There is more than a hint of spring in the air. Spring's appeal is the promise of summer to come. There's maybe a hint of spring in our footballing circumstances too, it's not so much that you look at our squad and see a midsummer's day of an automatic promotion squad, but more that the likes of Bloxham and Ennis offer the kind of hope for better days on the horizon.
What about today though? This division seems to consist of the following:
a) teams with no fans that are miles away
b) teams with some fans that are miles away but play us on tuesday night so might as well have no fans
c) teams with loads of fans but who've spent the equivalent of the cost of several new battleships just to try and get out of this crappy division which doesn't really endear them to anyone whose budget is more in line with hiring a boat on Stanley Park lake than commissioning a Yankee version of HMS Piss the League.
d) Huddersfield, Rotherham, Wigan and Charlton and us.
I think what I'm saying is, there feels like a lack of 'proper' clashes to look forward to. Blackpool vs Charlton, however is a classic fixture in a way. It's of no particular historic import, save for the fact it oozes a sense of time, it carries an immediate post war vibe, long shorts, heavy shirts, burning capstan tobacco mingling with steam engine smoke, likely a fair smattering of international players between the two sides and if you're lucky, somewhere it will be recorded in the Pathe news archive. I've not checked yet, because I'd rather imagine it - packed crowds, demob suited, rattle waving, swaying to the game and watching nimble wingers fight it out with brutal hobnailed cloggers on rutted mess of a pitch. I would give almost anything to experience football like that, as it was and as exists now only as an increasingly hazy, semi-mythic folk memory.
I've digressed haven't I?
The car is broken so I'm on the train. I like that. It means a walk on a nice day and an extra beer or two. I watch a man in very expensive looking knitwear read a book on the philosophy of Wagner (spoiler mate, he's into superbeings and all that weird shit I think), 4 Japanese girls sit down across from me and fulfil every lazy stereotype of Japanese girls, filming everything in sight with their manga sticker adorned phones with seemingly no discernment between the mundane and interesting. A lad in a tracksuit loudly tells his mate "I need a fucking massive turd soon or it's going to be armageddon" - variety is truly the spice of life and the train to Blackpool is often spicier than most. I wonder if Wagner would like it.
Walking across town, there's a smattering of kids clutching prizes from the arcade, some sharp and pinched faced ghouls skulking from shadow to shadow as if frightened of the daylight and a steady plod of pensioners making for their favourite cafe. The sky is blue enough for Blackpool to start making some sort of sense. I mean, let's be honest, Blackpool never makes sense, (that's the whole appeal and purpose of the place) but on a wet and dark Wednesday in winter, it makes the least sense of all, a town shuttered as if the tide has gone out, never to return. In the crisp air, there's just a sense of the season to come, the seaside returning to life. A few more businesses on the front chance an opening, like the first tentative snowdrops coming to bud.
Anyway. Football.
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On the pitch Bruce declares, "If it's not broke, why fix it" with a same again line up - It takes a while for us to get going and despite some canny flicks from Bloxham and nice link work from Fletcher, we can't find our way around Charlton's niggly and resolute play. They're every inch a Nathan Jones side and for a man who is a devout Christian I sometimes wonder if he's read a bit of the Bible I've missed in my skim readings that declares "thou shalt trip and push and pinch thy opponent, for the Lord declared, it is the shithouse who shalt inherit the earth, especially if he waves and shouts all the time like a maniac"
It's about half way through the first half that we start to look something like and it's a series of crosses into the box that threaten to undo Charlton. I can't remember the order of things but variously, Baggot squeezes a header just past the post, one goes all the way through and just past the post, Husband comes from deep and just doesn't quite get the touch on an another. All the while, I'm watching the otherwise much improved Fletcher and thinking 'he always seems to act as if he thinks there's a number 9 behind him that he doesn't want to get in the way of' and that a week worth of 'diving header and chucking yourself at stuff' practice wouldn't go amiss. Maybe he's got an imaginary striking partner in his head and perhaps Ennis can get on that wavelength and make that real. A physical manifestation of Ash Fletcher's dream...
We're definitely on top. CJ gets on the end of a stabbed pass, gets round the back and draws a decent save, then makes a hash of a terrific cross a few minutes later. The nicest bit of play in the half sees us move it quickly, stand it up for Fletcher who nods down for Carey to not quite get over the top of the chance and put it a few inches over the top.
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We've been the better side and it feels as if anyone is going to win this, it's us.
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When will I learn?
Their first is a black comedy of a goal. A cross. Tyrer tips it away from the on coming striker, but only to a deeper lying player. He lashes it in and then we seem to clear it twice only for it to come back each time as it was on elastic and then to finally fall in the net somehow with everyone despairingly close to stopping it. Agony. Tryer then adds a punchline to the painful joke by trying to lash it up the pitch for kick off only for it to smack into one of our players backs and into the goal again. Fuck's sake football.
We need a response to this...
The response isn't optimal. In fact, it's more sub-optimal than anything else. We let Charlton all down the right where there best player (no 7) belts it hard into the ruck of players at the near post and it comes off what is possibly Ollie Casey at exactly the wrong angle and gives Tyrer no chance. Hmm. I just sigh. I dunno. I should never hope. Maybe it's my fault.
So much for being the better side. Football is brutal like that. Sometimes, it feels as if it's not so much a sport but a giant exercise in proving that the ratty teacher everyone had who snapped "Not fair? listen, life's not fair and you'll have to live with that, so might as well start getting used to it now" was right.
I try to reason with myself. There's still stuff worth watching. Might as well spin the wheel and give some of the new lads a go eh? See what happens. Satisfy our curiosity.
Bruce responds quickly to my telepathy and in a move of 5d chess level proportions (it's like 4d chess but with 1 more d) takes off Jimbo and out thinks everyone in the ground by making CJ the captain. CJ looks really surprised and eyes the armband as if not entirely sure how to put it on. He's nothing if not resilient and manages it without any mishap (i.e. putting on his leg or head)
He also brings on some of the new blood. first Silvera and then Ennis and that injection of technique and urgency to impress makes all the difference. Whilst we arguably look more ragged at the back (CJ is not only skipper but playing left back, another role no one knew (let alone him) that he could do) we start to look more purposeful going forward, with Ennis looking fleet footed and skillful and Silvera in and out of pockets of space doing unpredictable things in a way that vaguely reminds me of those great flashes of Ian Poveda when he wasn't flouncing about in a mad car and pissing managers off.
There's some ooohs as we go close (a sudden shot from out of nowhere from Bloxham well saved by their keeper) and some groans as promising moves break down. Even after the second Charlton goal, there remained a slightly surprising sense that we could get back into this but it's just starting to dissipate when ..
... things start to get interesting and my recollection from here on probably becomes a bit more expressionistic. Silvera has it in midfield thanks to a sharp touch from Morgan and he's slaloming in that alarming way that players like him do where it feels as if they're on the verge of losing the ball all the time and each tackle they come through surprises you more and then suddenly he's having a shot and it's a great one swerving past the keeper and home and that belief is now back... Glance to the clock. Time left to win this... (what am I thinking?)
... then it's Beesley, much maligned, but ever game and scorer of surprising goals who is chasing what seems not too promising a a cause but I've got a feeling somehow that something might go for us here and for once, the feeling is right as Bees crashes in, the defender is careless and our gangly hero is coming out with the ball and is astonishingly in on goal and then battering a shot from what feels too far out, but proves not to be as the keeper is totally done, but the bar saves Charlton... the woodwork, though has barely stopped vibrating as Ennis males the rebound, wrestles or wriggles some space (I don't know to be honest, he just got there and found it somehow) and slots it home! YESSSSSSSSSS!
Football. Flippin' heck as someone sort of once said.
We're not done. There's some wobbly moments as Charlton try and play it off the massive Aneke (I like him, cos we know I like a big lad up front, though a Charlton fan after the game describes him to me as 'total dogshit') and we panic a bit. Sonny turns out to have a really quite decent long throw and to be able to chuck it quite a long way without trying very hard, a fact that seems as previously unlikely as CJ's inspirational leadership style inspiring the sensational turnaround it clearly does.
...Then, we break, one pass out, a look, a long raking ball and Sonny, full pelt, into the path of the ball, hearing through. This is it... he checks, he winds up, I swear I'm on the pitch in a moment and the ball suddenly isn't there for the shot because, for all the world it looks as if the defenders hand has moved it...
Of course, there's no penalty. I'm convinced it was one. I'm miles away, but the Kop is closer and Sonny closest of all are both apoplectic but the referee (who this week looks like the result of an AI image generated response to the prompt "Mix up the actor Toby Jones with a stocky body builder then dress him up as a highlighter pen") says, 'nah. Soz not happening ' possibly because he's not up with the play, so swift was our break... and then just to add insult to injury, he then ignores CJ getting cleaned out moments later and runs away - all luminous denial of our hopes and over developed pectoral muscles in a deliberately too small shirt. Fucking refs.
At some point before or after the above incident, (what was initially a poor watch has become one of those games it's hard to keep track of) there's some incredible defending from us, with Baggot chucking himself about like him and Casey are Pallister and Bruce reincarnated and just a general sense of 'thou shalt not fucking nab this you spawny London bastards' which thankfully prevails.
There's time for another near moment wh Sonny doesn't quite get to it and for Charlton to bring on an even bigger player than Aneke for a final free kick that we hack away and for the whistle to blow on a decent game...
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I'm happy enough afterwards. We played pretty well overall and again carried a threat. Charlton aren't a bad side and coming back from 2 goals down is a decent achievement, even if going two goals down isn't ideal stuff.
The main thing I like is that our mentality is right. I don't like using the word 'mentality' - it's a football cliche and the type of thing that dickhead managers (i.e. Nathan Jones) would shout whilst tapping the side of their heads as if using a fancy word which basically means 'try' is next level stuff but nonetheless, it sums up the difference between Pool for a good while in the recent past (flat, easily bullied, beaten if going behind) and Pool now - it feels like a team, it feels as if they care and it feels as if they believe in what we're doing, in each other and in the manager. From that comes a sense of enjoyment and like in theatre or music or whatever else you might watch, it doesn't matter how theoretically worthy or intelligent what you are watching is, if the performer in front of you isn't getting anything out of it, there's nothing really there to take away.
I was also delighted to see the new players impact the game. Bloxham we know already - he looks like the handsome blacksmith's apprentice who is the love interest in a BBC adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel but plays like he's on course for Euro 2028. Silvera and Ennis were much more of a mystery before this game and obviously a goal for each is the ideal impact - and one that underlines that we've now got options and both puts pressure on the likes of Apter (who struggled a bit today) and also, probably more fairly, gives them a chance for a rest because some of them have carried a lot of weight being the only player for their roles.
The squad ain't finished. (CJ at left back was... different... for a start) and we're definitely not there yet - but the feel is good, the fanbase is uniting around what we're doing on the pitch and in the last 15 minutes, there was something akin to a 'proper' Bloomfield atmosphere. I'm slightly hoarse. That's what football should do to you... the point is - we're building something that has the right vibe to it - and that's what new players will walk into - that matters massively - because football is a team sport and the values and mindset of the team you are in shapes your individual performance. It's hard to think of many of the players who were here, who don't look more committed, more consistent and more confident. We might have finished 8th, but Kaddy was so many of those points that it's deceptive and seeing Carey growing, watching Casey thriving, seeing Joseph earn his big break and so on, it's hard to imagine that being the case had we stuck instead of twisting.
We might have drawn a game we should have won - but the positives outweighed the frustration and the sense that we're slowly getting what we need together and being guided by quiet and calm expertise, not guesswork and buzzword bluster leaves me feeling ok about it all.
Better to sneak up on the outside where no one expects us anyway...
Onward
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Better to sneak up on the outside where no one expects us anyway...
Onward
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If you want instead to get literally nothing more than you'd get for free anyway but are wanting to pointlessly give some money to the cause of a football blog that is usually far, far too long then your best option is Patreon. I wouldn't though because frankly, it's an act of self indulgence to write this shit and it shouldn't be encouraged.
