It was sunny but cold. The crowd was in the mood. Orient had brought a smallish but fairly vocal following. We were resplendent in tangerine and white, they looked dowdy in a grey away kit that a) made them all look like goalkeepers and b) made you wonder 'who looks at 'all grey' in the kit manufacturers catalogue' and thinks 'yes, that's the kit for us!'?
Where to begin on an afternoon that doesn't so much defy description (a chance! missed!) as pose a challenge to the writer's mental health in reliving it again in real time through the medium of words?
The camera cuts to Steve Bruce, his craggy face etched with pain. He's seen it all before, or so, before today, he thought. This is lady luck at her most stubborn. It's not so much as if she's playing hard to get, but more as if she's cold shouldered us completely and deleted our number from her phone book. We've thrown everything at it, flowers, a nice meal, chocolates, romantic poetry, grovelling apologies, singing songs at her balcony in the middle of the night, down right begging on our knees with hands thrown high to the heavens in desperate appeal to the gods, but still she refuses to yield. It is as if the game itself is angry, punishing us for some earlier forgotten indiscretion. Perhaps it was playing CJ at wing back for a season?
I'm going to need to face up to this and describe some football aren't I? I don't want to!
---
After the game, the usual debate plays out about what we do and don't have, who we should keep and who we should rip up their contract and offer to Elon Musk for a one way trip to Mars. To me, this sort of misses the point of today. I'm playing for time here. I don't want to relive it - but then, it's a game that has much, and yet almost nothing to celebrate within it and I have to get on with it...
First, a lovely ball and Casey rises, having got between two defenders. This is it! He misses the ball... Ok, he's not a striker. Calm down everyone, defenders don't score very often and it's early so let's just be patient.
Things divert from the intended script though. We concede and it's that goal again. A ball into the box and an easy header. We keep conceding this goal and it's frustrating as fuck. A cross from our right, the net billowing, it always leaves me with a sense that we seem to have to really try to score a goal but every other game, the opposition score one that doesn't take a lot of effort...
Now, though, here's the chance... see? We just need to keep our heads against this lot and we're going to score plenty today. They're hard working, they're quite dangerous going forward, but they're definitely gettable at and they've just misread a ball forward and presented Super Ashley Fletcher (there ain't nobody better) with the chance to go round the keeper and tap the ball home - He's not missing this, not with the form he's in. In fact, I would score this and I haven't played a semi-serious game of football in more than a decade and have got a bit of a cold so, in other words - it's a nailed on goal.
He's missed.
How?
?
????
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
The noise of Bloomfield Road is akin to the shocked chatter of a crowd who has just witnessed an illusionist perform an impossible feat. It's like Ashley Goals has just made a jumbo jet or the Statue of Liberty disappear - but not in a good way... The game goes on to a very strange and distracted sound. We've just seen something that seemed to bend the very rules of space and time and we need to work it out, but it defies explanation no matter who we turn too around us. Ashley Goals is as Ashley Goals does and that's all we can really say.
Had he fallen over, it is likely the momentum would have knocked the ball home. It's possibly the most Ashley Fletcher thing ever. He's still scored more goals than anyone else who's played for us this year, at a faster rate. He's got the most direct goal involvements per minute too and yet, you feel he could have twice the numbers if he just somehow didn't possess whatever bit of DNA dictates that, as well as being pretty good at football most of the time, he is doomed to being an instrument of inexplicable chaos and darkly comic deeds at specific and key moments.
The miss sparks a flurry of further misses. Fletcher gets his head to a cross, a firm header planted down wards and just wide of the post. It's a minor moment of redemption that refocuses us. We're in the swing now and are going forward with more purpose, stung by fact we're losing when really, we should be winning.
A deep ball from the left to the far post, little Robbie Apter from a yard out, a scrambling block and it pops up to Sonny Carey, he adjusts his body for the bounce of the ball and lashes it. Another block on the line, a tangled mass of defender and goalkeeper, arms and legs and hands on head. How that one doesn't go in at some point is a mystery.
---
We've not been brilliant, but I think we've been the better side. Yeah, they scored, but it was about their only chance to do so and we've had multiple. We shouldn't be losing this.
---
If the first half was a steady flow of 'Pool misses then the second half is a raging torrent. We're storming forward and it seems only a matter of time. before the sheer weight of water causes the dam to burst. The subbuteo player hasn't had his best game, but his flick to set Offiah away is an impudent no look back heel and the cross from the space provided is perfect, hanging, curving back towards the forehead of a leaping Ennis...
Ennis plays well today, but he feels like a man who closes his eyes when he heads the ball, one weakness perhaps, in an otherwise well developed game. The contact is firm enough, but it's right in the zone where the keeper can save it, and save it he does, a good stop, but one a different connection wouldn't have allowed him to make.
Another chance, Apter cutting inside as he does, striking it, the keeper sprawling again, it already feels like he's made 90 minutes worth of saves and holding it well as players storm in to try and pick up the rebound. Apter hands on hips, another round of applause but the feeling of tension arising. We need to actually score one of these.
I'm going to need to face up to this and describe some football aren't I? I don't want to!
---
After the game, the usual debate plays out about what we do and don't have, who we should keep and who we should rip up their contract and offer to Elon Musk for a one way trip to Mars. To me, this sort of misses the point of today. I'm playing for time here. I don't want to relive it - but then, it's a game that has much, and yet almost nothing to celebrate within it and I have to get on with it...
First, a lovely ball and Casey rises, having got between two defenders. This is it! He misses the ball... Ok, he's not a striker. Calm down everyone, defenders don't score very often and it's early so let's just be patient.
Things divert from the intended script though. We concede and it's that goal again. A ball into the box and an easy header. We keep conceding this goal and it's frustrating as fuck. A cross from our right, the net billowing, it always leaves me with a sense that we seem to have to really try to score a goal but every other game, the opposition score one that doesn't take a lot of effort...
Now, though, here's the chance... see? We just need to keep our heads against this lot and we're going to score plenty today. They're hard working, they're quite dangerous going forward, but they're definitely gettable at and they've just misread a ball forward and presented Super Ashley Fletcher (there ain't nobody better) with the chance to go round the keeper and tap the ball home - He's not missing this, not with the form he's in. In fact, I would score this and I haven't played a semi-serious game of football in more than a decade and have got a bit of a cold so, in other words - it's a nailed on goal.
He's missed.
How?
?
????
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
The noise of Bloomfield Road is akin to the shocked chatter of a crowd who has just witnessed an illusionist perform an impossible feat. It's like Ashley Goals has just made a jumbo jet or the Statue of Liberty disappear - but not in a good way... The game goes on to a very strange and distracted sound. We've just seen something that seemed to bend the very rules of space and time and we need to work it out, but it defies explanation no matter who we turn too around us. Ashley Goals is as Ashley Goals does and that's all we can really say.
Had he fallen over, it is likely the momentum would have knocked the ball home. It's possibly the most Ashley Fletcher thing ever. He's still scored more goals than anyone else who's played for us this year, at a faster rate. He's got the most direct goal involvements per minute too and yet, you feel he could have twice the numbers if he just somehow didn't possess whatever bit of DNA dictates that, as well as being pretty good at football most of the time, he is doomed to being an instrument of inexplicable chaos and darkly comic deeds at specific and key moments.
The miss sparks a flurry of further misses. Fletcher gets his head to a cross, a firm header planted down wards and just wide of the post. It's a minor moment of redemption that refocuses us. We're in the swing now and are going forward with more purpose, stung by fact we're losing when really, we should be winning.
A deep ball from the left to the far post, little Robbie Apter from a yard out, a scrambling block and it pops up to Sonny Carey, he adjusts his body for the bounce of the ball and lashes it. Another block on the line, a tangled mass of defender and goalkeeper, arms and legs and hands on head. How that one doesn't go in at some point is a mystery.
---
We've not been brilliant, but I think we've been the better side. Yeah, they scored, but it was about their only chance to do so and we've had multiple. We shouldn't be losing this.
---
If the first half was a steady flow of 'Pool misses then the second half is a raging torrent. We're storming forward and it seems only a matter of time. before the sheer weight of water causes the dam to burst. The subbuteo player hasn't had his best game, but his flick to set Offiah away is an impudent no look back heel and the cross from the space provided is perfect, hanging, curving back towards the forehead of a leaping Ennis...
Ennis plays well today, but he feels like a man who closes his eyes when he heads the ball, one weakness perhaps, in an otherwise well developed game. The contact is firm enough, but it's right in the zone where the keeper can save it, and save it he does, a good stop, but one a different connection wouldn't have allowed him to make.
Another chance, Apter cutting inside as he does, striking it, the keeper sprawling again, it already feels like he's made 90 minutes worth of saves and holding it well as players storm in to try and pick up the rebound. Apter hands on hips, another round of applause but the feeling of tension arising. We need to actually score one of these.
Then Bloxham is on. He's got it, he's moving forward, he has a way of carrying the ball which makes it seem glued to him. He evades a challenge. Sonny is coming from deep, Sonny is gesturing, Bloxham delays, Sonny shifts a yard sideways and then the ball comes and a burst takes Carey the other side of his man, touching the ball on with right foot and picking up the other side with his left and, for all the combination of woeful finishing and bad luck today, absolutely lashing an unstoppable bullet past the keeper who is left grasping at a ball that isn't and never was within his reach. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Sonny fucking Carey.... Not so much on fire as a raging inferno at the moment. For everything that wasn't clinical today, that was a lethal finish
Lets do it! We've got this won. It's a mere formality. Might as well just give us a goal and then blow the whistle. The force is with us. Book the hotels, we're heading for Wembley. C'MON YOU POOL!!!
The ball is in the net. It's our net. It got there somehow. I am waving pathetically at the linesman for off side as I wasn't really watching that closely as if I'd ruled out the option of them scoring again as a possibility in my mind, so convinced was I that Sonny's goal was the first of several - but it seemed to come in from the right and get nudged home from about 3 inches and we didn't appear to do an awful lot about stopping it happen. Perhaps the players had also fallen into the same mindset as me. I sit down. I stand up again. I don't know what to do with myself. Why do we make it so hard?
It's not over though. Sonny again, drifting left and then taking a clever delayed ball from Coulson who has been great at this all afternoon, prompting, driving, setting things up. Carey makes it look easy, a few strides then fired in, Ennis must score! Ennis doesn't score, falling into the ball, it comes off him, hits the post square on and rolls away. More agony - but more is to come...
Ennis, takes the ball from the right, he rolls his man beautifully, a touch for himself, perfectly into his stride pattern to hit it, it's a searing effort, cutting the grass, towards the bottom corner, the ground tenses ready to spring up in delight but somehow, their keeper gets across again, a fine stop getting right down and covering the bottom corner - it's probably the save of the game and the one chance we had where you could probably say, we did everything right and have to just admire the work to keep it out.
Casey relives the first half chance - this time he does connect and yet again, whilst it's at a nice height for him, the Orient stopper stops it. Perhaps this is not our day?
The ref has been crap as well. Orient are 'committed' and he's not very keen to get in the way of that commitment. He stops play as an Orient player strategically goes down for about the 4th time. Fair enough, it's a tough gig and the rules say that particular injuries must be treated but I've never read the rules where it says 'and the ref shall give the ball back to the team he prefers on the day' Shit refs again etc. It's not going to go for us is it?
And yet... maybe it still could be. Bees is on. I've uttered the words 'say what you like about Beesley but he does put them away' and here is his chance to prove me right. Morgan has whipped a ball forward that is both hopeful and tricky to deal with. The defender completely misreads it, Beesley is through, the keeper has come, he's probably come a bit far and he's made the striker's mind up, the chip is on, it's not even too difficult, just up and over and it's level with time to play....
... the ball goes up... 'Too hard!' I think instinctively, but then it starts to come down and 'maybe...' I let myself feel for a moment as it's dripping vertically and there's no way anyone is getting back... but as much as it drops, it's got too much on it and instead of bouncing and kissing the inside of the roof of the net, it falls beyond the bar and the rippling of the net as the ball lands atop it is a like a taunting reminder of what could have been.
I let out an audible scream of pain and frustration. Beesley looks as if he'd like to be beamed up by aliens and have horrendous experiments performed upon him rather than stand in front of the incredulous Kop as the gasps and groans fill the air with the sound of collective dissatisfaction.
I think we should probably leave it there. I'm done.
---
For all that was painful (and it was) and for all our faults (we have a few!) there was something in that game. Yeah, our play off hopes might have gone, but they were based on a fantasy series of results that relied upon us suddenly turning into something we're not - a clinical footballing machine that can win week upon week.
What it did show was a side who plays the way we want us to play - a side who can entertain, create chances and dominate large periods of the game. We should have scored at least 4 and more than had the chances to do so. Sometimes, when we say that, we mean, with the supporters bias and ignoring the law of averages, 'we had 4 chances' but in reality today, we had at least twice as many as that and 4 is a conservative estimate really.
There is hope there - hope for next season and hope for entertaining and committed football and a team we can love as we want to love a Blackpool team - this is a crowd that will forgive a failure but never if it's a cowardly one. This was not a lack of ambition on the pitch, not a lack of endeavour or effort - it was just some fucking awful finishing that, if anything, showed too much attempt at audacity, flair and style when a bit more routine mundanity would have gifted us at least two more goals. We didn't lose in a tepid way. We lost because we didn't do the last bit of the sequence right, even when sometimes it was the easiest part of the whole thing. Heads up. Go again. Even Wellens concedes as much in his post match. We weren't robbed, we robbed ourselves. They did make it difficult, they were aggressive, they were clinical, but we stacked up so much and actually, got round them so often that it defies belief we lost.
The hope is tempered by everything else swirling around the club away from the pitch - but there is a base here. There are some players and a general ethos to build upon. There is a need for greater depth and quality in key positions. Steve Bruce knows this. It's etched on his craggy face. He loves these lads. You can tell. He also knows that as it is, we're not good enough, not clinical enough, not good enough at grabbing the midfield, not quite enough from the bench, just not quite there over a run of games to turn us from an 'on our day' side into a side that more often than not 'make it our day' - We are, like the Steve Mcmahon team was for about 3 seasons in a row, just not quite overall, what we need to be and once again, as we did then, we look to the summer and we hope, possibly against hope, that what we do is what we need.
Today though.
Fuck's sake 'Pool.
Fuck's sake football...
Onward!
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