Saturday, April 27, 2024

Falling at the final hurdle - Reading vs the Mighty


I'm only here because I want to see Kaddy one more time.

Nothing else. Honest. Really. I can't believe. I won't believe. I mustn't believe. As soon as I believe, the bubble will burst, the power will go out, the dream will die... I decided we'd definitely fucked it about 4 games ago. We can't stop winning since. 

I almost forgot my ticket. Football is always pointless but travelling without it would have made this journey next level pointless.

Imagine that. I'd have had to have wandered around Reading (which seems to be mostly an industrial estate) listening to Radio Berkshire or wherever it is we are. It doesn't seem real wherever it is.

The world is normal till Birmingham. There's places and things to see from the car and then after that it's an eerie simulation, just a long road with verges that are too clear of litter to be normal. Beyond that, there's oddly well planted with spookily symmetrical trees, fields that seem so manicured they could be a painted backcloth from a play about rural England in 1811 and strange, dark coloured windowless buildings from the future plonked roadside. Think some kind of spy headquarters. There's signs to places, but apart from the edge of Oxford, I don't actually see anywhere till we hit Reading.

I suspect if I had forgotten my ticket and had to fill the time creatively, I'd have soon walked out of the edge of the simulation into a wire frame world that faded away to an indistinct haze. 


The travel lodge I stay in doesn't really disabuse me of this feeling. It's all dark corridors heading away from reception. Am I the only person here? Will this hotel eat me? Maybe I'll be stuck in a never ending loop, cursed to walk these door lined walls forever more? Here it is an endless corporate video made in 1993.  The ceiling has artex for fucks sake. This is a VHS world. 

'Yeah, so what?' I hear you say. 'What about football and stuff you digressive blogging twat? That's why I read this'

Fucking hell. I dunno. What do you want me to say? We need to win. We need other teams to lose. You know this as well as I do. 12.30 is too soon to have any sort of in depth opinion about anything. It's rude making people play and watch football at that sort of time. I just want Kaddy to play well. Anything else is a bonus. 

Who am I kidding? I'm not even fooling myself. I've driven to Reading for fucks sake. Of course I believe...  COME ON YOU POOOOOOOOOOOL! 

I find a place to park on the most edgeland industrial estate you could conceive of. This is truly nowhere. I decide, being of a contrary nature, that I won't walk down the main road towards the 'Select Car Leasing Stadium' (there's a name to move your soul if ever there was one) but instead, to walk a more circuitous route via the footpath I've seen on Google Maps. 

The only problem is, I can't find the footpath. I've found a tip. I've found a distribution centre. I've found a fucking huge wall of brambles. I haven't found a thoroughfare. Hang on... There's a little cut through in the thicket. This must be it. Off I go, deep into a glade of pungent green. A narrow track runs down by the side of what I assume to be some sort of river. There are tiny blue forgetmenots and ruddy purple blooms I don't know the names of. There's thorny branches that catch on my coat. There's last year's dead vegetation standing skeletal and breaking underfoot. Fuck me, there's two deer lolloping in front of me and now charging away. This is an urban Amazon. There's the sound of sirens in the distance. There's a sense of wilderness. There's a discarded car battery. There's no human footprints only the patterns of cloven hooves. This is weirder than the Travel lodge.  Maybe I'll find a dead body. 


Now I've got a problem. I've reached the end of the path and I'm in a swamp. On two sides of me are vast pools of stagnant water. On the other side is a sewage works. I check my phone. This is clearly not the footpath. I'm on the wrong side of the river. For fucks sake me. My feet are wet. There's a smell of shit being treated in the air. I hope this isn't a metaphor.


I turn back.

I should have followed the crowd. 

- WILL YOU GET TO THE FUCKING FOOTBALL YOU PRICK? 
- ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT ME TO? YOU MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. SURELY NO ONE READS THIS SHIT AS THEIR SOLE WAY OF FOLLOWING THE GAME? 

- YES BUT I DON'T READ THIS BLOG FOR UPDATES ON YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPTS AT URBAN EXPLORATION OR LOW AMBITION HOTEL STAYS
- FAIR POINT WELL MADE... 

--- 


I knew I believed. Bees (BEEEEEEEEEEES) wins it. CJ (Ole!) belts down the right. He just toe pokes it ahead of him and runs past his man, then pulls it back into the box. Kyle Joseph (I am love, I can't deny) does a very good job of controlling it, turning and laying it off and there is the little man, the player of this and probably the preceding season as well to finish with what from where I am at the other end looks like a stupidly deft touch into the bottom corner. KADDY!!! YES! (DEMBELE AHA!) 

There is a mania. The atmosphere has been great so far and we've come out and immediately taken charge of the game. When the celebrations calm down. I check my phone. We're FIFTH! FIFTH! Of course we are. We're a brilliant team, coming into form at just the right time and we're going to smash this, then smash the play offs, then smash the championship, then smash the Premier League, then smash Europe, then smash the World Club Championship and the biggest problem in a few years is going to be a sense of 'what now?' 


The next half an hour makes me feel I might have got just ever so slightly ahead of myself. It's not long before 'Oxford have scored' starts to go round the stand. I respond with a shrug. Shit happens. We're still 6th though. 5th or 6th. It doesn't matter. 

Reading are starting to do stuff. They seem to have worked out that whilst Coulson is quick, he's not very strong and whilst Jimmy is quite strong he's not very quick and therefore matched up their players to exploit their respective weaknesses. They obligingly balloon a few crosses into touch and have a really bad shot. 

'Barnsley have scored' - this time I just sigh. I don't know what to say. There's a real mute impotence about relying on other teams you can't see. The atmosphere is dissipating. We're not exactly dominating the game and things aren't going for us elsewhere. C'mon Pool. C'mon the rest of League 1. 

The ball breaks from a tussle. Kaddy has a little dart, he lays it - Joseph takes it in, takes it on, he hits it low and hard but the keeper is out and gets a touch to divert it over. Head in hands. He needed that. I feel like we needed that. C'mon Pool. 

Reading cut us open in that space behind Jimmy again. The ball in - far post chance... they miss. I breathe out. As it stands though, it doesn't matter but the worst thing would be to throw away what we have now and to see results go our way elsewhere. That would hurt.  

Sam Smith looks good to me. Our strikers look a bit lanky misfits in comparison. When the ball comes near Joseph he looks like my cat (Gary) playing with a bouncy ball, forever scampering trying to tame it. Beesley is winning headers but his build makes him look as if he's borrowed a kit from the PE cupboard having forgotten his own. Smith has strength, a bit of pace, a neat touch and his kit fits him. Reading flight a ball from the right. Smith has the freedom of the six yard box (Jimmy is like a clockwork toy that needs his key turning, flat footed and frozen) as he leaps and plants a very nice diving header home. No miracle from Grimmy. He can't do it every week. I am jealous of that goal. 

--- 

There's a real sense of flatness now. The first half seemed to take forever. At some point we had a rousing collective chorus of fuck the EFL to lift the spirits but the excitement of the first few minutes seems a lifetime ago.  

--- 

We start better. There's energy to us and  renewed life to the crowd. Kaddy is closer to us and it's a wonder to see him as it always is. He slides CJ in with a ball so perfectly weighted it's more precise to the very gram than a drug dealer's scales. CJ cuts inside. There's a coming together and the ref decides it's a free kick or offside or something. Who knows? It's not the first or the last time he gives a weird decision. He runs like a geriatric as well and seems to make a point of 'not seeing' things. 

CJ picks the ball up. He punts it ahead of him. He falls over. CJ is put away by Kaddy. He goes one way, then the other and that seems to make him dizzy. CJ jumping for the ball is the topic of conversation. I decide he looks like a mere-cat, a worried look on his face as he pops up and then retreats at the site of a predator. Sonny has a glimpse of goal, the ball flies over the top. We put together a truly lovely move, the one time all day that we play real football and it ends with Coulson on the overlap, blindsiding the whole defence, lining up a shot, my body tenses, ready to leap in celebration but instead, I twist in agony as he sends it a good 3 yards over the bar. 

Joseph tangles with his man. It looks like a foul. It isn't given. The two players lie on the floor. The Reading player then essentially body slams Joseph into the ground. If the first one wasn't a foul, that's common assault. The geriatric stick insect that passes for an official isn't bothered. He's far too interested in watching Reading break up the pitch. Smith does well again, a neat header back, the ping it about quickly causing all kinds of confusion and then they slam the ball home. FUCK OFF. 

That goal hurt. 

Kaddy, for about the 10th time gets bundled off the ball by someone nipping his ankles but again, the ref isn't interested. Why should he be? He's only here to give inexplicable fouls and faff about at corners and free kicks making us wait forever whilst he dicks about with spray and lectures. Fuck giving the actual fouls... and here we go again. They repeat the feat of running at us directly and moving about a bit combined with some passing and that ends up in the same outcome, Grimmy falling away, clawing at a ball he doesn't reach and the Reading fans celebrating like it's their derby against Chipping Norton or whoever their rivals actually are. Stupid home counties dickheads in their fake QPR kits. Fuck off. Fuck off. Football can fuck off too. I'm not even fucking bothered about it. It's shit. It's fucked. Fuck off. Mark fucking Clattenburg, fucking VAR, fucking stupid kick off times, investment funds, fucking bullshit everywhere and in the end Man City win anyway because the game is just an expression of global capital and the egos behind it and I hate it. 

I've not taken this well at all. Byers lines up a shot. It's shit. He goes off soon after. He's done ok for us overall. I liked him.  

Oxford concede a goal. That's just taking the piss if they lose it. Beesley has a header. It's tame. 

We're huffing and puffing and going square and backwards. Critch hits on a tactical masterclass. What with us needing 3 quick fire goals in the last 9 minutes of the season in order to keep it alive and what with us not really needing to worry about conceding, because who gives a fuck if it's 4-1 or 3-1 when anything but a win won't do, it is borderline 4d chess genius level thinking that he decides not to bring on a young kid who scored a hat trick in his last game but the ever dependable Matty Virtue, who hasn't scored a league goal for us since god knows when. 

To be fair to Matty Virtue he does ok, trying to run from deep and spreading the play quite adeptly a few times but we're at a point where we need a miracle, not some solid and reliable physicality. 

We try switching it a few times but aside from a stupidly good pass from within a crowd of player by (yes, obviously, who else?) Dembele, we seem to telegraph our intentions. One of those balls is hit towards Gabriel. It's nowhere near incisive enough. Reading tidy up except, they don't, the keeper slamming the ball against Gabriel who has followed through with some physical conviction and the ball has cannoned off him. Less YESSS... more 'hopeful applause and slightly renewed interest for a moment' 

Barnsley have conceded. 1-1. That hurts. You can almost touch the holy grail, but it's too far away. It's like Scott of the Antarctic freezing to death in his tent only 11 miles from the supply depot. We've got about 180 seconds to score twice. It only takes a second to score a goal. 11 miles is half a days walk but you've got frostbite and scurvy. We've got the fag end of injury time. Which is a bit the same. A ball is spread wide. Jimmy runs after it looking like knackered granddad trying to catch a toddler who is charging about in a supermarket. The ball escapes out of play. Jimmy throws his head back and closes his eyes in despair. I know that feeling. He's a football god whatever happens. The blizzard rages. Captain Oates goes outside. 

We don't score twice. Scott dies as does everyone else in the tent. You know that. 

Fuck's sake Pool. 

--- 


To be honest, my abiding feeling is one of relief. It's over. This hasn't been a vintage season. It's often been flat and frustrating with only an occasional sense of real excitement or tension. It's never really fitted together except for the games it did - but those games never seemed to create momentum or conviction. We won, we lost. We were never quite up there. 

I feel a bit sad at the final whistle. Reading chant and as well they might. They've been to a dark place this season and I don't begrudge them celebrating with what they've got. There's polite applause from some, silence from others. Kaddy looks up at the stand. There's no chant for him. This is the last time we'll see some of these. I don't hate any of them. They're just not the right blend. There isn't enough there. It's not their fault individually. I don't hate Matty Virtue. I actually like Matty Virtue. I think he's a perfectly servicable footballer in the right team - but chucking him on in the dying throes of the season seems to sum up something about us. He's an honest and worthwhile player, but he's no game defining superstar. We've got a squad of that kind of player and we've been held together by Dembele and to a lesser (but still significant) extent Rhodes. 

Too many games we've looked passive. Burton away was my personal nadir but you can pick any number of candidates. Critchley is right when he says 'we didn't lose it today, it's over 46 games' but something he says really sticks in my head when he comments that 'Reading left players up - they didn't need to worry about the outcome' as if that was cheating or some kind of dark art. Too many times this season I've watched us break and seen only one or two players charge into the box whilst other hold position in case the move break down. Too many times I've wondered 'why the fuck don't we chuck big Marv up for ten minutes?' or 'why are we all back in the box for their corners' 

Critchley knows more about football than I ever will, but I've been haunted by the fact we just don't seem to risk enough, that we've played our best football when forced to attack by circumstance, that sometimes the shape of the team seems to come before instinct and incision and I've felt this since very early on and I felt it again today. 

We've scored 65 goals, but only 26 of them haven't had a direct goal involvement (assist or goal) from one of Rhodes or Dembele. Take them away and it's not a glorious picture. Rhodes might be back, but he's 35 in the coming season. Dembele is a fucking player and a half and I wish him all the best. He's been a pleasure. If Rob Apter doesn't get his chance, there's something wrong with the club - but we can't pin our entire hopes on him. We need a forward line that can really play as a unit and options to change games. We need quality wide and we're short of it. If this was Gabriel's swansong, he made his point and we're losing a player of real quality. We need a new Byers to replace the new Dougall who replaced the original Dougall. There's definitely room to improve the defensive options. I'd not be surprised if Grimmy is a wanted man and without him, we'd not have won the games we did to have had a chance today. 

All of that is for tomorrow and beyond. I wanted a reset last summer, I think we'll definitely have to have one this time around. 

I still feel a kind of relief. It's mixed with a sadness. We'd have got Bolton and that would have been something. There's always next year though. There's always a Blackpool and they'll probably always bring frustration in equal measure to joy. 

I just want us to be a bit more brave. I want our failure to be a bit more glorious. I want a bit more nous and bit more risk. I think we need that. I think this season has proved that. We've fallen short in a division where very few teams we've played have genuinely impressed me. 

It is what it is. Should have re-signed Madine. It would all have been very different. 

Onward

You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email

NEW: You can sign up to support the blog via Patreon. You get fuck all for signing up other than the tepid feeling of knowing you're giving me some money to do a thing that you never asked me to do and isn't really needed by anyone... 

Alternatively and probably much more fulfilling is the option that if you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Still alive...: the Mighty vs Barnsley


We're in a kind of win/win situation. Lose and we can finally be rid of this most utilitarian of seasons. Win and we can dream a week longer of all the greyscale frustration breaking at last into glorious technicolour joy. 


The sky is dreamy blue. The tangerine is out in force. Kids sat on the wall of the Bloomfield Club offer high fives. There is a buzz. A hum. A palpable sense of anticipation. Summer is around the corner and Blackpool are in form. It's what we do. 


I still don't really believe, but I'm loving this. I've trudged up this road too many times of late, feeling a sense of duty and not much more. It's the crowd that make the whole think make sense - the sense of being part of something larger than yourself - and when that's not there, it's difficult to feel much excitement. It's not really about the football - of course, that's what binds us all together - but if it was purely about the game, then anyone in their right mind would stay at home and watch the Global Marketing Best League In The World on the telly. We don't, because we love how it can sometimes feel to be here with other people. 


Today, it just feels... right. 

--- 

'We're going to have to break them down, they're fine with a point' I say wisely, stating the obvious, but with a knowing tone, like I'm some sort of sage. Fuck me, though, we're at them immediately. Beesley is through and going wide of the keeper. He's caught, but the gangly lad is an honest gangly sort and he stays on his feet and stabs the ball across. All kind of madness happens and I think Beesley ends up again in the thick of it and we scream again for a penalty. 

A roar goes up. It's full throated. It's full of palpable love and togetherness and release. You could lie back into it and it would hold you up. You could surf down it and land safe on the beach. A wave of sound like nothing else. It's a tonic for all known ills. COME ON POOL!!! 

We are on fire. Shayne might not be able to score goals but he's pressing in an incendiary manner. Beesley is fucking brilliant at doing what Beesley is there to do - winning long balls, making things uncomfortable, stretching them by running one channel, then the other. Behind them lurk Kaddy and Sonny and my heart is almost breaking at the thought this could be a last dance for the little wizard. We are racking up corner after corner after corner. If corners were goals we'd be out of sight already. 

Behold

CJ has it. He's motoring forward. He's thinking about taking on his full back, but Kaddy is inside him and god bless CJ and all that being him entails, but the boy knows that playing it square rather than going himself is the best bet and that's exactly what he does. Kaddy now. He's like a little boat in the water, just floating there, then suddenly the engine is opened up and he's going full tilt and the defenders are washed away in his wake, looking like mere flotsam. He's a an arctic tern, skipping across the surface of the sea, he's a pond skater sliding on the surface tension whilst all else sinks... a challenge comes in, desperate, lunging, clumsy, Kaddy goes sprawling, thrown high, crashing down. The ball though, isn't there. He's deftly tapped it back, to where the boy Carey lurks, in that pocket of space he is so good at finding, a perfect run up, a perfect connection and it comes out of his foot just beautifully, it's one of those perfect moments where I'm right in line and it seems to happen in slow motion, the flight of the ball at first outside of the post, but I can tell from the way it's spinning it's going to curve back and it does, swerving low and late, like a perfect Jimmy Anderson delivery to cut inside the post and nestle joyfully and firmly in the bottom corner. 

SONNY FUCKING CAREY. SONNY FUCKING CAREY!!! SONNY FUCKING CAREY! 

I wonder if Critch might be thinking of bringing Matty Virtue on now. Please don't go into your shell Blackpool. Please. 

We don't. We score again. A whipped ball from Coulson, a lunge from Beesley and a lovely goal. YESSSNOOOO. The flag is up. My heart is pounding. 

Barnsley can't get the ball up the pitch. Whenever they do, Marvin is there to tidy it up. We're moving it beautifully. It's like we've practised attacking all week and had a really good time doing it. We're turning in tight space and going forward. Kaddy plays several outside of the foot passes down the right channel that are world class. Sonny picks out CJ with a cross field ball that is laser guided, one touchline to another. Coulson is all energy and intent, racing back to win things against players bigger than him, then tying them in knots going the other way. CJ is on song, he's cutting in, he's going outside. He's timing his runs and he's racing onto things. In the middle, Georgie Byers orchestrates the musicians and keeps everything in time. 

Kaddy whips it. It glances a Barnsley man and it kisses the bar.... 

More corners. More pressure. More of that awkward sense that we might not have taken full advantage of the pressure we've had. I am getting nervous. We're not going to have it all our own way surely? We'll need more than 1 goal. This lot haven't turned up yet, but they're not Fleetwood or Carlisle and when they rouse themselves, they'll be capable of rifling home a couple instead of fluffing their chances obligingly. 

Kaddy over the ball. He's flighted it. I can't see it making Marvin. I can't see it making Beesley. I can however, see Jimmy Husband suddenly appearing where there's a gap, leaping like an old fashioned high jumper and nodding it down like a 1980s goal poacher, right into that same corner that Sonny found and quite honestly, I'm about to pass out I think because of all the human beings on earth for something good to happen to, Jimmy Husband football god is quite high on my list and it's just before half time and for once this season we've gone out and not only attacked but got what we deserved for doing so. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! 

Jimmy enjoyed that. He's punching the air, he's all clenched fists to the north. A captain's goal. FUCKING YES! 


--- 

We were quite simply, tremendous. On the evidence of that half it's a mystery why Barnsley are 5th and a mystery how we've lost so pitifully to sides with half the ability of the opposition today. 

We've got a Critchley team talk and the inevitable bafflement when Barnsley change something to come though. We'll see... 

---

Pennington makes a great interception, and then plays a lovely little pass. It's only a few yards, but it's clever, he could have put his foot through it, but instead, he's played it perfectly for a break. We're racing away. CJ, to Kaddy and now Kaddy with that perfectly weighted channel ball and CJ going full on Olympic sprinter and he's quick, he is that quick, making it, cutting in back across, Pool players race to the near post and like tumbling dominoes seem to fall over each other, no one gets a touch but it doesn't matter because Coulson is alone at the far post, the entire Barnsley back line having gone with our runners and he's got it under control and he's unleashing a rising shot that had the net not intervened, might still be in near earth orbit right now. FUCKING HELL POOL! YESSSS! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! 

There are looks of disbelief around me. We shake our heads. We grin like the idiots we all are. God love this fucking magical game. God love Blackpool FC. Imagine supporting a side that didn't play in tangerine and weren't imbued with the innate magic that we are? It doesn't bear thinking about does it? 

Barnsley fans start to stream out. We carry on much as we were. Kaddy draws a terrific save. We have some shots blocked. The sun shines, the pitch is beautiful and we're the greatest team in the world. 

It would be all too easy though, if it ended there. It doesn't. Of course it doesn't. It's us. 

We're just starting to look a little bit leggy. Barnsley are getting up the pitch a bit better. We're not quite as energetic in the tackle. We'd made 50/50s into 60/40s for an hour, but now we're losing our share of aerials and collisions. Cosgrove is creating a bit of trouble. Fuck it though, we're 3-0 up. 

I'm halfway through an anecdote when out of seemingly nowhere Barnsley score. The ball was miles away, but then it's not and and there's a pinpoint finish that gives Grimmy no chance, silencing my story in mid flow. I never resume it.

Hmmm. 

Now the nerves are here. In a way, it's a delight to feel them after what feels like ages. I've got that sense of fear that because football is fundamentally not fair and we've played really well and had about a million efforts, but they might just scruff a couple of goals and it will all be worth fuck all. Come on Pool. COME ON POOL! 

Jimmy Husband tumbling down, buying a foul because he's Jimmy fucking Husband and he knows how to do that. Jimmy Husband getting up and tapping the lad he's just done over on the arse and tipping him a cheeky wink. I love Jimmy. Sonny Carey, looking a bit worried because he's got to launch himself into a sliding tackle to clear the ball, but going for it anyway and doing it, and their lad making a meal of it and there being a moment of slight worry but the ref giving nothing. Sonny getting up, all red faced and mouthing 'diving twat' and then saying it again for good measure and jogging away. CJ slides in. A huge cheer. The ball thrown in. CJ slides in again. Another huge cheer. OLE! He's worked his arse off today. 

The ball whipped in. Jimmy under the bar. Away. Breathe out. A break. LAVERY!!! Over the bar. Oh Shayne. 

Barnsley corners. Bodies crashing together. Neck muscles stretched. Grimmy dancing on his line. We repel. We make changes but the changes don't change things. It's still 3-1 though. That's more than 1-0 isn't it? 

They're coming down the right. An early ball in. Cosgrove leaps, connects well. It's heading in... Grimmy, takes a step, leaps off one foot as he does and chucks a hand. HE'S DONE IT AGAIN! FUCKING HELL GRIMMY!... but the ball isn't away, his moment of genius is going to be for nothing, a lunge at the far post, the ball turned back, it's looping in, Grimmy is prone, but he's shot through with a bolt of electricity and he's twisted himself upwards in a way that seems impossible and managed to paw the ball away for a second time. It's like he's snatched his life back from the jaws of death. It's incredible. 

Banks vs Pele < Grimmy vs them two Barnsley lads. FUCKING HELL GRIMMY! 

We make more subs. Eventually, we take Kaddy off. The ground rises. If this is the last time here. It's been a total privilege. I could write several more pages on the boy. I'm not sure if we deserve to make Wembley overall. He does though. We can still dream and so much is down to him. It's worth it just for the hope of seeing some more of this most majestic of talents. 

Surely that's it. A cross. A spare man at the far post. FUCK... Why? Come on Pool. Please don't fuck this up. Please! 

Sonny breaks with the ball, a crisp pass to Kouassi. Sonny is screaming for him to go to the corner. Kylian is having none of it. Inside he goes, lays it to Virtue and Matty Virtue must surely finish this and put us out of our misery but all he can muster is a tame effort that gets a withering comment of 'that's a fucking backpass that' from behind me. 

More tension. There are only seconds left, but they tick by so slowly. Carey throws himself in front of one desperately. The ball goes the other way than he anticipated so he just seems to launch himself at nothing. Norburn puts his foot through one. Sonny again charging in, the ball ballooning up. Gabriel with a crunching challenge. Time marches on... 

YESSSSSSS! 

Another chorus pays homage to Kaddy. Critchley gets very up close and personal with his fist pumping action. Grimmy stands alone for a moment. He's probably thinking about having a nap.

That was a game. 


--- 

I really enjoyed that. It was like cup football. I've already raised the question that such a quality display of attacking football raises but I can't help saying, who knows how we've looked so toothless on too many other occasions? Maybe we've had our hand forced today and had to play like this. Maybe it's just clicked. It doesn't matter. Today is not the time to go over what was. We've got a game left against a team with nothing to play for and we're close enough for the dreaming not to be entirely fanciful. It still requires the stars to align but there'll be a tangerine army in full voice on a day of hope and maybe, just possibly, perhaps, who knows? Maybe the celestial bodies will fall into place. 

The last 23 minutes were nervy. The first 67 were simply excellent. The starting 11 were fucking fantastic. The level of desire and the pace of play were exactly what we wanted to see. We were better than I thought we could be, particularly because we really tore into a side who'd come to sit in and repeatedly turned pressure on their box into dangerous balls in and shots. There was an incisiveness to our attacking play that hasn't been there, even in the three preceding games. The ref was even pretty good. 

Perhaps this season is going to be like a great test match. Rumbling along for ages with nothing really going on, but slowly coming to a boil and culminating in a grandstand finish.

You really never know. We'll just have to trust that process a little bit longer won't we? 

Onward!  









You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand. 

Saturday, April 13, 2024

What if we'd not had Kaddy? - Carlisle United vs the Mighty


There's mountains in the distance, their cloud shrouded topography mirrored by the novel roof of the magnificent Warwick Road end.


Three sides of terracing. All of them look big enough to create a surge. Once upon a time goals were celebrated not with #limbs but with the spread crowd concertinaing together, the higher reaches emptying into a space in front of the terrace. We're stuck in the seats though, the away terrace empty and but for a few flags fluttering manically in the wind, looking like a prison yard, all roofless and concrete grey. 




Kylian gets hit on the head by the ball in the warm up. Kylian misses from two yards in the warm up. Kylian must have to have custom made jogging bottoms to get his thighs and backside into them. The pitch is wet. The ball is knocking up spray and holding up ever so slightly.

We clap them off. We've worked ourselves up for this. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we've still managed to convince ourselves it's worth believing. 

--- 
 
Here we go... 

... and here is Kaddy, away already, his touch is a little heavy is it? No... it's not! he's drawn the keeper, he's lifted it and it appears to be sailing into the net. YESSSSSSS! IT'S THERE! 

I wouldn't describe it quite as 'bedlam' in the stands but it's definitely a lot more than the muted reaction we've seen recently. The players punch the air, we punch the air back. We serenade Kaddy, united in the belief that we're off to Wem-ber-ley. Dem-be-le! (A-HA!) 


This is it. The game where we were really put someone to the sword. Carlisle are so poor that describing them as a league 2 side would be kind. We're going to run in 7 or 8 here and pile on the goal difference pressure. Oxford won't know what has hit their stupid yellow faces. Just you wait and see. 

We wait. It's all Pool. All that is except for a Carlisle break where a rare accurate through ball sees one of their lumbering beasts in on goals - what's this though? It's only a flash and a bang and the little wizard appearing, and it seems he has put in a brilliant sliding challenge to deny them a shot. Sing the song again. Whilst we still can. Dem-be-le... (A-HA!) 

The Carlisle keeper is trying to take a goal kick but the ball isn't sitting still, blowing back towards his goal, emphasising the advantage that playing with the wind gives us. Jimmy overlaps and puts in a frankly wonderful ball but no one gets on the end of it.  

Kaddy hits another one, putting it a yard to high. Sonny cracks a couple of effortx, the best one low, taking a deflection and looping painfully over the bar, probably grazing it on it's way for a corner. We have so many corners and nothing really seems to come of them, even when Georgie Byers is completely free, he only heads it harmlessly down and yards wide. 

Grimmy is practically a spectator. He might as well have brought a camp bed. Shayne is plenty involved, having set up Kaddy's goal with a neat little flick and burrowed through on the left a few times but he's in such a rut where he can't buy a goal. A Carey shot is charged down but loops back to us and we neatly work it wide, cross it and Lavs. Must. Score. 

Lavs. Does. Not. 

Georgie Byers has to come off. I am encouraged by the fact Albie Morgan comes on ahead of Matty Virtue, tempted as Critchley must have been to use the injury as a chance to start the process of shutting up shop. 

We do everything but score. Well, that's maybe over egging it because to score more than once, you have to actually hit the target at least twice but there's a few ooohs and several aaaahs. 


---

That familiar feeling where you get the sense we might not have taken full advantage of the situation. The half started with a rare feeling of energy this season. During the half, the lads behind me offered a kind of Soccer Saturday update service. In amongst the stream of scorelines, Oxford went 1 up. Then 2 up. Then they scored a 3rd. Against Peterborough. We're struggling to get a second against a side with 47 less points than Peterborough. Who needs Owen Dale eh? 

---


Wow. This half was bad. When I say bad, I mean, fucking rank. I'm used to bad football, we all are, but this was next level stuff. Normally, I make some kind of effort to put a narrative together or put things in a vaguely sequential order but aside from a nice move where Carey and Coulson linked and Sonny made an intelligent bending run onto an equally intelligent ball from Coulson and drew a decent save at the near post, there was basically nothing of worth to write about. 

Carlisle offered almost as little. Jimmy headed one away from under the bar and they had a snapshot that went wide but beyond those three things, the game was... awful. It was worth than uninspired. It wasn't even 'bitty' - it was well and truly broken. 

Brunton Park was almost silent for long periods. The stands took ages to fill up after half time as if people knew what was coming. The home fans have had little to cheer and they stood stoically in the uncovered paddock whilst first the rain and then a spectacular hail storm tested their commitment to pointless game for their team. Football fans are mentalists. 

All I else can remember is a truly woeful move where Carlisle went down the left and then just passed the ball out of play when they had at least two clear options to do otherwise, a terrible handball shout, some really dreadful crosses, Morgan getting injured but us having used all our subs and a Carey breakaway where he did the hard bit of beating two players and then got the easy pass wrong as if too prove that nothing actually any good could happen. 

It was doughy and heavy. Sometimes terrible football is great when mistakes lead to excitement but this was just...shit. It was like watching a bad slapstick act, a Chuckle Brother's tribute perhaps, none of the timing and imagination of the original, just two teams hacking, falling over, lumping balls at each other to head up in the air like crap sea lions in a shit circus. It's like watching someone play a computer game they don't really know the controls for. 

I look at the clock. There's still 12 minutes left. How? Time has been bent by the sheer ineptitude on display. Even Grimmy nearly gets caught out, dallying on the ball and coming as near as I've seen him to having it taken off his toes. 

Carlisle did almost nothing and when they did something they did it badly. Even then we seemed to enter the last few minutes in all out panic mode. There's nothing obviously to panic about but we do it anyway, the ice storm that hits washing everything in a dramatic and chilly light as Penno makes controlling the ball look like a man trying to not trip over a cat and Kylian bulldozes his way into blind alleys. Sexy football. 

The whistle. A blessed relief. The sun comes out almost instantly. That half was so bad it made the weather angry. 

--- 

The season is almost over. Has the season started? I know it's still alive but however Oxford and Lincoln goes and even if we keep winning we've got a goal difference mountain to climb and there's no sign we'll manage that. As with any number of games we looked considerably better than the team we were playing for a spell but struggled to turn that into real impact. 

I don't want to jump onto a bandwagon and encourage the music to get louder, but CJ's touch and ability to play quick football was really not there. He's quick and that's always theoretically useful, but he slows us down too. In the first half Carey and Coulson linked well and created with Kaddy flitting about and involving himself with them and Byers just keeping everything ticking over then the ball came to the right and CJ just didn't seem to be playing the same kind of football. 

It's difficult to work out if this run of wins we've had is a sign of positivity or not. Are we just actually a few players away from hitting 3 or 4 in the last few games - or really, are we just being propped up by players who in the main won't be here next season? 

Lets pray somehow Lincoln and Oxford both manage to lose in the same game and we can score 10 at Barnsley.

You never know...

Onward! 







You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand. 

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Charlie Adam's Tangerine! - the Mighty vs Fleetwood Town




As I walk to the ground, I see a grandad stoop to do up his grandsons coat. I miss my grandad. I miss my boy being young enough to need to have his coat done up. I find there's something about little everyday moments of care and tenderness that cut through me to my soul, a pang of melancholy beauty overwhelms me at the gentle way the old fella pulls the coat to make sure the zip doesn't trap the boy's skin and ruffles his hair once they're ready to march to the game together. What is more beautiful than that? Going to the match with yer grandad who loves you unconditionally. Honestly. I'm welling up.  


The low sun makes everything hazy. There's more police than away fans. A solitary cry of 'cod army' eminates from the Fleetwood fans shuffling past. A desultory retort of 'going down' is the half arsed response from our numbers. 

This is not so much a rivalry as a minor neighbourly dispute. This might be the last time we do this, in the league at least. It's hard to see them receiving the kind of money they've had put into them going forward. 

Tony Parr reads out the mascots favourite players. Kaddy. Kaddy. Kaddy and.... Kaddy. A weird slap bass chilled out smooth funk track provides a pre match mood more suited to being piped into the Teanlowe Centre in Poulton to accompany pensioners having a milky coffee than football match against your near neighbours.  

This is DEFINITELY NOT a derby. It just isn't. 


---

Everything is fine until Fleetwood break. I don't know exactly how it comes to this, but Grimmy running away backwards, trying to get to his goal, Marvin seems to just fall out of the picture and their big lad is running through, completely unopposed but then Hubby saves the day with a brilliantly timed tackle, from behind, taking the ball cleanly and...  I think there's a chant in his honour. I can't be sure, but I'm fairly certain I hear his name ring out! Tremendous stuff from the League 1 Baresi. 

We're back into the game. There are corners. Our best move is a load of passing that ends with a chest from Bees, a flick from Kaddy, a flick on from Carey and Lavs stretching but not quite reaching it before the keeper. It would have been a tremendous goal.

They're quite big and worryingly, they seem able to push us over pretty easily. Hubby is sent face first into the turf by a shoulder to shoulder challenge. Coulson looks tiny in comparison to some of them. Have we washed him since Saturday? Was the bath too hot after that game? He seems to have shrunk. 

We're twatting about again having a lot of the play but without really threatening much. Carey whips some balls in. We don't attack them. Carey seems to have an unerring ability to aim good balls at Kaddy, which might be a slight waste of the work seen as up against the Fleetwood defence, Kaddy is like a gnome in a forest of giant redwoods. 

We're still twatting about, going across the edge of the box when Kaddy disdainfully flicks it wide to CJ, the ball seeming to say, 'go on, do something' - CJ does, taking a touch and then lifting a really nice near post ball, where Jake Beesley levers himself away from his man and falls forward, like a middle aged dad flopping into a swimming pool, meeting the ball perfectly, and then leaping up from the turf and running away in celebration as the ball sneaks through the gap between the keeper and the near post. BEEEEEES! 

A diving header! What could be better? 

Lets go on now and score some more. Surely we won't make the same mistake as last week. I mean, imagine if we ended up relying on a Grimmy wonder save again against a team in as much trouble as Fleetwood. We'll be fine! Don't be so pessimistic! 

Byers smashes one from the edge of the box that sits up beautifully. It's well hit, but straight at the keeper. CJ has a run into the box. He hasn't done that for ages. There is a semi plausible claim for a penalty but I don't think it's a terrible injustice that isn't given. Having done two good things, CJ then balances it up slightly by racing to meet a ball looping in the air by the corner flag and just inexplicably tapping it out of play and looking a bit surprised at what he's chosen to do as if he doesn't control his legs. 

Marvin is completely undone by their big lad up front. There's a dangerous cross. Jimmy Husband is again brilliant, with one of those last ditch tackles where he launches himself full length. 


---

I'm not sure what to make of it. We're in front. We've been ok-ish in phases but it's weirdly flat. There's no real edge to it.

As I'm walking through the concourse, I catch a snatch of conversation
'you weren't joking were you?' 
'no, it's been like this all season' 
'just fucking sling it into the box for fucks sake...' 

---


C'mon Pool, lets get this over with. 

The first moment turns out not really to be a moment at all and more of an optical illusion. We break and the ball is crossed, Bees strikes it, it looks goal bound but it actually lands further away from goal than Bees is. I can't tell if it hit a defender or the gangly one sliced it - if he did, I bet he couldn't do that again if he tried to. 

Then a lovely hit from Byers, taking in a little touch back and with the crisp precision of someone folding origami, having a gentle touch and then arrowing a no backlift low effort that bisects everyone in a crowded box and whistles agonisingly wide. 

It's Kaddy's turn next, taking the ball on the bounce from a knock down and cracking a first time effort that is alway just rising a little bit too much which is a shame because it's swerving in a way that would have been beautiful had it been caught by the net. 

Lavs is running hard and seems to have the advantage over the Fleetwood defender patrolling the channel he wants to hit. We're on top. It's a matter of time. 

Or is it? Marvin gets tangled up. Jimmy has to intervene again. Fleetwood's Lawal, who I really like the look of, being both big and good at football (plenty of players in this division are one or the other, but few are both) has a run and just as it looks like he's over cooked things, he gets a shot off that ricochets horribly and Marvin this time gets things right, getting just enough on it to take it away from a Fleetwood man. 

On the touchline Charlie looks basically the same as a bloke managing a Glasgow Sunday league side would. I love his ability to look like he's just some fella, despite probably having spent more than my monthly wage on his outfit. Critchley suddenly chucks a massive paddy, shouting so loud as to be audible across the whole ground and clapping in anger. I don't know what that was about. 

Lavs is haring in again, running as he does like a child down a hill, momentum growing, struggling to stay upright. He'd be ideal in that weird cheese rolling thing where everyone belts down a slope after it I think. I digress. He's going square, looking for the space to shoot. It looks to me like he runs into Kaddy, but the ref blows and points to the spot, and I realise he is actually tripped and his momentum means his stumbles and flies into Kaddy. 

Here we go. It's low, it's hard.... and yet, their keeper gets to it and turns it round the post. It wasn't a bad spot kick. I've seen far worse go in, but it's a really good save. Fucking hell Pool. Can we just properly win a game for once? 

Maybe we will. CJ is flying through the middle, set away on the break, he's not getting caught. This will be a lovely way to put it to bed. CJ makes to go round the keeper. He's knocked it quite wide, but maybe he's fast enough to catch it anyway... the keeper doesn't want to take the gamble and squarely trips him up, no disguise at all. That's a red. 

It isn't. Steve Banks gets booked for pointing out that it was the most blatantly obvious red card ever in the history of football. Which is fun. I wonder when his last booking for us was? About 1998 I'd reckon. Possibly the refs logic was 'c'mon, it was CJ' but that's not really an argument an official should be making, however grudgingly you have to admit it has some logic to it. Carey smashes the free kick straight into the wall but then catches the rebound beautifully and the goalie that shouldn't be there makes another good save, low to his left and Sonny is denied a lovely goal. 

Then Fleetwood score. I'm doing the full on head in hands, fucks sake Pool, why is always like this routine when there's a cheer and I look up to see the offside flag. It's a delightful moment as it takes Fleetwood fans longer to realise and their celebrations to die down. Sit down...! 

We make some subs. We have some breaks. Sonny fights his way up the pitch well, but we can't quite finish it off. Joseph hares up the other side of the pitch but ends up playing a weird square pass that isn't on. Fleetwood are putting more and more players up front. We try and kill it by adding Virtue for his weekly 8 minutes. 

We don't kill it. Fleetwood score, the ball nodded down and one of their subs catching a kind of scissor kick effort on the full, sending the ball crashing into the roof of the net. Except they don't, because despite my minds eye reading it thus, Grimmy flings his arms and himself upward and pulls of another miracle point blank save and I actually shout 'fucking hell... Grimmy! fucks sake! Grimmy!' because I can't believe he's saved it and I can't believe we're here again. 

Still they come. We're absolutely all over the place. The ground is finally alive. There's smoke, drums. Seaside... Barmy Army... We're willing them to just not fuck this up. The referee seems to be adding time that doesn't exist and barking louder than I've ever heard a ref shout at players... It's like the yapping of a dog. We can't keep the ball, we look to have no shape at all and they're pinging the ball between them and cutting us to bits, a flick on, A touch back, a drive and Grimmy again, tumbling to his left, the ball skidding off the turf and Grimmy spills it and scrambles forward then kills the ball, lying on it and breathing deeply. 

We're done. Thank fuck for that. 


--- 

Critchley does possibly the worst fist pump he's ever done. It's like the kind of celebration a quite desperate double glazing salesman who has just scored a contract for a 3 bed semi detached would do. If he gets us up this season, it will be the most astonishing triumph of stubborn will over reality. 

It's more of the same. We're not able to score enough when we're on top and we end up under pressure eventually as a result. There's only 3 points for a win, regardless of how many you score, but too many times we haven't got those 3 points because we don't score enough goals. I suppose you have to say we created chances and missed a penalty. I felt sorry for Lavs. He can't buy a break at the moment and he played ok tonight. 

It is astonishing to think we're still theoretically 'in the hunt' - the fixtures have been kind and Barnsley aside, remain so. I still think we'll trip, or if we don't, that we've already stumbled too many times and are playing largely for pride. I say that, but I'm going to Carlisle and if I'm truly honest... You never know. You just never fucking know do you? I don't know. I don't think so. But who knows? Again, it doesn't seem like I've just watched promotion winners. Maybe, just maybe, that's the plan. To go so under the radar, that not even your own fans recognise what's happening... 

Byers played well - it's irritating to think that he's probably another on the list of 'loan players we'd really like to stay but probably won't' because he's becoming increasingly key. We've lost Rhodes and we've not got enough goals. We'll lose Kaddy and we're way short of magic and he's got levels of wizardry it feel impossible to replace. Byers gives us a bit of tempo and character and basically is a kind of slightly more floppy haired Kenny Dougall with quicker feet and losing the actual Kenny Dougall was bad enough in the first place. 

Whatever... the main thing is - we beat the upstart tinpot non league neighbours and Charlie Adam's tangerine... 

Onward


You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand. 

Saturday, April 6, 2024

'Fine margins' - the Mighty vs Cambridge United


Apathy is like quicksand. Apathy is a cold wet bog on a bleak moorland. Apathy is like having your shoelaces tied together and trying to run. Apathy is a shrug of indifference. Apathy is giving up on hope. 

Have you ever felt incapable of feeling? Did that frighten you? 

Apathy is how despots gain power. Apathy is what allows incompetence to take root. Apathy is a scourge. 

Sometimes I notice that I spend my life sighing. I'm sure I used to smile more. I'm sure I used to try more. I'm sure I used to dream bigger. I'm sure I used to throw off my worries more easily. I'm sure the burdens were lighter. 


Apathy is when you get ground down. Apathy is the stone of your ideals being worn into sand by the friction of life. Apathy is fucking shite. 

It's not fair to blame Neil 'front foot football' Critchley for everything. He's just a bloke who washes his Volvo, and makes sure to buff the wax to a shine, who likes his polo shirt crisply ironed and does his best to do what he thinks is right.  

I've just read a book about Alf Ramsey. It was brilliant - the most revealing moment comes near the end, when Alf, fed up at his treatment by the FA and finished with the game as a job goes to some matches. Ramsey is an odd, stubborn, singular character but also someone who possesses a strange kind of dignity and strong moral code - he refuses to trade on his name and eschews the directors box, instead paying to stand with the fans. There, he has an epiphany - it's not, he realises, that fans know nothing as he'd always thought - it's just that they want something different from the game than those on the pitch and on the touchline do. He finally learns to enjoy the sport as they do. He learns that a mistake can bring joy, that a risk can pay off. He learns what it is to be a fan. He realises they're the point of the whole thing. He enjoys himself. It's really quite moving to read. 


Neil 'in and out of possession' Critchley is an enigma. I still don't really know anything about him. Every time we lose, he says 'we weren't us' and I don't know what that means. If the team is his and therefore the 'he' defines the 'us' and the 'we' and I don't know who he is how can I understand what we or us are? 

I watched (which is rare for me to do) an elite game last week. Sitting through the dirge of Manchester City vs Arsenal, I thought about how fearful both teams seemed. Everything was about not losing the ball, not giving the opportunity to the opposition to launch an attack. It was, in the words of our glorious leader, all about 'shape - in and out of possession' - for two sides possessing wonderful footballers, neither team wanted to risk playing any football which seemed a shame really. 

There's a weird passive aggressive quality to it all this year. Neil 'the group' Critchley seems tetchy. The fans seem tetchy. The players seem heavy legged and edgy. We just don't seem to be together. 


I also watched Goal! - the story of the 1966 World Cup. It's an amazing thing, capturing a world on the turn, an England where the page is flipping from a Victorian past to a jet age future. I was struck by a phrase in the narration, right neat to the beginning, that bemoans 'not losing, that's what modern football is about' 

Apathy is the opposite of love. 

C'mon. Deep breath. It's only a game of football. Our old mate Sullay Kaikai is on the pitch. Today might just be the day when Sonny shows what he really is. He's the League 1 Phil Foden. No, really. He actually is. It doesn't matter - We're not catching Lincoln, not least because our goal difference is fucked - so lets just try and win 15-0 and hope for the best. 

---

The first half isn't bad even though Critchley has gone pure roulette wheel for the team selection and managed to get the ball to land on both Kylian and Bees. When promising sexy football that we'd cry with pride over (or whatever he said) I don't think any of us had 'two lads who could maybe play for Grimsby without it seeming too weird' as the strike force in our minds eye. 

That said, I actually quite like the way neither of them actually look like scoring but occupy the defence and win enough of the direct balls that it gives us some space to play behind them. Whilst Kylian and Bees probably have a negative XG, the space they give Kaddy, Sonny, Byer and Coulson to play in is valuable. I always said that goal machines don't simply score goals and the two of them add a kind of Madine-esque bloody mindedness to our play that oddly works even though it probably shouldn't. We're better when we don't linger on the ball and we don't have to because we can hit a big lad if things get a bit tight. 

It's frustrating though. We're all down the wings and putting crosses in but the crosses are never quite right. There's some corner we get our heads to but they loop over the bar and plop on the top of the net or flop harmlessly into the side netting. There's some neat link up play with Coulson and Carey. There's a blocked shot or two. There's Dembele making the heart ache when you think that we've only got a few more weeks of watching him stop, stutter, glide and then simply dance his way past like a puckish child running around the legs of boring adults for the sheer fun of it. I fucking love him. Never fall in love with a loan player. Fuck that. Who am I supposed to love? Matty 'cameo' Virtue? I'll take the pain. It was worth it. Every second of him has been a delight to behold. 

Talking of lost delights. Sullay glides square. I'm almost tempted to shout 'go on Sull' but then he's not ours anymore and he's run into traffic anyway. Then he has a free kick. It's in the exact spot he flew that beauty in from against the Cods. He steps back. He more or less misses the south stand. Oh well. It's not his day. He'll be spinning some magic sooner or later. I just won't see it. I'll always see that Sunderland goal though. The net lifting off its base...  

I'll tell you whose day it is though. It's Sonny fucking Carey's day. He's again busy and purposeful. He's got a little strut about him. He's the player who benefits from Cambridge realising that Kaddy is fucking ace and they should mark him more tightly as that give a bit of space to exploit. He's good at that. CJ has it wide. He puts it in. His crossing is somewhat of a lottery but he finds the jackpot of a Blackpool player. Kylian manages to squeeze it to Kaddy. The wee wizard appears marked by the entire Cambridge team. He dummies doing something brilliant with it and then in a move that shows as much as anything how good he really is, does something simple and effective instead, just tapping it square for Carey to run from space and swerve home a low side foot shot, right into the bottom corner. 

We carry on playing ok. I mean, we're not great and it's not pretty, but we're actually putting a fair amount of pressure on the Cambridge area. It would be pushing it a bit to say their goal, but we're in control and in the right half of the pitch. The wing backs are high and Cambridge are reduced to a couple of shit breakaways and not a lot else. A ball is swung in. Beesley leaps. Sonny pounces, taking with one foot and slamming the ball an inch wide of the near post with the other. 

--- 

That was ok. I could handle another half of that just about. Ok is fine. I'm not precious. 

--- 

We don't get another half of that. Gary Monk is not Gary 'what about Gary Monk for the X vacancy?' Monk for nothing and like so many managers of teams with players who aren't as good as ours do, makes a tactical tweak that renders us baffled and seems to negate the quality of our team completely. He only goes and puts a really big lad on at the back to counter our big lad threat. What an absolute 4d chess merchant! 

It hasn't up to this point been a classic, far from it in fact, but the second half really plumbs the depths. For some it makes them angry when it's shit, but for me, it's a great advert for League 1. At one point someone kicks it out for no reason. The throw is then thrown straight to the other team for no reason and then kicked out of play for no reason. It's kind of beautiful. There's 10,000 people watching this shite. Is that not glorious? I'm sick of top flight football with all the 'best players, best games, must watch appointment global TV' shit. Give me some attritional football where it's only fellow sadists present. 

Lavery comes on. Beesley goes off. I wouldn't have hooked Bees myself and I'd have brought Joseph on. He's on a few minutes later though. The twin towers have fallen. Still, There's barely enough time to notice the subs between CJ letting the ball roll out of play multiple times for no apparent reason and a load of shapeless midfield scuffling. Sullay goes off. He gets a nice round of applause. I clap a bit too loud. Fuck it. The boy brightened my life up by playing football well. I don't care. 

A Cambridge free kick. It's fizzed in. A touch. It's in. FUCKING HELL GRIMMY. He springs from nowhere, it's like an optical illusion. He defies gravity and time by springing from one side of the goal to a place he physically doesn't seem able to get to but does and gets a strong palm on the ball to push it away. It was a stunning save. He's basically been able to snooze most of the game but as soon as one of his trip wires are stepped on, he's up, shuriken at the ready for some ninja action. I fucking love Grimmy. He kneels, takes a deep breath. Exhales. Claps his gloves. Goes back to sleep. What a player. 

Lavery races away. Here we go. We're going to put this to bed now and we can all go home moderately happy. Shayne is devoid of confidence though. He's done the hard bit, it's opened up in front of him but instead of going on, he panics and tries to slot in Joseph who doesn't expect the ball and ends up just running into a defender. 

Cambridge aren't exactly ripping us to bits, but they've got far too much of the play and we've got far too little. There's a move, I can't really remember what happened apart from the fact the ended up two on 1 with everyone running backwards in full on terror, a little slipped pass and their forward is in - Grimmy goes to meet him, the ball is past him... it's a moment of slow motion horror as it seems destined for the inside of the post but like a long shot on a wonky pool table, it seems to take a slight deviation and instead kisses the post full on and rolls away to a relieved Carey who up and unders it away like a rugby player and we all breathe out. They have a shout for a penalty. I don't think it is one, though that said, Marvin is penalised just before for a foul outside the box that seemed less of a questionable challenge than the one inside, so if we were in a world of mad VAR cross checking of every pixel it might have been. Then again, we also had a shout at the other end that I thought was one, so we might end up in an infinite regress of what ifs. That that's not an option is another thing I much prefer about crap lower league football. 

Not a lot else happens. Virtue comes on and does the thing he does where he barges into people and hacks the ball upfield. He's quite good at that. It's also clear that the switch to a clear central three finally gives us a bit more presence. I'd quite like his job. My work quite often gets me down a bit. I seem to have quite a lot to do and a lot to think about for not a huge amount of money. Matty V gets paid more than me and he just has to play football (and then, mostly only the simple bits of it) for about 7 minutes a week on average which isn't even long enough to get tired. 

Sonny puts a free kick into the arms of the keeper. The whistle goes. 

---

In a way that game was the story of the season. We were definitely better than them first half and whilst the game suited what we were trying to do, we did fine. We were definitely not better than them second half because the game ceased to suit what we were trying to do and we didn't know how to respond to that. Cambridge caused us problems without actually being any good. Critchley did a lot of enthusiastic and purposeful clapping on the touchline but he made like for like changes that didn't seem to add anything in particular other than legs and it wasn't like Cambridge were outrunning us. We ended up deeper and drawing them on and the clapping didn't seem to do much to alter that. 

3 points is 3 points is 3 points, but then, does it make a difference? I don't know. I'd rather win than lose. I've told myself the season is over, but I kept checking the results so deep down, I must harbour some ridiculous hope. That said, it just doesn't feel anything like a promotion team, whatever the maths might say is possible. I had a slight pang of envy at the Cambridge fans, tightly packed, singing and celebrating their likely safety. It's all relative. The point is surely to get some joy from it and they make a few hundred seem like a lot more and our sulky under par mood seems very flat by comparison.  

It is what it is. The sun shone. Sonny shone. We clung on. Just. I really don't think we're going up. C'est la vie. 

Onward. 


You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.