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?
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.
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If we get behind them
If it comes together
If that noise can grow
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.
*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.
.jpeg)
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.
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!
Onward!
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