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| At least the keeper didn't score. |
A panoramic shot of a field at dusk. In the background the sky is painted with sunset as if a theatrical diorama created for this moment and this moment only. At the point where the sky meets the land, a distant illuminated tower. I turn my head. Look to the land on the other side of the road. The sky is darker and a thousand crows wheel, a corvid whirlwind above autumnal stubble.
Sometimes I wish I had longer just to take in the world. To do nothing but notice. There's angles and beauty in everything. Lines, colours, textures that speak of something beyond my comprehension. Maybe it's a soul. I don't know. Who even has time for a soul in this world of forever doing. I always seem to be moving, thinking 'what next' and these fleeting moments of inexplicable transcendence will have to do.
Anyway.... Football! That's next. I'm in a strange mood still though. I put my earphones in and listen to some music. The effect is eerie as the PA system bleeds together with my tunes and everything is kind of ghostly and distant. Some kids chase the sprinkler showers along the edge of the gangway. Keogh is coaching in a very enthusiastic way. People climb the steps, some slower than others. Various stewards and safety people perform a choreography of pointing and walking and looking, without appearing to affect any great change.
The music ends.
Beesley's in, Rhodes is out. I approve of that.
I'm looking forward to this one.
---
It's very nearly the end. The game isn't dead, but it's definitely not got long to live. The keeper is up. As a rule, I love keepers coming up - I have a bad feeling this time though. I've had a bad feeling for about 15 minutes. Lincoln just won't lie down. They're rugged and ugly and they've shithoused there way to having ten men and the crowd on top of them but they're refusing to lie down. They're like a zombie in a terrible film that just won't die and we're panicking, shooting it time and again but it keeps coming, bits hanging off it, limbs missing, lurching towards us slowly and surely, our party one by one falling prey to the inevitable forward march of the monster till nothing stands between them and us...
We've left no one up. They wouldn't track them anyway, it's all or nothing now. I hate this. I'm watching the keeper. They've got some big lads. Some square shouldered beasts. C'mon Pool. Hang on. Get to it. The ball comes in, it arcs, close to the keeper but he can't make contact, I'm momentarily relieved that the ball has bypassed the central melee but then I'm horrified as they've a man over who steals in, seemingly unopposed and the ball is being diverted in. Someone was there, but whoever it was doesn't do a great deal to stop it.
I'm in a kind of shock. I look to the linesman. Nothing. I look to the ref. He seems to have given it. One of their players is screaming in the faces of our lads. Classy twat. The rest of them celebrate in front of their fans. The keeper trots back to his goal and gives a bit back to the Kop.
I feel actually sick.
What presaged this moment of abject horror was a period of play where we looked increasingly rattled by Lincoln when we should have been cruising to victory. Something went wrong. Everything went wrong.
Tyrer stopped being able to kick. We stopped being able to pass full stop. Jimmy hooked it out play and spun round in anger at himself. Sonny passed it inexplicably to the East Stand and his shoulders fell. At one point, Embleton's attempts to get back in position seemed so laboured, I thought he would unfold a little stool and have a sit down to catch his breath. We couldn't hold the ball. We couldn't pass it to each other. We couldn't even clear it. We looked as if we had ten men and Lincoln 12. I have no idea where that came from, whether it was nerves are having been held for so long, whether it was, for some players at least, fatigue from 4 intense games in 10 days or whether Lincoln just found some kind of next level energy for 15 minutes or a bit of everything. If anything it was like we tried too hard most of the time but not quite hard enough in a few moments in between. We just went to bits.
Tyrer stopped being able to kick. We stopped being able to pass full stop. Jimmy hooked it out play and spun round in anger at himself. Sonny passed it inexplicably to the East Stand and his shoulders fell. At one point, Embleton's attempts to get back in position seemed so laboured, I thought he would unfold a little stool and have a sit down to catch his breath. We couldn't hold the ball. We couldn't pass it to each other. We couldn't even clear it. We looked as if we had ten men and Lincoln 12. I have no idea where that came from, whether it was nerves are having been held for so long, whether it was, for some players at least, fatigue from 4 intense games in 10 days or whether Lincoln just found some kind of next level energy for 15 minutes or a bit of everything. If anything it was like we tried too hard most of the time but not quite hard enough in a few moments in between. We just went to bits.
The first half was us dominant at first, then struggling to break Lincoln down, then putting pressure on again. We'd done everything but score. Morgan, set up by a smart set piece from Evans absolutely rattled one that did everything but go in after the keeper blocked it. Coulson had a great run and set up Joseph who produced a divine spinning finish that the keeper performed a near miracle to get to. Evans put one just wide and, after CJ performed an equal near miracle to keep the ball in play we had a mad goal mouth scramble where Gabriel came closest to brute forcing the ball home and the players all ran away beseeching the ref for a handball.
Lincoln did not a lot aside from defend resolutely and foul, their highlights were a cross scuffed wide and Connor McGrandles not being sent off when really, there was a strong case for a second yellow. We pinged it wide, we slipped it through, Robbie Apter found crosses from the most oblique of angles - we played pretty well, but we didn't score.
The second half was weird. We seemed to adopt a cat and mouse style, passing it along the back, daring Lincoln to press and then, when they came, whipping it long or trying to play through them. It was a curious mix of Critchball and Stevie Bruce's 90's football extravaganza. Lincoln posed no real threat, but we were also struggling to break them down - the one real chance coming after CJ was sent up the left and produced a peach of a cross (yes, he did) only for Fletcher to produce the kind of header that a year 8 kid who isn't very good would produce, the ball seeming to balloon off the top of his head in a manner redolent of someone who'd closed their eyes, jumped and hoped for the best.
Then, Kyle Joseph, not for the first time this half is caught. He's been running deep in horizontal lines, providing an angle for our more artistic attempts to get out and it is very useful, very intelligent and Lincoln has no answer but to kick him up in the air. The no 5 did it once too many times and he was gone.
The ground erupts. The ground has been great tonight. The less there are, the louder it is sometimes. The drum is a permanent back beat. Duh duh duuuuu d-d-d-d duuuuuu (drum pounds) duh duh duuuuuu (etc) I've bounced involuntarily on the balls of my feet for 20 minutes. C'mon the Pool...
Almost instantly, the cry is heeded. Fletcher, right hand side, great control and a run, he takes it to the byline it seems, he's run it too far has he? He hasn't because he's pulled it back and Kyle Joseph has slid in and sent the place wild! Yes! Great play. Never doubted the big man. Honest.
I'm dreaming of the league table. I'm dreaming of the second goal. I'm dreaming of us knocking it about as Lincoln get more and more ragged and we maybe take off Joseph and perhaps Rhodes scores an impudent little finish or two and maybe they go down to 9 or even 8 as their temper gets the better of them... We'll teach that keeper to fake injury. He'll have a bad back from picking the ball out of the net so many times...
This, as you already know is not quite how things turn out.
At the moment of death, we have a corner. Evans, as he seem to do with an unerring regularity spins it right into the box and finds a man. Unfortunately, it's the big lad from year 8 again who can run about but he's closed his eyes again and the ball just bounces off him to the keeper.
The last rites are spoken.
Fuck's sake Pool.
---
Sometimes. I hate football.
We've got a squad built for 5-3-2 polite possession football and it shows when we get stretched. There's 13 or 14 of them who are well suited to playing a totally different way and some who really aren't built for what we're doing now. Whether, in hindsight, we could shuffle the pack a bit more, set up a bit differently, make different changes, I don't know.
I know this fucking stung, because we should have had it won. I can't help but have a grudging respect for Lincoln. They're not Wrexham or Birmingham - they're just a team of players with no particular great star value but fuck me, they scrapped to the death in a horrible and uncompromising way.
That's no comfort - but it's the mentality that we've shown a lot more of late, but not in that final section tonight. There was something in the air tonight - and it dissipated so quickly, a reminder of how brilliantly (and terribly) fragile success and belief is. If you're Man City, you have a battalion of pure class waiting to come in - if you're us, you have a first team and some others and you get tired, you get knocks, you end up thinking 'if only player x (mainly Norburn tonight in that wild 15 minutes) was fit' and 'how we miss Dom Ballard' - Coulson going off wasn't a good thing. There's no bigger advocate of the footballing genius of Jimmy Husband (formerly topknotted god amongst men) but the hipster has been fantastic in the last few games and gives us an additional burst of pace and attacking threat. He's been Gabriel but on the other flank and we'll miss that if he's out and we missed him when he went off.
Tonight was fucking painful, but if it wasn't for the pain, the joy wouldn't be so rich. I honestly have pissed myself of with that trite ending, but what else am I going to say? It's true. At some point it'll be us stealing a point in the dying seconds and it will feel glorious because tonight felt so shit. That's how it goes. I still don't feel any better despite writing that Pollyanna shit.
Blackpool are Blackpool.
Onward.
Lincoln did not a lot aside from defend resolutely and foul, their highlights were a cross scuffed wide and Connor McGrandles not being sent off when really, there was a strong case for a second yellow. We pinged it wide, we slipped it through, Robbie Apter found crosses from the most oblique of angles - we played pretty well, but we didn't score.
The second half was weird. We seemed to adopt a cat and mouse style, passing it along the back, daring Lincoln to press and then, when they came, whipping it long or trying to play through them. It was a curious mix of Critchball and Stevie Bruce's 90's football extravaganza. Lincoln posed no real threat, but we were also struggling to break them down - the one real chance coming after CJ was sent up the left and produced a peach of a cross (yes, he did) only for Fletcher to produce the kind of header that a year 8 kid who isn't very good would produce, the ball seeming to balloon off the top of his head in a manner redolent of someone who'd closed their eyes, jumped and hoped for the best.
Then, Kyle Joseph, not for the first time this half is caught. He's been running deep in horizontal lines, providing an angle for our more artistic attempts to get out and it is very useful, very intelligent and Lincoln has no answer but to kick him up in the air. The no 5 did it once too many times and he was gone.
The ground erupts. The ground has been great tonight. The less there are, the louder it is sometimes. The drum is a permanent back beat. Duh duh duuuuu d-d-d-d duuuuuu (drum pounds) duh duh duuuuuu (etc) I've bounced involuntarily on the balls of my feet for 20 minutes. C'mon the Pool...
Almost instantly, the cry is heeded. Fletcher, right hand side, great control and a run, he takes it to the byline it seems, he's run it too far has he? He hasn't because he's pulled it back and Kyle Joseph has slid in and sent the place wild! Yes! Great play. Never doubted the big man. Honest.
 |
| NOTHING CAN GO WRONG NOW |
I'm dreaming of the league table. I'm dreaming of the second goal. I'm dreaming of us knocking it about as Lincoln get more and more ragged and we maybe take off Joseph and perhaps Rhodes scores an impudent little finish or two and maybe they go down to 9 or even 8 as their temper gets the better of them... We'll teach that keeper to fake injury. He'll have a bad back from picking the ball out of the net so many times...
This, as you already know is not quite how things turn out.
At the moment of death, we have a corner. Evans, as he seem to do with an unerring regularity spins it right into the box and finds a man. Unfortunately, it's the big lad from year 8 again who can run about but he's closed his eyes again and the ball just bounces off him to the keeper.
The last rites are spoken.
Fuck's sake Pool.
---
Sometimes. I hate football.
We've got a squad built for 5-3-2 polite possession football and it shows when we get stretched. There's 13 or 14 of them who are well suited to playing a totally different way and some who really aren't built for what we're doing now. Whether, in hindsight, we could shuffle the pack a bit more, set up a bit differently, make different changes, I don't know.
I know this fucking stung, because we should have had it won. I can't help but have a grudging respect for Lincoln. They're not Wrexham or Birmingham - they're just a team of players with no particular great star value but fuck me, they scrapped to the death in a horrible and uncompromising way.
That's no comfort - but it's the mentality that we've shown a lot more of late, but not in that final section tonight. There was something in the air tonight - and it dissipated so quickly, a reminder of how brilliantly (and terribly) fragile success and belief is. If you're Man City, you have a battalion of pure class waiting to come in - if you're us, you have a first team and some others and you get tired, you get knocks, you end up thinking 'if only player x (mainly Norburn tonight in that wild 15 minutes) was fit' and 'how we miss Dom Ballard' - Coulson going off wasn't a good thing. There's no bigger advocate of the footballing genius of Jimmy Husband (formerly topknotted god amongst men) but the hipster has been fantastic in the last few games and gives us an additional burst of pace and attacking threat. He's been Gabriel but on the other flank and we'll miss that if he's out and we missed him when he went off.
Tonight was fucking painful, but if it wasn't for the pain, the joy wouldn't be so rich. I honestly have pissed myself of with that trite ending, but what else am I going to say? It's true. At some point it'll be us stealing a point in the dying seconds and it will feel glorious because tonight felt so shit. That's how it goes. I still don't feel any better despite writing that Pollyanna shit.
Blackpool are Blackpool.
Onward.
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