itself and actually, deliberately, how does he see things that quickly, chested the ball past the keeper who is totally wrong footed and fuck me! We're actually winning! Blackpool!
Obviously, this being a game against one of those types of teams we usually manage to lose to, they score pretty quickly after we do. It's one of those goals as well. We don't cut off the ball into the box, we don't get the the player in the box, it's one touch, two touch, back of the net and the kids at the bus stop are chucking their spliff ends and cheap cider bottles around. Fuck's sake!
Hang on. Grimmy, usually the most amendable and phlegmatic of souls is going full blown 'Chris Maxwell' at the linesman (or flagfolk or whatever they're called now) and the rest of the team are following him and now, like he's just realised there was something obvious he should have done just before, he's raising his flag with a flourish of certainty intended to disguise the possibly inescapable conclusion that he's been daydreaming a bit. The bus stop gang are outraged. We're delighted. Maybe this is our day.
---
I'm not sure I'd change anything. We've competed. We're in front. It's been low on quality in a technical sense but we've done very well at the underappreciated things like 'tackling' and 'heading it away' and 'tracking people' so it's not fair to say it's been shit - cos those things allow you to do the other stuff.
---
This lot will give us hell. We're going to have to dig in I think.
Wait. Sonny is set away by a nice ball from deep. He's trundling forward, Dale with him. They interchange passes and just as I'm thinking 'Sonny, take it yourself lad' and cursing the way Carey seems to be second guessing himself, I'm watching the ball explode from Dale's boot and arrow into the top corner with the keeper absolutely nowhere near. I've not watched it back. I've seen no deflection. Apparently there was one, but I prefer to remember it as it played out at the time. A fucking sensational goal and one that served as a moment of cathartic release. I've wondered out loud in the past about whether Norburn is just a grumpy prison guard who rages and bangs doors, but when he gets all the players round Dale and there's a huddle of men hugging Dale, and he's talking and showing that he knows and cares that it's a fucking miracle that Dale can walk in a straight line, let alone play football I think to myself 'MCLF, you should shut up passing views on things you don't actually know anything about like how Ollie Norburn captains his players.'
I should also shut up talking about Dale's personal circumstances but how can you not feel something for him. Life is sometimes unspeakably hard and it can be very difficult to know why anything happens. Football is just football and compared to other shit it means fuck all, yet we imbue it with such emotion. Perhaps that's why it's the game it is. We've all gone to the game after hard times and we've all lost ourselves in the rhythm and movement, the noise and moment. It's kind of like a really odd combination of zen focus and primal release. A strange sort of therapy. I've struggled to hold the tears in after we've scored because it's stopped hurting for a few seconds. I think probably, we all have. To see that it maybe functions like that for a player too. Perhaps. I don't know. I shouldn't guess.
Nothing but love for Owen and his family. Love is a nebulous and vague concept, but I think it generally just means giving a fuck about other people and that we share that life can be fucking shit and we can try for each other.
At some point, maybe now, maybe later, Grimmy makes a sharp stop from a desperate Hubby lunge that succeeds in stopping the ball getting to their free man on the far post. At another, Pennington makes a heroic diving block. Casey wins more headers. The three of them are superb.
The third though. It's a beauty. 'Fucking hell, just shoot.' 'Why do we do this fucking passing it back instead of having a go.' We are being very us. Down one side. Across the box. back down the other side. Reload. Go again. Repeat. It's a bit frustrating. The back of the south stand is not impressed. We've had the ball for ages though. We go across the back line. We look forward and then... we spring, CJ takes it. Perfect control (he's a football genius after all) and then a beautiful one two, the second beat a divine touch from Rhodes that is perfectly matched to CJ's stride... He's cutting inside, he's bearing down on goal... We're stood up, but this is CJ, so we're hoping and praying, but not getting carried away and.... now we're leaping and punching the air and coming up for breath because he's curled it into the little bit of space the keeper couldn't cover, the ball kissing the inside of the post and falling to the ground. There's a confused din as people grin and tell each other with delight that it was 'CJ!' and then the usual order of things is turned upside down as we sing his song first and then celebrate the general notion of 'Blackpool!'
That'll do.
---
This was a good performance. To win this league you've got to be able to play in games of shithouse football and come out on top. I've barely mentioned certain players, but they did their job. Kylian arguably showed a more complete performance today than he had done in games where he had more notable moments. He competed and won flicks and possession, giving us a way out when they closed down our passing and he won at least 3 headers in defensive situations. He's not Gary Madine. But he's a goal machine. Etc.
I've already said how the back three were a really impressive unit. They brought it out well and the defensive passing, moving it to launch the next attack was crisp and quick. Grimmy looks in tune with them and they got the balance between 'moving the other team about' and 'fannying with it pointlessly' spot on. The much maligned wing backs worked. Two goals from players cutting inside. Another thing that maybe I should shut up about.
As a team, we all did our job and in the end, the quality told. Perhaps we're beginning to come together. That was that type of game we've so often struggled with and whilst we didn't make it look 'easy' - we looked as we'd prepared for it and had the character to stick to the plan and the belief to make it work.
We all know such optimism is dangerous, but right now, despite all the scepticism, we're probably right where it feels right to be. Lurking, just outside the spotlight, slowly getting better, slowly coming together more and it feels increasingly like there's a proper team being forged. Fair play to Critch. I never doubted him.*
Onward!
*Quite clearly, I did.
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