Here's a metaphor for being a Blackpool fan at the moment.
I started writing a bit of a 'state of play' piece in the middle of the week but then I got bored because I couldn't think of anything to say other than what I've already said over and over. I started with fervent enthusiasm and by paragraph 6 was just tapping individual letters, hoping that something would magically happen that ignited the second half of the piece. It didn't and it sits in my drafts folder destined to be forgotten, either potential unrealised or a bad idea, depending on which way you look at it.
Here's the thing.
I've written the 'this is a disgrace' piece.
I've written the 'give it time' piece.
I've written the 'let's just get behind the lads' piece.
I've written the 'what the fuck is Ashley Fletcher, is he a practical joke?' piece
I've written the 'actually, on balance I don't think Ashley Fletcher is that bad after all, leave him alone' piece.
I've written the 'I thought Steve Bruce was a terrible idea but now I actually love him like a teenage girl loves a boyband' piece
I've written the 'we need to bring in some players because frankly, it's hilarious to go from 100% Critchball to 100% Bruceball without doing so' piece...
What else is there to say? I've stopped just short of having 'WE NEED A COMBATIVE MIDFIELDER' tattooed on my forehead and taking to repeatedly beating my head against the glass of the executive entrance before and after games in an effort to get that message across.
We just need to win a football match at home.
We're playing Crawley. I'm not even going to bother saying 'no disrespect to Crawley' because fuck me, Crawley. To be fair to them, more or less the only thing I know about them apart from they once fired a manager for having a mad mega racist rant, is, when I was a kid, I drove down south with my parents on a Saturday - I remember looking out of the window, excitedly spotting floodlights of grounds and scarves fluttering from car windows. My football knowledge at that age (about 7) was gleaned from a big book on the history of the football league - and I was confused when I spotted a few coaches and a load of cars with 'Crawley Town' flags - I asked my dad what that was all about, because my mental filing cabinet had no slot for such a name. His reply was 'they must be in non-league' - which blew my mind as it opened a door on a world beyond what I already knew, yet more teams some of whom (like Crawley Town) must have a fair few fans. Yeovil Town, Merthyr Tydfil, that type of thing...
We're playing Crawley. I'm not even going to bother saying 'no disrespect to Crawley' because fuck me, Crawley. To be fair to them, more or less the only thing I know about them apart from they once fired a manager for having a mad mega racist rant, is, when I was a kid, I drove down south with my parents on a Saturday - I remember looking out of the window, excitedly spotting floodlights of grounds and scarves fluttering from car windows. My football knowledge at that age (about 7) was gleaned from a big book on the history of the football league - and I was confused when I spotted a few coaches and a load of cars with 'Crawley Town' flags - I asked my dad what that was all about, because my mental filing cabinet had no slot for such a name. His reply was 'they must be in non-league' - which blew my mind as it opened a door on a world beyond what I already knew, yet more teams some of whom (like Crawley Town) must have a fair few fans. Yeovil Town, Merthyr Tydfil, that type of thing...
That's got nothing to do with today - but what else am I going to offer up other than Tyrese John Jules plays for them..? If I remember rightly, Crawley are run by some crypto bros who selected their players from a super computer and I definitely recall them battering us on day one which left us all with a thought that maybe Chat GPT would do a better job than our recruitment team - but they're almost bottom and whilst we're more midtable than a pair of salt and pepper pots we should be able to give them a game. We should be able to do more than give them a game. For fucks sake Pool, please turn up and put them away because no disrespect to Crawley but we've had Ballon d'or winners, World Cup winners, England captains, Wembley hat trick heroes, the Wizard of Dribble* and all of that and they, no disrespect to them, are Sussex Senior Cup winners and not a lot else... Crawley Town don't even have a 'notable ex player' section on their wikipedia page. I mean, no disrespect to them and all of that, but.... we...can't...lose...at...home...to...Crawley...
*sorry CJ, not you.
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After a long and pointless intro, it's a welcome surprise to have something to talk about in terms of the team - it's a 3-5-2 Critchley tribute selection today and it makes sense - everyone seems to be in the right place more or less (give or take a CJ at wing back) and I have a good feeling. I had a good feeling last week though, so the pudding will be the proof rather than the recipe. I quite like Bruce getting all 'later stages in Masterchef where you have to prove your creativity and not just cook your favourites' as churning out the same staple every week has been a problem for quite a long time whoever has been wearing the chef's whites.
It turns out to be a really very tasty dish. Greg Wallace would describe it as 'laaarvely' were he not cancelled. The test of whether 352 is working is always 'how high are the wing backs getting?' - The answer is 'right up the pitch' - we're immediately all over them and penning them back, forcing mistakes, nipping the ball away. Everything is just as you'd want, Carey is finding space in the hole, CJ and Coulson are making width and they look completely overrun. Two great things almost happen - CJ plays a pass into space, no one goes for it, so he chases it himself and almost makes it which I'd have enjoyed tremendously. Sonny puts one wide, played in on a darting run from deep, it's like a tribute to last week's goal up to the finish which isn't very good at all, slightly skewed past the post. Sonny looks gutted, all red faced and arms flapped in frustration.
There's no time for Sonny or anyone else to stew on the miss though because we're on it today. CJ has it, no one ever knows what CJ is going to do, he might go on a run and forget the ball, he might fall over the corner flag, he might tackle himself... or, he might pick an absolute peach of a ball out, swirling dangerously and finding the space where Ennis has slipped into unseen to nod the ball home. It's a great cross and a great striker's finish, the movement to find the space making me think of Andy Watson or Scott Taylor who seemed to have that knack of making themselves invisible at the right moment only to then materialise where the ball is...
We nearly scored again, Albie Morgan with a diving header (well, more of a fall to his knees flick header) that brings an excellent save from the keeper. Crawley look lost. Their keeper can't kick and we keep pressing him and any time they do get out, we tidy up high on the pitch and go again.
Then the ball is on the other side. Morgan has a tremendous opportunity to cross, but, canny little cockney charmer that he is, he picks a pass no one has seen - a kind of toe stubbed low ball into the space - no one saw it, except for Niall Ennis that is, who again, like a puff of smoke swirling up from a candle extinguished with damp finger, floats away from his man, a spinning movement and then, with the deftest of featherlight kisses of his heel, flicks the ball past the keeper and into the goal.
We're on fire. The 'Ennis again' chant fills the ground, I think for a moment we're chanting 'pretend we're away (away away away)' but we're not and anyway, there appears to be no need for such psychology when Ennis goes close to a hattrick, a delightful control, turn and sprint bringing him a clear chance that he squeezes beyond the far post.
More of this please. Much more. I'm loving it. This is excellent.
Crawley finally have some space, we've just given them a break for just about the first time. Not a lot seems to be on before a tremendous angle changing pass and they get round the corner, everyone, including the keeper seems to charge at the lad with the ball, like moths in the darkness seeing a light turned, leaving him the task to simply roll it across the box where another lad can tap it home.
For fucks sake. We've battered them and they score with their first effort. It's the most 'Blackpool' feeling ever - that sinking sense that you should have taken your chances and the other team, whilst being inferior on every conceivable level become more clinical than a team of Marco van Bastens coached by Jimmy Greaves and Dixie fucking Dean when they get within 30 yards of your goal.
If that was an unpleasant surprise, the next bit is a jaw dropping horror moment. It's such a nothing event on the surface I can't really remember what happened other than Ashley Goals and some random Crawley player tussle for the ball. They fall down, locked together in the timeless embrace of centre forward and centre half. The play goes on for a while and at some point, the ball goes out of play. The two players are still on the ground and disentangle themselves to get up. Their defender is rubbing his head pointedly. Fletch jogs away. It's a moment like you might see 5 or 6 times in any game except for after a pause, the ref calls Fletcher over and gives him a red card. Everyone is baffled. The linesman didn't flag, Husband is apoplectic, Carey marches up to the linesman who is statuesque in response to the fury in front of him. Bruce is raging and gets a yellow card for his uncharacteristic outburst. Fletcher looks like a man who has got back to his car to find the wheels removed and it on bricks, as if he can't believe his misfortune but has to now accept it, his face first baffled, then a resigned trudge off the pitch.
About 4 minutes before all this, I made a joke 'the big question is - how are we going to find a way to draw this?' (ha ha, aren't the terrace wag?) - the answer from the gods of football is seemingly 'concede out of nowhere, then have the most random sending off in football history' (ha ha, football is funnier than you, you stupid blogging prick)
Such is my shock, I can't remember the rest of the half, save for a moment when Lee Evans absolutely smashes one of their lads into the hoardings and then stands over him and for a brief moment I think 'fuck me, we're going to be down to 9' but a yellow is shown...
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I'm still in some kind of baffled fog at half time. It's a cliche when people say you can never relax in a game, but fuck me, I didn't see that coming. I think we basically battled out the rest of the half under pressure but without really conceding a chance but I'm mostly wondering how a player gets sent off when none of the officials on the pitch seemed to notice anything wrong. Who gave it? The fourth official as a kind of pseudo VAR? That said, there's something strangely satisfying about the ire of the crowd directed towards the man in the highlighter pen top (who looks weirdly like a medium sized bloke grafted onto the legs of a really tall bloke, giving him the appearance of a stilt walker) because at least its an atmosphere and the crowd behind the team, which is something we've missed of late.
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Jordan Gabriel is on for CJ, but otherwise, it's the same. The second half starts more or less like I think the first half ended - Crawley push the ball around, we chase it but stay firmly in shape. Their number 5 (he of the hurty head) gets booed every time he goes near the ball which is ace, cos it's felt like we've not even been arsed to give other teams shit at home for a while.
This goes on for ages. The thing is, Crawley don't seem to be very good. It's a dangerous thought, but whilst we're not able to get out, they're not able to do anything with all the possession. Jimmy is on a crusade, deploying all the tricks in his 'book of shithousery' (quite a big book) and the highlight (as pointed out by my neighbour) is his instruction to the ball boys to hide the balls at the south behind the advertising hoardings to delay any Crawley corners.
We're defending brilliantly, Coulson makes a couple of sensational interception, flicking one back to Tyrer and the other, a sensational cushioned flick that seems to defy physics. Husband makes an equally sensational tackle, just getting a toe to the ball when it seemed gone, diving in with perfect timing when a moment off would have yielded a sure penalty. Offiah is following in that dogged way he has, never letting his man get away and Casey is just being Casey. In front of them, Evans snarls, Morgan and Carey track and track and track and Ennis runs his arse off.
Finally, we manage a break. First Sonny belts up the right and after 45 yards, puts a cross into no one, Ennis having come deep to win the ball to set Sonny away in the first place. Then Ennis again wrestles his man, spins and is away, bursting past one and leaving another in his wake, it's one of those moments where you can feel the whole ground rising, the pressure rising, the roof getting ready to come off... he's in, he's on an angle, he's drawn the keeper... but he's put it beyond the post. The deflation is replaced by applause for the effort and we exhort them on. C'MON POOL!!!!
Crawley keep doing the same thing and finally make a chance. It's a looped cross and it's former Pool loan flop Tyrese John Jules who is on it, but fortunately, his finish matches his general play during his time at the seaside as he balloons it comfortably over. Still, it's a chance.
Bruce withdraws Ennis to a rapturous and deserved reception. It feels like the first time we've seen a proper 'strikers performance' since Rhodes' brief but brilliant time of being any good and the first time since Jerry that we've had a striker with pace, movement, skill and some real finishing ability.
Beesley gives us the outball we need at this point and is quickly galloping around crunching into tackles and being a nuisance. Then, he's picking it up cleverly from who is wrestling for possession when Bees nips it away and spots Jordan Gabriel in acres of space, slides a perfect pass across. Gabriel takes it on and then he's being pulled back!!! he's being pulled back!!! then it's scrambled away and CAREY MUST!!! NO, HE'S HIT THE MAN ON THE LINE and now MORGAN YES!! NO!!! HE'S SLICED IT WIDE... FUCK'S SAKE POOL!!!
Wait.. the ref has pulled it back and is POINTING TO THE SPOT...
Tension.
'He'll miss this' from behind me. Evans waits. He trots in and whips it perfectly into the bottom corner and the place goes mad! YESSSS!
That felt brilliant.
'We've won this'
'Shut up'
We have though...
Crawley hit one straight at Tyrer and that's it. We've fought so hard that they look beaten long before the whistle goes which, when it does, is greeted for the first time in a long time with 'We love you Blackpool, we do' (and we do, for if we didn't, none of us would be here, We love you Blackpool, we do and we always will)
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
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That was a tremendous game in a lot of ways. Yeah, the ref made a bizarre decision, but in a way, winning as we did, against some adversity and with some real character shown felt more satisfying. Every single player put a proper, proper shift in. We were sensationally good in the first 25 or so minutes and were making a mockery of our home form, then we were equally good in a different way and if you count the chances with 10 men, for all the possession we ceded, we actually had more than them.
In a way, I feel bad about the opening of the blog. On the way out, I pass some disgruntled Crawley fans bemoaning that they've played for an hour against ten men and created 'next to fuck all' - I just smile to myself because we all know that feeling well enough. All the snobbery is just a front, any team playing in your league has got there because they're good enough at football and I'm only acting exactly like people acted about us in our last trip to the top flight. Today though, whilst we're still a few wins away from reclaiming our rightful position as one of the nation's leading sides and we've not quite got anyone nailed on for the Euro 28 squad yet, it felt all a bit more like you'd want it to.
It's a win, but it's a win that showed character and guile, it's a win that the players fought for and the manager managed really well and even though it's more than likely that we haven't got enough to get back into it from where we are and probably next week we'll be sighing and bemoaning a lack of depth, it's a win that gives you hope and further belief in what Steve Bruce is doing, because it came from firstly, really good attacking play and then complete and utter resolute commitment. It's a win that keeps the barest hint of a candle flickering for the rest of the season.
It's not going to happen... but you never, ever know... do you?
Onward!
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