Madness (continued) - the Mighty vs Wycombe Wanderers

These blogs have fallen into a certain format over the years. The advent of chaosball has made me wonder if I should make like the big doe eyed grizzly fella in the dugout and rip it up and start again. Usually, I bang on for a bit about what I was thinking before the game, then I describe stuff in linear order then I sum it up at the end with how I felt afterwards. 

That all seems a bit '5-3-2'.

It's what I did 2 weeks ago and that doesn't have to be what I do now. 

I could start at the end if I wanted because what you were isn't who you have to be. (If that's not a song lyric then it should be) - Were I to do that I'd say...

---

... I fucking love Richard Keogh and that it was 90 minutes of exquisite torture today, where I felt throughout that we could score almost any time we got the ball and concede almost any time we lost it. That is precisely what I want from football. It couldn't be any closer to the way I see it if it were a pair of glasses perched on the end of my nose. 

Football is, first and foremost a game. A game is not reality. Reality is shitty stuff like databases and the pricing structure of train fares, small print, getting up in the morning in the dark only to find the milk has gone off and you can't even make a brew to help you face the anxiety of the day that weighs on you like the lead shield of a Chernobyl liquidator. I could go on with how shit life can be but that's not why you are here, that's not what you're reading this for - You're reading it because football and because football isn't that real world and that's why I'm writing it and not writing something else because football and because football is not that world for 90 glorious and agonising minutes. 

I could then completely sack off the linear structure and just chuck in some random events in any order I wanted because, like the players in our team, I'm free. To do what I want. Any old time. 

---

Half time. Fuck me, how are we not 3 or 4 goals up?

---

Some point in the first half - I bellow 'fuck off to your sunbed you fake tan twat' at the ref. My child is not impressed. The me that is looking at the me from outside himself is not impressed with me either but the fact is, the ref has a fake tan and is a twat so really, I (the me in the football ground) am absolutely within my rights to bellow such a thing because this football and football is not the rest of the world where I'd never actually shout that at anyone, fake tan or not. 

Numerous points in the first half - Go on Robbie... the little man's best moment is probably the raking pass he picks out of a tight space that puts us through early on. It's a divine bit of football that shows us that he's got more than just the running at people, though he does plenty of that. 

I'm falling into a trap here. I'm sticking to the first half. Let me show you how free of convention I am. 

---

Before the game I'm driving and I'm probably going too fast because I want to be there. I want to get there. I want to see what we can do. I want more of what we've had and I want us to tear into them and score 6 or 7 because we could do it. I actually believe that. I also, simultaneously belief we could lose 2-0 and not have a shot because lads, lads, lads, this is Blackpool and you never fucking know. Maybe that was Critchley's big mistake. He tried to make us reliable, professional and worthy. Maybe this Keogh shit is just a mirage. Perhaps we'll offer nothing and fall to bits under the weight of a little bit of expectation?

Then I see the team. Even the defence is attacking. We're not going to die wondering. I love it. I practically sprint up Bloomfield Road. 

--- 

Second half - Fuck me, they've scored again. Gary Goalie has thrown himself full length and he was saving it. I saw him saving it but he didn't save it, the ball brushed off the side of his glove and into the net and the tinny cheer from the away fans grates like chalk dragged down the blackboard of my soul - shitty stupid rugby kit wearing fucking where the fuck even is Wycombe and have they ever even had a good player and no, Steve fucking Guppy doesn't count as good cos he's hardly fucking Stanley Matthews, he's not even fucking Trevor Sinclair for fucks sake and nor does that fucking novelty fat bloke striker they had fucking fuck off there's a fucking non-league crowd  dancing about with 30 seats each in the east stand to jump on and it's not fair. It's not fucking fair. I'm a kid again with no control over my feelings and I'm gutted because why is always fucking like this and why can we not win things and why is football shit? I hate it.  

First half - Corner. Kyle JOSEPH!!!! YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Easy as you like. How we deserve that. We've been all over them. It's a miracle they've kept us at bay and even Jesus got fucked over in the end so even miracles can't keep us out forever. We've been pouring forward, we've missed chances, we've been aggressive and the crowd has stayed with us but we needed to make that pay and we did. I let out a huge sigh of relief. 

Second half. HOW. DID. HE. MISS. AGAIN. Around me everyone looks like I feel. Blinking, open mouthed, heads shaking in mute acknowledgement that what we've just seen defies logic. Ash Fletcher was free, all he had to do is guide a header into most of the goal with almost any contact at all but instead he's guided it, like a defender cushioning it with great care back to the keeper. First half he passed one back like it was 1987 and he was Alan Hanson nipping in to calmly between defenders to knock it back to Bruce Grobbelaar. I like what he does in the build up very much but fuck me Ash, put your foot though it or something because wow... 

---

Right now as I'm writing this - I've confused myself now with this attempt at chaosblogging. I don't know what is going on and what I've got to do next because without the familiar structure to guide me, it's difficult to remember what I've said and haven't said. I feel a bit like Zac Ashworth who, thrown into the chaos looks a bit tentative and at one point runs in 3 complete circles as if locked in a complete meltdown in terms of decision making. Maybe it's the freedom. So many choices maaaaan. It's like seeing all the realities at once in a hazy psychedelic fog of tangerine. 

---

First half - I beat the seat in front of me. There is no one in it so it makes a good vessel for my frustration. FUCK. All that good play and we let a shit goal in. A nothing goal. A defender pushed off the ball and a tap in goal. Fucks sake. Kyle Joseph turns to the North Stand, he raises his arms in exhortation. C'mon. C'mon. 'C'MON POOL! 

Second half - I don't like the subs. Rhodes has looked rustier than a bike dragged from the canal after a few years in the silt and Embleton has given off vibes of a man who has eaten mostly crisps in his recovery from injury. They both need games but I don't get it right now. There's Bees on the bench. There's Sonny fucking Carey. This game is made for them. It's loose, it's chaotic, it's energy and our energy is flagging. I don't want it calming down with experience, I want us to grab it and make it more manic. Recreate the storm of before. 

---

Before the game again- I have to think to myself 'If it was 3 o'clock, when would I leave, so if it's kick off at half twelve and I deduct that same amount of time, I would leave at....' and I don't like having to do lower tier GCSE paper questions to work out when to get to a match for no reason other that SKY are desperate to monopolise the entire sporting world and make sure everyone has to pay for watching anything that moves or has a ball in it or involves anyone throwing something or getting a bit sweaty and I think that, whilst smoking isn't big and clever (ok, it is) and banning it might save the NHS some money, perhaps the Government could, instead of being mealy mouthed fun sponges (nothing says 'fun' like a slow suicide, but hey, you look like a cowboy and that is fucking cool) they could perhaps think about addressing the general health situation whereby in the world's richest footballing nation, there aren't enough football pitches and you can't watch any football on the normal telly because that's also a fucking health risk if you think about it and just cos some telly cunts get rich off it and it helps make about 3 clubs slightly better in Europe doesn't make that ok. Fuming to be honest. I should go to the pub and start smoking just to calm down. 

---

Second half - Norburn is dicing with death here. He's been booked and he's still charging round like the grumpy foreman of a roadworks site raging at some tardy young lads and smashing up stuff they've done badly to make them do it again but this time properly. I hope he doesn't get sent off cos I like this Norburn much more than the Norburn of two weeks ago. They're doing my head in with their time wasting and they're falling over at nothing. Joseph breathes on one of them and he goes down. CJ makes a great tackle (he's looked committed today, he's won two (yes! two!) headers as well and the lad goes down as if CJ is Gary Brabin in a bad mood. Even CJ is riled up by it and gives the ref a mouthful shouting at his creosote face. I don't think I've ever seen that before. 

Still second half - A cross, it looks initially hopeful, a whip into the box that is designed to save the move from breaking down but then, Beesley rises and the net is billowing and he's running back and it's relief and delight again because not only do we deserve not to lose, it's really a travesty we aren't winning it. Evans' ball being met is a just reward for his superb midfield work and any time Bees scores, the world feels that bit better because Bees is Bees and that's all you need to say. I knew he should have come on before. Maybe I should manage us. I'd be awful. Couldn't hack it. Keeeeee-ogh. 

First half - Dom (not Dan) squeezes a shot onto the inside of the post. It's physically painful that it bounces out and into the keepers arms and not into the back of the net. I sink to the ground and look at the roof of the stand. 

Late in the second half. They've got a free kick. This is their chance. They miss. We go to the other end. We're fast, we move, centre, left, cut inside, cross, here's our chance... Joseph again.... save, it's spilled, Rhodes (I think) onto it from two yards out and somehow, somehow, somehow their keeper keeps it out.

The seat gets it again. 

I am on my knees. Literally. I look up at those around me. They look down. We share the moment like passengers on a ship or a plane passing through a storm. We don't need to speak to say everything.

Fucking hell 'Pool. 

That was torture.

More please. 

--- 

I'm not sure this approach was a good idea. I should probably sum it up again as I haven't a clue what I've actually written. 

We were excellent for quite a lot of the game. We tired though and had a spell where we weren't and again, we let mistakes and poor defending take what should have been a comfortable win from us. There's so much to build from though. Evans, looks terrific, Gabriel was excellent, we made a hat full of chances and the front three looks a proper force. We've got another keeper who, by most accounts is a very good one and we've got a fast defender in the wings and that can surely only help us because the defence is not going to get the same kind of cover it got previously and we will get done on the break so the ability to stay with attackers when you get turned around is a prerequisite that some of the players at the back don't possess and thus look exposed. 

Do I want to write this same blog every single week trying to make sense of how the fuck we didn't win? No. Things (blogs included) do work better with a bit of structure.

Could I get used to things being a bit looser and free-er? Fuck yes.  Do I want this business of us having shots and stuff and more than 3 things happening in a game to carry on?

Very much so. It feels so much more like us. 

Onward!

---

If you want to waste your money supporting a football blog that spouts unstructured shit and then who asks if you'd like to pay cash in return for quite literally absolutely nothing you wouldn't get for free anyway, you can do so here. 

Tweet

 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. 

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Read More

Comeback delight! - Blackburn Rovers vs the Mighty

We're in a squat little milltown full of squat little milltown houses. There are no mills any more, just industrial estates and the ubiquitous big Asda and Matalan type retail parks. 

Has anyone ever been to Blackburn on holiday? What is there in Blackburn? I can't think of any things of note. Even the standards of depressing East Lancashire post industrial blight towns, it seems a bit of a vacuum of things. Preston has a concrete bus station they can't be arsed to update and Burnley has some oddball sculpture on a hill. Bury has a market where you can buy rubber gloves and potatoes, Bolton has a museum with some random Egyptian shit in it and an aquarium even thought it's Bolton and not by the sea or in Egypt. They have, at least made some kind of mark on my memory. 

I don't ever remember going to Blackburn for any reason other than to buy a car. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever been to Blackburn for any sort of leisure activity ever. I've never heard anyone say 'Ooh, we had a lovely Saturday in Blackburn, you should go, make a day of it' - I've only ever heard people say things like 'I'm going to the part worn tyre place in Blackburn' or 'I've got a job lot of radiators from a house clearance in Blackburn and I need to pick them up by tuesday so I'm taking Kev's van. £100 cash, but I have to load them myself' 

To be honest, I can't think of anything even slightly 'fun' that defines Blackburn other than Blackburn Rovers. 

We don't seem to have any great enmity for Blackburn either. They're actually closer to us than Burnley but they're not such a big deal as they are. I don't really know why that is.Probably because Burnley were kind enough to be a bit shit at the same time were shit for ages so we played them more. Maybe. I do feel a certain sense of resentment at being charged £6.25 for a pint of lager like it's London or something. Surely they should be serving warm flat beer for 2 and 6, not hyper fizzy Italian stuff for a million quid. Everywhere is aspirational these days, even Blackburn. 

Anyway, enough of 'tRover's - this isn't Radio Lancashire is it?

Richard Keogh has ditched Critch's dodgy roulette wheel and basically picked the team on the basis of who felt right when he gave them a big man hug. The result is a bit weird, but promisingly so because it includes Rob Apter, Jordan Gabriel and what appears to be a back 4. It's a revolution within a revolution.  All hail the eyebrowed one. He is change and change never stands still. 

--- 

Ewood is sparsely populated but the Pool end (to be strictly accurate... the Pool bit of one end that is mostly closed off) is pretty packed and in good voice. Songs are traded with the home fans whilst not a great deal happens on the pitch. Blackburn's fans give up fairly quickly and we sing alone for a while and then the game falls into a kind of League Cup lull. 

Rovers have one of those moves that reminds you they're considerably higher in the pyramid than we are where they seem to pass it forever and we can't get near them. It ends in a low shot that's comfortably wide but it makes them look good and us look a bit leaden footed. 

They press some more, we make mistakes. Pennington first and then Finnegan gift them opportunities which thankfully they don't take. Perhaps this isn't the dawn of a new era after all. Maybe we should get a proper manager. Rovers play a slide rule pass and Gueye (who looks every inch a world class footballer if such things could judged purely on physique) nabs in between two men and slams it into the side netting. 

We respond with a run from Rob Apter that ends in a tame effort that bobbles through to the keeper. It is very much 'all Blackburn' aside from that and when they split our defence open again and Casey clatters into their foward and clearly upends him, the penalty seemed the inevitable result of the way the game was going. The big athletic no9 puts it on the spot. I visualise Gary Goalie going down to the bottom right hand corner and tipping it wide. Gary Goalie does indeed go that way, but the ball goes down the middle, just to the left a bit and my vision of a heroic feat of Gary Goalkeeping is shattered. 

It's going to be tough this. 

It's made tougher by Casey going down very shortly afterwards and then, weirdly, Finnegan appearing to suffer exactly the same injury at exactly the same time. Maybe they're so close they can feel each other's pain? Who knows. On comes Husband and Evans, two players we were probably quite keen to give a night off to. 

The subs seem to strengthen us a bit. There's a penalty shout at the other end. I'm way too far away to sense anything definitive and I shrug it off. Later someone tells me it looked nailed on on the the telly. Who knows? Apter grows into the game a little, trying some darting runs, first getting a decent cross in that Beesley gets underneath and then scything across the box and smacking one hard and wide. It's a a bit more intent from us. 

Rovers continue to look quite competent at football and smash a shot just past our left hand post. We continue to work pretty hard but we don't conjure much at all until Apter again is set free and absolutely belts one the keeper can't hold and Embleton pounces on the loose ball, only to smash it miles over and probably wide as well into the bargain. 

--- 
We've been second best but we've kind of grown into the game a little bit. It's a good run out for some of them at least, but it doesn't look like we're getting much more than that so far.  
---

The second half is more of the same in that we work quite hard, we move the ball steadily but not altogether dangerously and Blackburn although definitely in a game, don't look hugely discomforted by what we're doing. 

It takes quite a while before we really come alive. We have to survive a few more efforts from Blackburn, before a decent move that looks initially to have broken down until Evans rescues it by whipping a fizzing ball in that is beaten away, falling to Norburn who, spotting the keeper down, picks a spot from 25 yards and lofts a floating effort that smacks fully against the bar and away. 

It's a sign we're still in this. 

Blackburn freshen it up and Keogh responds by stirring the pot. The group around me have just decided we want to see the front three set up and Crazy Uncle Richard has the crazy idea of doing exactly that, chucking on attacking players and changing the formation. Neil Critchley isn't dead, he's just pottering around a bungalow in Cheshire trying to keep himself busy by doing the guttering for the third time since Tuesday and checking the creases in the curtains with a spirit level, but if he were, he'd be spinning in his grave. What is this man doing? It's almost as if we're going to try and win the game by risking something! (I know! Weird! I'm not used to this either)

Almost instantly we look more dangerous. The pressing has been decent enough all night but the extra man gives Blackburn less time on the ball and someone else to think about. Robbie Apter takes control, he's doing a kind of darting, shuffling, teasing run - he's not graceful like some wingers are, he's more like a tiny battering ram, there's a kind of momentum to him, the ball closely to his feet, he's not scared to draw the defenders to him and then just dare them to show - it's all quite simple, repeatable, reliable and really quite thrilling - he has such good feet that you know if he gets even a tiny chance, he'll skip through and this time, though the Rover's lad gets his foot to the ball, Apter's force carries him on and away and he's arrowing the perfect near post ball and Beesley is stepping into it and then away, dragging the committed goalkeeper out of the game and sitting him on the floor and now, Beesley has an open goal and now Beesley can't miss and he doesn't! 

YESSSS! 

What a change and what a moment and what a goal. So simple and yet such a delight to see us score a close range effort, to get in close to the byline, find the right and the striker make the right run and finish so calmly. 

There's general pandemonium and what was becoming a slightly sleepy cup tie is now a rousing, life affirming experience. 

We're on the front foot now. (I'm never sure exactly what that means, but I think it's this) - we're racing at them, chasing everything. The crowd are right behind, roaring them on. 

Rovers with the ball. Suddenly Rover's without the ball as Hayden Coulson appears, like a cannonball and just charges through his man, takes the ball and he's fucking in! He's in... the Pool fans are on their feet already, but everyone tenses, there's a collective intake of breath, this is the chance and YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! 

He's absolutely buried it, lifting it high into the corner, curving it for good measure, a finish of an absolutely exquisite quality and the players race towards us and we scream into the east Lancashire gloom as the realisation hits. We've come from behind. Away from home. When was the last time we did that? I have no idea but I don't think it was recently. 

How long left? Enough time for it to turn to shit. Gary Goalie wisely goes down for some treatment. A cynic would suggest he's just buying that bit of time for us to calm down. I am a cynic. He's fine when he gets up and we kick off again. 

Then... the ball is slipped down the right, Apter is tunnelling through a gap, he's emerging into the box, he's shaping to shoot, his shot is swerving, bending from past the far post to inside it and the keeper is forced to make a superb stop. Fuck me. Are we actually good now? This is superb stuff. 

That's the last we make it out from under the pressure that Rover's inevitably put on us though. The clock seems to go so slowly at times like this. It's a cliche, but it's nonetheless true. They force corners. They force us into heading away, twice the referee waving play on for challenges in the box looks from the other end like he's pointed to the spot. Rovers force two really good saves from Gary Goalie, one to either side of him in quick succession. 

Injury time brings 8 minutes. Maybe the ref was wise to our keeper's efforts to slow things down. How dare he besmirch the good name of Gary Goalie. What sort of a cynical bastard reads a keeper going down as gamesmanship? Twat. More corners, more heading, more not being able to get it clear. Every time we give the ball away, I feel like being sick in my hands. There's an absolutely stunning block from someone at the back. I don't know who it is, Blackburn is one of those grounds where the other end seems a million mile away. There's a weird free kick conceded seemingly for no reason by Jimmy, yet more corners, the keeper is up, there's a countdown on the phone next to me... this is it, the last chance, it's hoofed in, the keeper lurks, we get a touch, we scramble it away and... 

...the ref blows the whistle and it's over. 

--- 

That was fucking great. 

We showed so much spirit. Keogh comes over, he's a raggedy man with his wild eyes and forever unkempt hair and greying beard. Those wild eyes are warm though and he embraces player after player after player. He turns to the masses. He smiles, he seems almost shy, sheepish perhaps, not quite sure what to do. He puts his arms in the hair, He sort of punches the air, big shovel like hands clenched into fists. It's far from the staged choreography of some other manager's post match celebrations. There's a real joy but a sense of humility about it too. It all feels a bit absurd to him perhaps. He doesn't quite know how to milk this. Perhaps he doesn't want to. He's loving it though. So am I. 

We worked really hard tonight. Keogh was again brave and he was rewarded with some brave performances. His subs were the formation I wanted but I was surprised by who he took off and how he left certain attacking players on. He's not predictable in his decisions.

Apter was probably our stand out player tonight from the starting 11 and he will gain so much from the way he stuck at it, on a night where he wasn't initially getting much at all. Jake Beesley ran his legs off and deserved his goal. Lee Evans definitely impacted the game when he came on and gave us that bit more range in midfield in the way we used the ball. Jordan Gabriel was back to being himself, getting forward, getting tackles in and occasionally getting caught out behind and racing back to cover himself. The never 90 minutes will do him the world of good and the full 90 will do Elliot Embleton the same. 

All of that is secondary to the elation, the sheer pleasure of a superb atmosphere and an unexpected 'Pool away win. 

He's got us scoring. He's got us coming from behind to win, he's without doubt got the players playing for him and he's got the crowd right at his back, roaring him and them on. 

Experience? Who needs it?! 

Onward!

---

If you want to waste your money supporting a football blog that spouts unstructured shit and then who asks if you'd like to pay cash in return for quite literally absolutely nothing you wouldn't get for free anyway, you can do so here. 

Tweet 

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. 

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Read More

What just happened? - the Mighty vs themselves (Richard Keogh's Tangerine Army)

'Listen, Yeah, so, I've not really got a clue to be fair. Listen, nah, I'll given it a go.' 

What the fuck was that week?

I don't normally pass direct comment on games I didn't attend. Talking about matches you weren't at isn't what this is about. It's about being there. Being in a crowd of people all wanting the same thing is the best thing about football. The rising tension and explosive release of celebrating a goal is the ultimate experience in life. It's better than the best things on the pitch (far post headers, passes played by a player with the vision to see what no one else can and outfield players in goal) - the crowd is the point.

It's not possible to let that game slip by though. It was too important for that.

Why though? Surely a 4-4 draw against a tinpot team who've spent the majority of their footballing lives being tinpot and don't have any Ballon d'or winners isn't anything to celebrate. How can we be happy with not beating a side whose greatest ever player is Dion Dublin? He's a competent presenter of light entertainment but he's hardly Alan Ball, Jimmy Armfield, Stanley Matthews, Stanley Mortensen et al.

It doesn't really matter who we played yesterday though.

It's a results game of course - but every now and again, style triumphs over substance. Perhaps a better way to put that is, once in a while, the style is more substantive than anything else.

Let me expand slightly. On Monday we were managed by a man whose idea of a thrill is a Chris Rea guitar solo. A man whose entire conception of football is about risk-reduction, control and shape. Neil Critchley was, what you might call a 'percentages man' - he believed in a kind of bastardised version of Arrigo Sacchi's meticulous approach. The problem wasn't that Critchley was fundamentally shit - we just didn't have a Ruud Gullit (or any of the other Milan 80s superstars) to make that careful, careful... explosive! type of football pay.

A day later, it all changed. Critchley was sent on his way. I imagine there was a sigh before he climbed into the Volvo, smoothed down the beaded seat covers, carefully placed the string back driving gloves on his hands and took one last look at Bloomfield Road. It wasn't to be this time. He'd given it his all. Sometimes you try to make something special and it doesn't work out. The recipe that looks great on paper can end up bland and tasteless.

 
It was probably better to end this way than for it to drag on, turn to true rancour. Last time was special. Maybe the most special thing he'll ever do. It was one of our best times. Maybe, just maybe, there was a tear in the corner of his eye. For all the 'cold towel moments' and 'not getting carried away' underneath all the control, the spreadsheets, the shape (in and out of possession) - Neil Critchley loves football. Football had just kicked sand in his face. 

The man, once the diminutive king of the North Stand, now shunned, on a one way trip back to his sensible bungalow, his frequently jet washed drive (paved by a reputable company to a very high standard, each interlocking brick set square perfectly) and his collection of pale coloured polo shirts, hung in his wardrobe with equal precision. He doesn't deserve hate. He made a big mistake in the way he left last time. He gave his all to putting that right. I respect him for that. Failure doesn't make you a bad person or worthy of scorn. 

He had the courage to try something, he had the stubborn will to stand up to criticism and do it anyway. When that works, people call it 'genius' - when it doesn't, you just look daft. Looking daft is part of life. Shit happens. He'll get another job. He'll be back on the grass, he'll a cog in another machine sooner or later and life goes on. Cheers Neil. 

Then there was Keogh. Have you ever been having a really lovely long sleep and been woken up suddenly by an urgent situation? You know when you're stumbling about, looking for your shoes, putting your underwear on backwards, trying to do up your shirt whilst eating a piece of toast and getting all the buttons wrong and your buttery fingers leave greasy marks on your clothes that you don't have time to do anything about. When you manage to get outside, your mind's all fuzzy, hair askew and the light is hitting your eyes like the torch of a Stasi interrogator asking you brutal and accusatory questions that you don't know the answers to or why they're being asked. 

That appeared to be how yer man Richard felt on getting the job. Then, when Grimmy got sold, it was like finally getting to the car and facing up to the task, only to find you've got a flat tyre and on top of everything else you've got to sort that out and are just going to have to drive really fast and far on the donut spare wheel in the boot even thought it's only good for low speeds and about 50 miles. 

Madness.

Crazy Uncle Richard is probably the most enjoyable footballer I've ever written about. There's just something about him. We signed him on the back of a low point in his life - discarded by Derby, unloved by the clubs he'd moved on to, aging, his name sullied by disgrace. We fell in love with him, he fell in love with us. What a player. What a brain. What a man. There are few more generous footballers with their emotion and attention. Keogh never played alone. He pointed. He shouted, he hugged, he cajoled, he applauded, he had a little word in their ears. He laughed, he hugged, he got them together in a group and talked them through it. I absolutely adored him and it was clear his teammates felt exactly the same.

There was something surreal about watching his claymation Wallace and Gromit face express itself in interviews. He gave off vibes that suggested he felt exactly what you or I might feel if you got up to go to work as normal and then, by the end of the day you were the boss and everything rested on what you decided. His words might have said 'football manager shit' but his eyebrows said 'my god, what the fuck is going on?' and his deep, sad, soulful eyes screamed 'I am actually terrified'

I loved that. 

Critchley 2.0 had lost the awareness of that fear. His eyes were once icy arctic blue. They now seemed dull. Monotony can murder your soul. In any job, you can fall into the trap of believing that 'carrying out the routine' is doing effective work - when in fact, all you are doing is 'carrying out a routine' because that's what you've always done. The fear is so deeply ingrained that it doesn't serve it's purpose an impulse for action anymore. Sometimes it takes a nervous and naive new perspective to see what is happening.

Would Keogh see that? Would he conclude that we needed something different? Would he fall back on the comfort of imitating what had gone on so far? 

Imagine being the apprentice on a job and no one with any experience comes into work. Would you have the courage to make a decision for yourself or would you just follow the rule book? Only a game of football would yield the answer. 

On Saturday we played the opposite way to almost the entire Sadler tenure. This wasn't Critchball or Appleball or Larryball. This wasn't a bastardised Pep tactic, nor was it a cynical hold and hit them on the break set up. This was playground Keegan football. This was a crude crayon drawing of Ian Holloway stuff. It was a throwback to a bygone era where teams turned up, attacked all game and the one who scored the most goals won. It was everything Critchley wouldn't do, for better, for worse. It was rock and roll in its purest form - visceral and exciting but ugly and self destructive. 

It was shit. It was brilliant. There were players who struggled badly shorn of the team's shape and structure. There were players who looked reborn in a set up where they had to think for themselves and make some decisions. There was quality set pieces, there were lightning breaks, there were horrendous mix ups and howling errors. In a nutshell. Stuff happened. I wish I'd have been there. I'd probably still be writing the match up this time tomorrow, trying to edit it down to something less than a short novel. 

After the game, Keogh looked like he'd just experienced some kind of mind expanding drug experience and finally come back to earth about 30 seconds before the camera switched on. The eyebrows, the eyes. The breathless half formed answers. He swore! It is not possible to not fall in love with a manager who accidentally saying 'fucking' on the official club TV interview. He was proud. I think he was right to be so. 

Yes, we were awful. We were also great though. We genuinely could and should have scored more. Evans' free kick, numerous situations in the box, Rhodes hit the post. This was every bit as much of a game of 'fine margins' as any sensible polo shirted, good shape and quality in key both boxes 0-0 draw. If Rhodes had scored, we genuinely might have got four more. Rhodes misses and we concede a bucketful instead. Football is like that. You can try and tame it, or you can go with it. When the storm hits, you can hide in the cellar or you can stand in the street with your arms outstretched and scream into the wind and the rain.

I have no idea if Keogh will have any chance of getting the job. I, of course, predictably and wilfully naively want him to get a 10 year contract. I am not ever going to say 'the sensible thing' - fuck that. I don't want a 'sensible and experienced manager' who spends his time on 'game management' and all that. I hate that. 

I love football. I love the game I played with a stone in the playground, I love the game I played with a tatty mitre ball shorn of all the surface and reduced to the cloth underneath on the rec. I love the impractical and expressive, I love the game stretched and ragged, I love horrible mistakes and genius improvisation, last ditch tackles, diving saves, lightning breaks, long direct balls, short passing, crunching collisions and not being able to take your eyes off it for a second because 22 blokes are simply trying to put the 1 football in either of the 2 goals. That game, such as it can be can move me to near tears just thinking about it. 

It is freedom and beauty and escape. It is dreams and joy. It is heartbreak and pain. It is whatever happens, there'll be another whistle and then it all resets and we live it out all over again. Football is cruel. Football is forgiving. Football is timeless and universal and inclusive. Football is the greatest game on earth bar none. 

Whilst Keogh's interview wasn't polished (who actually gives a fuck about that though?) I thought two things really shone out that were intelligent points. Firstly, he didn't try and sum the game up. He said, he'd need to look at it and think about it. That's a humility we haven't had for some time - and a bit more reflection might have served us well. Secondly, he talked about the fine line between instructing and stifling the team. I think we all knew where he was heading there. 

What we learned on Saturday is this: We learned what we knew already. We're a side with a lack of pace at the back and an ongoing problem when teams get at us. This is not a revelation. We also (and this is the important bit) learned that we're a side who can attack. We're a side who - if thrown into a situation and given the instruction 'go and have a go' - we can actually do that. 

Scoring some goals against Cambridge is obviously not quite proving that we're Brazil 1970 just yet - but there were almost twice the number of shots on target than we managed on the last day of the season in a 'must win-no possible reason to defend' game and almost as many as the last 3 league games combined (that includes that one off, must win game) This matters. It matters hugely. We've been managed for 3.5 years of the last 5 by one man. 

His overriding ethos is described above. It is not easy to just change that overnight. It's not been easy to imagine us creating anything without that one magical player (Bowler,/Dembele) or to see any coherency when we go forward. We achieved that. We shifted the mentality. We played with freedom and expression. We attacked. We did that so much that it bit us on the arse in the end and left us feeling stung and hurt and furious that we'd thrown it away. 

Think about it though. We threw nothing away at Burton, at Port Vale, at Cheltenham, at Lincoln and so on. We threw nothing away against Wycombe at home or Port Vale again... (and so on) - we didn't lose those games because of naivety or poor 'game management' - we lost because we showed zero intent and sat there, letting inferior footballers bully us. We offered nothing. This week - yes, we blew it and did so in a nauseating series of awful decisions and comically inept moments but the point is - we threw something away, we squandered something we'd worked hard to achieve. We capitulated, but we capitulated after we'd done so much good, not after twenty minutes of gentle probing around the box and subsequent retreat to the edge of our own. It was the same problem in some senses. It was very different in terms of what you take away from it about what to do next.

Suddenly, we've got a front three. Suddenly we didn't miss Kaddy quite so agonisingly obviously. Suddenly Kyle Joseph looked worth a few quid after all. Suddenly Dom Ballard was running about giving off quite serious Jerry Yates vibes and Ash Fletcher made sense as the irritant that would win the ball for those two. Suddenly Evans had someone to knock raking balls to. Suddenly (horrendous defensive work aside) CJ didn't look ridiculous chasing those into the corner and stretching play. We had set piece routines and we didn't leave 8 players back at corners and as such, overloaded them several times and scored twice from them. 

What we failed to do was obvious. The work that needs to go into this team is evident - but last week the answer to 'what do we have to better?' was 'literally everything' - this week the answer is far more focused.

Sometimes, you have to try something out to see what you are capable of. Sometimes you have to make mistakes to learn. Keogh was brave. The players played some brave football (alongside some shockingly inept stuff) and I've not felt 'brave' is a word I would attach to us for a long time. It sounds ridiculous, but I left Carlisle after a win, far more frustrated with having watched us sit on a 1-0 for 89 minutes than I felt after this game because all though we won, it was the same game that ultimately would never be quite enough. This was almost enough, should have been more than enough.

We are the team whose unlikely comeback from 3-1 down to win 4-3 is responsible for the popularity of football as a televised spectacle. We are the side who entranced the nation with our ridiculous, brilliant and ultimately doomed attempt to out football the worlds best players with a bunch of ragtag journeymen. We are colour and noise, we are glory and frustration sat side by side holding hands, the divine and the disastrous forever entwined.

We are tangerine. Tangerine is beautiful, impractical, inspired. It is flawed and brilliant all at once. 

It is not a colour that suits grinding it out. It is a colour that suits flying down the wing, a colour that suits a diving header, a colour that suits some flamboyance and style. I just thought Keogh felt the moment and delivered what we needed. A blowout. A reset. Some madness. Let the players show who they are and then see what you've got. 

There's owners, there's consultants, there's strategy and there's key goals, ethos, alignment, targets, mid year reviews, regulations, regulators, court cases, the media, public relations and everything else in this grotesque circus - sometimes, you might just need to stop and get the players to remember what the point of being a footballer is - to play football.

That's the point of a football club.

For all the politics attached to it, there's actually no more than that really needs to be involved.

We've been really quite poor for quite a long time. The genius of Dembele masked that. What we achieved last season was deceptive. A decent points tally but glaringly few really decent team performances. So many games where one man dug us out of a rut with a brilliant bit of skill.

It will take more than two training sessions to put that right and to make us a genuine force. We're clearly still short of some players (not least a goalkeeper and some more pace defensively if we're going to bomb forward) and that needs work.

All I can say to sum up is this - The football was so often soulless. Saturday, it was not. More of that type of thing please. Just next time, if you're going to concede four, make sure you score FIVE

Onward!

---

If you want to waste your money supporting a football blog that spouts unstructured shit and then who asks if you'd like to pay cash in return for quite literally absolutely nothing you wouldn't get for free anyway, you can do so here. 

 

Tweet 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. Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Read More

Awful - the Mighty vs Stockport County

I'm driving under a bridge. The graffiti is crudely scrawled and reads 'We invented God.' - This isn't true. God is a free agent and being linked with a move to Hartlepool after doing some preseason work with York City. 

Walking down Bloomfield Road, tangerine looks glorious in the sunsbine. I notice a man with tattoos where his eyebrows should be (but not tattoos of eyebrows, tattoos of something else, but I can't work out what the something else is)

I'm going to chuck my season ticket at Critchley if Rob Apter doesn't start...The Rapter is in. Thank fuck. My season ticket is on my phone and I've only had it a few months. Would be costly. Lets have some glory. A bit of incisive football. Some goals. That type of thing. I quite like the team although I'm not sure about a pairing of two players who don't score goals up front.

---

We start pretty well, move the ball quite confidently and if I was in a better mood, I'd wax lyrical over a Sonny Carey switch of play that released Apter and note how a slick move where Jimmy put a cross in should have been met by someone. I'd also say we had a shout for a penalty.

As the half wore on, Stockport made a couple of chances from our sloppy play and maybe should have done a bit better with them. We seemed to have the ball loads, but not to do a lot, they had it less but created about as much as we did.

You might by now realise I'm not in the mood. Usually, I'd write too much, but it's all so familiar by now. We pressed, we harried, we knocked them off their stride a few times but we didn't actually have a shot that made it anywhere near their goal.
___

I thought we did ok for half an hour but we dropped off for the last 15 and looked to be losing our way. Stockport are disrupting us with niggly fouls and we're just getting frustrated with it.

-----

We looked a bit feistier again for a few minutes. I wouldn't say we're an explosive force of footballing brilliance in this spell, but we have some attacks and Lee Evans has a few shots from distance.

There's even a brief flash of fleeting joy as I think Ash Fletcher scores from a tight angle but the offside flag was up ages before he finished it.

Then we seem to lose our way again and, I'm checking the clock and thinking 'fucking hell this game is dragging on a bit' and we're letting a Stockport player wander through about 7 of our players and smash it home. It's an absolute sickening goal.

I know in my heart of hearts, this is over, a feeling that is redoubled when Critchley turns to CJ and takes off Apter. As much as CJ is sometimes the comic relief in a match blog, I don't actually mean this to be derogatory to him - it's the way that we don't change the set up, we just hope a different player yields a reward for the same basic way of playing. Apter is the only lock pick we possess. Stockport were always going to shut the door after scoring.

Still, y'never know do you?

It turns out you do. Grimmy is beyond criticism and I'll never slag the bearded wonder off, but fuck me, he has just thrown the ball straight back to them and everyone is in pure panic mode running around but not getting a foot in and they waltz up the middle and smash home a second. I slump. This is crap. It's been a crap match and we're 2-0 down now. I can handle crap football, but when it's crap and you're losing in such a pathetic manner it feels... pointless.

They add a third. They bully us. Someone little pushes someone big all over the shop. They score again. County fans make loads of noise. Watch the highlights if you want a proper explanation, I can't be arsed.

---

I can't really find anything to more to write about what happened. We looked characterless. The North looked weird and naked without the flags. A soulless white backdrop for a soulless grey team. We looked exactly the same as the low points of last season but without Kaddy. If I'm really scratching for positives, I liked Baggot and Apter played ok first half.

Overall though, we don't look remotely on it and I can't see what the 'it' is supposed to look like. This is the problem: I can't work out what we're actually trying to do.

I can't see how we're trying to score goals. I get that we press and swarm on the opposition for a bit, but that's not a tactic we can keep up for 90 minutes. If we don't score by forcing an error from them, then we don't look remotely like scoring in any other way. In two league games I struggle to think of a good chance we've missed.

The players can't be as fundamentally as insipid as they collectively look. You don't get to be a professional player without having some self belief. It's almost a default attribute if you're going to make it through all the incredibly demanding stages to get there.

If you've not got a bit of something about you mentally, you'd have to be supremely talented to play at any level and even then, we've all seen players who just can't cut it, despite having all the technical skills. I don't see how it's possible we've accidentally recruited 25 of them all at once. There's got to be something in how we're preparing the players that explains how and why they lack the ability to adapt to a game.

Stockport played things perfectly. They survived our pressure, they took advantage of a ref who was keen to give the fouls but not dish any cards out, they sat a bit deeper as the game progressed, drew us on and then smashed us repeatedly over the head with lightning breaks. In a way, it was almost a bit like what we did to teams in the Championship - fight for everything, make it hard, go hard at them when there's a chance and show no fear. It's weird that it was the same Critchley inspired that team to believe, to play at a level that we weren't sure they could play at. This team just haven't seemed inspired at all. They don't seem to believe.

It feels churlish and spiteful to pick on individuals when collectively we looked completely and utterly confused by Stockport - as if they defended too well and attacked too directly and that was surprise to us - the much vaunted 'shape, in and out of possession' fell to bits and would be better described as 'a shapeless mess'

For about half an hour, we relied almost completely on hitting diagonals to the right hand corner as our only tactic - it achieved absolutely nothing. I'm getting sick of football that is rigid and fearful. I don't know what we gave Stockport to think about barring a bit of pressing and a few potshots. The same applied last week. The same applied quite often last season. We don't make opportunities, we don't put spells of pressure together, we aren't good to watch and we aren't great defensively either. In fact, we were shocking defensively today. It's two games in, I know that but...

... Stockport played to their ability and strengths. Crawley did the week before. They had a coherent plan, an approach to that particular game and they executed it along with some tactical tweaks and adaptations. We just seem to do the same fucking thing, over and over, changing players but changing nothing. The players try gamely for a bit, but their heads go when that plan doesn't work because there doesn't appear to be another plan.

What worries me most of all is the focus Critchley gave after the game on defensive errors. Yeah, the defending was crap and yes, Grimmy dropped an absolute clanger, but not for one moment did he say 'we're not creating enough and that's drawing pressure on us because we can't attack with any real conviction and sooner or later....'

We aren't creating enough - we're not testing the other keeper, we're not whistling the ball past the post, we're not smashing it off the bar three times in a row, we're not stood there with our heads in our hands thinking 'how is not going in?' - take all the errors away and you've probably got two draws against sides who were in the league below us last year because whilst margins are fine and quality in key moments and in both boxes does count, we aren't playing well and I don't feel as if we've been hard done by. 

We play some nice football in spells, but we look toothless up front and wobbly at the back. That's really a sign that something needs to change because it's not working. It doesn't look near to working. Spells of being near the other teams box for a bit isn't enough. 

To put it another way - that wasn't a £31 (plus booking fee) product. Yes, the fucking Sealife Centre might be a similar price bracket Julian, but fuck me, as a consumer, I wish I'd gone there because those rays that stick their heads up above the water are a lot more fun than anything at a testy, surly and anxious Bloomfield Road this afternoon.

Onward:

Tweet

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.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Read More

Glory is slightly delayed - the Mighty vs the weight of expectation

I never intended to set myself up as a tactical analyst and am far more comfortable writing sentences describing singular observations (for example, Jimmy's running style (as if someone has turned a key on his thigh muscles a quarter turn too tight)) than I am describing the game in tactical terms. 

None the less, I feel I have to express myself in order to clear my head for the next match that matters. (The league cup, I don't care about. It's a weird competition that has never really mattered that much to anyone and the best thing about is that it was once sponsored by milk.)

What happened at Crawley was depressingly familiar and, despite the optimism before the game, in hindsight (20/20 vision) grimly predictable. 

Here are my main observations: 

1: We missed Marvin Ekpiteta - the back three was slow and easily turned. Crawley could attack us by running at us or knocking direct balls at the heart of defence. 

2: The defence sat deep - possibly because of the lack of pace in it - that prevented us getting our midfield higher up the pitch and connected with the forwards. 

3: We ostensibly played two sitting midfielders with Carey. Sonny's best performances all come in games where we've attacked and we've had mobile players around him. With deep lying midfielders and a striker who is neither mobile, nor a target man, you don't make the space that Sonny exploits. We missed the 'link' man within the midfield (a role Sonny himself played at the end of the season) - the player who can play with both the 6 and the 10 depending on the game situation. 

4. CJ Hamilton had a game that defines his career with us. It's not fair to take it all out on him - but he looked both sharp as a tack and blunt as Geoff Boycott forward defensive. Time and again, he got in, time and again, nothing came of it. Shorn of Kaddy and short of playing Apter, CJ is the nearest thing to a danger man we had. Like others, CJ is a better player when there's better players around. 

5. We didn't look desperate to score. Coulson's one real contribution was a lovely cross from a delayed Carey pass. No one attacked it. Twice I watched us put average corners in that were made to look terrible because no one fought for the ball. We just don't look hungry in the box. We didn't last season. It's like everything we do is about what happens up to the edge of the box. 

6. Both Beesley and Fletcher improved us. Neither of them will win awards for aesthetics but both of them worked hard and seemed aware of both each other and where the ball was coming from. Sometimes a lesser player can make the overall team better and Bees is someone who will do what is needed all day long. 

7. I noticed last season that we seem to break tentatively. We'll have a player galloping away and it seems only one or two will go with him. That's grand when you're 3-1 up but we play like that when we're losing too. My best guess is that the players are taught that their job is to hold the shape and held accountable for when the shape breaks down. To me, when the shape hasn't succeeded up to that point, it's a positive when players seek to make something happen and use initiative. 

8. Stemming back to Appleton's reign of joy and delight, we've shown a tendency to start well and then collapse after 10-20 minutes. We dominated the opening 7 minutes. We played high and pressed really well. Crawley then broke a couple of times and we never regained that level of performance again. It took an hour for us to really make any changes and a further 15 minutes to try the most likely scorer/creative players on the bench (Apter) 

---

Overall, I was left with the impression that nothing had changed. That's probably unfair, it's probably me looking at things with a fans results orientated focus and maybe the data vra spreadsheets show loads of great things hidden beneath the surface. 

Superficially though, whilst Norburn came close from distance and Sonny had a few efforts with which he could have tested the keeper more and we put a few decent balls in amidst the more speculative crosses and through balls, we didn't manage a sustained period of pressure and only the late and well worked Fletcher chance (crafted by Bees) really worked the keeper. Crawley on the other hand had two goals ruled out and really could and should have scored a third straight after we scored. 

There are players to come in. Baggot should add height and mobility. Embleton might add that link play in midfield and quality. Evans will only get fitter and so on. 

It's one game in. All is to play for. What we need to see is a bit more in the squad (a Shayne Lavery replacement is a non-negotiable) and a lot more desire to risk the structure, to roll the dice, to chance our arm. That applies equally to the way we attack the ball in the box and the way the coaching staff manage the game on the sidelines. We can faff about with shape against Burton but against Stockport, we need to throw the kitchen sink at winning. To do that, we need to make chances. We might miss them, but make enough and we'll score some. That breeds confidence, joy, pleasure. Shape is important but no one becomes a footballer for the ecstatic pleasure of holding the shape. I want to see us play as if we want to be there. 

Glory is inevitable. We go again. 

Onward! 

Tweet 

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. 

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Read More

Glory is inevitable: The Mighty vs the forces of despair and entropy (i.e. everyone else)

It's wild how things change. The country was on the brink of an insurrection 5 minutes ago but now it's seemingly not. It was sunny and warm two days ago but now it's like there's never been a break in the clouds and as I clatter this shite out, the sky outside my window lies heavy, an oppressive grey blanket smothering the summer. After the Tranmere game, I was thinking we might never score a goal all season, but then we knocked it about reasonably competently against the mighty football force that is Crewe Alexandra and signed a couple of players and so now I'm thinking we'll score at least 2 in every half we play. At very least. 

Ok, maybe I'm getting carried away, but that's the point of being a fan.

Isn't it? 

A supporter isn't one of those data analysis sites that looks at all the facts and returns a balanced prediction. A supporter is a one eyed lunatic who, for reasons they can't properly explain to themselves, follows the fate of a football team (an ever revolving cast of characters on a journey that oscillates between joy and abject frustration on a weekly basis.) They hope against hope that their side will win more than they lose. The supporter has no real interest in the objective facts. They just want a reason to believe that next week will be a joyous one.

No matter how much money Man City and their ilk dedicate to the cause of strangling any competition we still believe. No matter how steep the climb, deep down, we all need to think that there's a tiny chance we can win out. Even if the step up to the next level is a cliff face and the path to success is narrow and flanked by precipitous drops and we're buffeted by tornado strength winds of force 9 global capital - we still carry in our mind an idea that, somehow, somewhen we can get to where we want to be. Because we can. Because if we don't believe, we might as well do something more constructive with our time.

Those players we signed... One of them is a kid on loan. He's tall though. He can head it away. The other lad is tricky string puller who can hit a rocket but he hasn't played for ages. He can take a corner and a free kick though. We've got some other big lads. That's a way to score goals. If the mostly injured lad can cross it to the big lad. Boom. Champions League next week. Maybe we can just have him take the corners and nothing else. Chuck in an old fella who can shoot and another lad who hasn't played much either but can pass well and we're on a roll.

We're unstoppable.

We've still got the best right back in the division (the fact he's often injured and doesn't play all the time even when he's not injured and we don't actually play with a right back per se is neither here nor there.) We've got the best young player from the league below last year and we're all excited to see him, (it's the work of an incorrigible cynic to point out that he doesn't seem to fit in any of the available positions.) We've got the quickest player in the world too and he can run after the passes the lad who is good at passing but injured a lot last year can hit... (lets overlook the fact that football isn't just running after it and leave it there.) Our goalie is pretty good too (there's no sardonic content to connect to Grimmy - because he is pretty fucking good.) We've signed a striker who doesn't score but (this is the 4d chess genius of Blackpool FC that makes us the greatest team in the world ever bar none) that's exactly the kind of player who does score when they're playing for Blackpool.

Now do you see? 

Jimmy Husband is the right man to be captain. This is beyond doubt. He has both a seriously professional attitude and a proper sense of humour. Ollie Norburn was too grumpy. Jordan Rhodes is too 'head boy.' Ollie would probably nut anyone who stepped out of line and Jordan would probably talk to them about eating sensibly and having a good early bedtime as a routine and go back to looking at oatmeal carpet samples with Critchley as they compare ideas for redecorating their respective conservatories*. Everyone else is too new or too young or too regularly broken or Dom Thompson. In a era where players come and go like mayflies, Jimmy is a constant and he's the right kind of footballer - good enough to deserve a place, but not so good that he can't understand the struggles of others. He talks, he fights, he wants it. There's nothing I want more than a picture of Jimmy lifting a trophy to go alongside the rest of our history. 

*Random sample of conversation from above conversation

"You know Jordan, Janine suggested a light yellow. I said 'Janine, for goodness sake, we'll never sleep if we lay that carpet, think of the eye strain!' - she said, 'ok Neil, this is like that time I suggested you don't have to start slowing down half a mile from the junction isn't it?... What about this light blue' and I said 'Janine, the beauty of oatmeal is it is both a colour and very much not one at the same time' - I think she understood. She muttered something about 'Give me strength - I'm just about done with this' and I think that she meant her mind was made up on the carpet too and agreed with me, so that's good. Now, hows the putting practice going?'

A week ago, the thought of the new season elicited a sigh of duty. Somehow, from somewhere, an enthusiasm has hit me like a wave. There's a Temu online catalogue's worth of ifs, buts and maybes and yet, I'm somehow feeling giddily optimistic. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just the memory of the Embleton goal, that moment of manic release from a strange past that seems weirdly distant now. 

Demi intercepts. He spreads to Embleton. Embo must give it, there's an overlap. The greedy get goes inside again, he's going to run into a man and waste it, but no! He's sent his man with his eyes, shaping one way, then going the other and he's drifting right through and he's digging out a beautiful, beautiful curler, and now he's running away arms aloft and I am going mental and so is everyone else. Jerry is behind the goal, he's whipping the fans up and we're drinking it in, delirious, joyous, release... Fuck you Bradford. This is not a repeat.  

 

Maybe it's also that, despite all the grumbling I've done, despite all the complete and utter frustration I've felt with Neil 'front foot football' Critchley's polo shirted, sensible, volvo driving, leisure club attendant, possession obsessed, erm, in and and out of possession, moments of quality in both boxes, erm, the grouppp, on the grass, talking up the opposition, definitely not given Gary his sunbed back because he seems to be perma-tanned these days, side parting like an early 90s geography teacher who also does a bit of PE but only with year 7 and 8 ways - I can't shake the underlying (and at times last year as deeply underlying as the Mariana Trench) belief that he is actually competent and maybe he knows more than I do about it all. 

Stubbornness. The hare and the tortoise. We all want it now. now. now. racing away from games in a rage screaming 'get Dobbie in' and 'fucking change it you prick!' Neil plots at a different pace. He sticks to his plan. He blocks out the noise. He believes. He moulds and shapes, he tweaks the the grouppp. The grouppp grows stronger. The grouppp gets better. In and out of possession. Quality emerges. In both boxes. The imp at the heart of the storm. The grouppp his maelstrom. A football magician. We liked it but not a lot, but now we love it. 

I hope so. I really, really do. 

If they stay fit. 
If we can add that pacy striker. 
If we can find a way round those teams who stick it up you and park the bus
If we can be that bit more flexible
If Keogh can shout loud enough
If Keogh can point in a pointy enough way at things only he can see. 

If we get behind them
If it comes together
If that noise can grow

If that noise can get into your bones
If that noise can lighten your step
If that noise can leave you feeling purged of all the blackness and ease the knotted muscles from carrying all the weight of life and the constant fight you have just to keep putting one foot ahead of the other and give you in a moment, that sense, that precious and indefinable, unexplainable, completely illogical but so fucking real and you know it is because you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't share it sense of complete and utter total joy and connection and screaming, leaping, tumbling, roaring, fist clenching release that is like no other feeling in the world. 

Any season can go any way. This one might just go ours. You never know.

Fuck that. We're going up as fucking champions. They'll promote us twice we'll be so good. In fact, they'll probably give us a Champions League spot just so the TV companies can share the leggy gangling genius of Jake Beesley with the world. The advertisers will demand it. Bees will be the most wanted player on FIFA 26, Bees will do chat shows, Bees will have a range of grooming products, Bees will become one of those mad players that kids follow instead of teams because his highlights reels will flood Tiktok and China will probably have to turn off the internet because if they don't the power will fail and the whole country will be plunged into darkness. All hail Bees. 

I may have got carried away a little tiny bit.

That's the fucking point though.

Isn't it? 

Fuck Disney clubs, fuck USA 'make this grimy shithole midlands city that's never been any good anyway great again' hat wearing dickhead clubs, fuck chairmen doing podcast clubs, fuck clubs with stupid jokey play on words stadium names, fuck plucky ex non-league clubs that you can't even remember what colour they play in, fuck Shrewsbury fucking Town even though they've never actually done anything to deserve being disliked by anyone.

Fuck the lot of them. We'll beat them all. 10-0. Sonny Carey will score 50 goals. All from 30 yards.

Death to realism. I'm sick of reality anyway. It's shit.

There's only one glory, only one path, only one enlightenment, only one true revelation. That, as we all know, is TANGERINE. 

Everything else is just disinformation.  

Onward!

If you want to waste your money supporting a football blog that spouts unstructured shit and then who asks if you'd like to pay cash in return for quite literally absolutely nothing you wouldn't get for free anyway, you can do so here. 

Tweet 

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. 

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Read More