Fucking winter. I mean the season, not the all action, super dynamic CEO of Blackpool Football Club, but I guess, you could read the opening two words however you wish and get basically the same outcome.
This winter is dark. It rains all the time. I've been ill for ages and that just adds to the impression that everything is grey skies and misery. It's like living in Bladerunner only instead of sexy AI ladies on the massive adverts, the dystopian city is covered in giant Mick McCarthy's answering "oh, it can" on a loop.
It can't get any worse can it?
It can, because I've just spent 5 minutes with an AI tool getting pissed off because it keeps generating a terrible version of the image above, in which Mick looks like a Hollywood hunk. I'm arguing with it as it produces ever less accurate images and tells me they're accurate. It's a post truth world I know, but Mick has not ever and will not ever look like the hearthrob types that the AI tool keeps throwing out.
Sorry. This is supposed to be a football blog isn't it? True to the prevailing season, it pisses down for ages today but just before the game it stops.
I quite like the team. It's not perfect but we're not dealing with perfection this year. Perhaps the world isn't totally dystopian. I drink a pint. I watch the TV by the bar.
On the screen is an advert for (I kid you not) dog food made of insects. The narrative seems to be about a dog that is depressed by climate change so his owner buys him happiness with insect protein. Cos that's not weird. We're truly through the looking glass in 2025. I give up. I preferred not living in a terrible SciFi future but here we are. Existential canine dread and ever inventive consumer solutions that capitalism always provides.
Anyway...
Carlisle have brought about 40000 fans in full voice. We've mustered a ragtag crew of people with nothing better to do who don't seem overly bothered that there's a game on. We've been really shit recently again.
What could possibly go wrong?
---
Pool make a bright start and put together the kind of nice move that Ian 'motivational linkedinspeak press conference guru' Evatt will surely approve of and see as a sign that process might become product. Hansson puts in cross, Fletch seems sure to score, but what happens instead is the ball is scuffed away and what I thought was a bit of a howler is given instead as a corner...
After the initial optimism, it's all Carlisle for a spell. They win corner after corner and come closest with a shot BPF kind of belly flops away like a kid surprised to have been pushed into a swimming pool. That sounds a bit damning, but it's actually a good bit of unorthodox keeping.
Bloxham runs the length of the pitch on the break and despite seeming to get past everyone, Carlisle get a goal kick. As a result of that, and the pressure from the team the man in front is vocally pointing out look like they're dressed in carrier bags, I'm a bit worried that we might be shite again.
Then things turn a bit. Fletch has an effort scooped of the line. Banks and Honeyman combine well. Banks scuttles across the box, Carlisle hack away hopelessly and can't take the ball of us - We seem to have about 3 scoring chances before Bloxham puts it away. It's a scruffy goal, but it's a great boost. I don't think we've looked much better than them, but we're in front.
Carlisle respond by slicing us to bits down our left. Everyone is waving at where everyone else should be and they make easy progress to the byline. They cut it back and a shot, and that's a fucking shit goal to concede... but it's not because BPF is flying, seemingly from a hopeless position and making one of the best stops I've seen in a long time with a very strong arm.
Carlisle's keeper responds to BPF's heroics by making a good stop from Banks, doing well to get low to a crisply hit shot and then the game falls into a trough of zero ideas. For about 10 minutes, it's dire and neither side does anything even remotely effective in an attacking sense and perhaps the thousands who have something better to do made the right choice.
This void of quality lasts till the frustrating Norwegian schoolkid (he's got a lot of ability, but the physique of a 14 year old), Emil Hansson runs right up the middle, lays off to Ash Fletcher who smashes it home with no hesitation. It's a lovely finish from Fletch who would definitely be right up there in a list of our least worst players this year.
2 is 3 shortly after as Scott Banks scores that goal that Scott Banks scores again. It's a great goal, just as it has been every other time he's scored it, cutting inside, showing a change of pace and then hitting a shot when it looks like he isn't going to hit a shot that curls beautifully and makes the side netting billow very satisfyingly.
---
I'm not sure we've been 3-0 better but we've definitely had the upper hand and after the second, we controlled the game totally. I'm looking forward to the second half and in particular, to seeing what the returning players might bring from the bench.
---
The exciting half time sub is Lee Evans. Hmmm.
My mate texts me, he's watching the game on telly. 'Not even Blackpool can fuck this up can you?' - My reply is predictable but borne of too many years of this.
Then, here we fucking go. Coulson backs off. At times he resembles a leaf and the player running at him a leaf blower. I even growl, Hayden, get fucking tighter! as their lad sends him back peddling. Carlisle score. For fuck's sake Pool. For fuck's sake life, for fuck's sake this season.
Casey, who has done well tonight so far, misses a tackle on the half way line. Their no 10 marauds forward, gets his head up, hits an ambitious ball across the box, but executes it brilliantly, a Carlisle man connects on the slide and I'm just about to hit the railing in front of me in despair at our general inability to do anything and the sheer fucking pointless hopelessness of following this stupid club, when BPF makes another stunning save. Thank fuck. We love you Blackpool. We do.
We need to get a grip and happily, we do. Great hold up play from Bloxham, who I've often criticised for the lack of the very element I'm praising - he plays a square ball which is turned on again, now it's wide and we're at the byline, a pull back and the coolest of finishes from Super Ashley Fletcher and the game is done. We needed to stamp down the Carlisle mini revival and we've done it with a clinical finish and a really nicely worked move.
The rest of the game is quite enjoyable. There's little tension though BPF makes another couple of nice saves, we largely control things and we play with some ambition. This is a long way from perfection, but you can see the influence of Evatt in the way we're keen to get the ball down and willing to try some intricate play. Imray comes on and immediately looks busy and purposeful. He's born to play a RWB role and could have a huge impact on the rest of the season because to me, in a side with wing backs, you have to have one like Imray, who just won't stop going forward, otherwise you end up playing with a back five and that's when the set up looks shite. Bowler comes on and looks, if not the full 230 volts, certainly to have been reasonably charged up.
There's a well worked free set piece that exploits Horsfall's qualities at the far post, there's a ball across the goal that Imray throws himself at and alarmingly needs treatment after, but appears ultimately none the worse for his efforts. There's a wonderfully entertaining cameo from CJ up front where, first, he chases down a long ball, and appears to miss, not once, but twice when it looked as if he had to score. Someone shouts "CJ, doing CJ things" and then, CJ does CJ things again, slipped through by a gorgeously weighted Bowler pass, he hits the keeper where again, it looked like he had to score. Bowler himself peels off a couple of lovely runs, one in particular has me in raptures as he slips past one, then between two, then seems to be bearing down on goal before he is sent tumbling. I'm not sure it was a penalty but it's a reminder of his quality and the absurdity of a side who can sign such a player being where we are.
Everyone wants another goal, we manage another move where we seem to fail to put the ball away about three times and then, even more entertainingly, Honeyman goes down, Mark Hughes isn't convinced by the agony that George appears to be in, Ian Evatt isn't happy with Mark Hughes making his feelings known and the two of them have a gloriously undignified verbal spat on the touchline. This is exactly what you want from such a game.
The whistle goes. We're in the hat.
---
In the end we won comfortably, but we did have some well timed, high quality saves from the keeper to thank for the game not becoming more awkward than it did. The returning players did us good as did the simple maths of having more first team players available to freshen things up. We do really need a striker back to add to that depth, though I've always quite liked the sheer chaos option of sticking CJ through the middle for 10 minutes (I certainly prefer it to him playing full back) and sooner or later, he will, whether by accident or design, score a goal, simply because he's very quick and that's something that we lack up front. We've plenty of other options to do the other shit CJ does - but really, no one to swap out for Fletch or Bloxham.
This season has been mostly disappointment and whilst I remain (largely) convinced that we really, really should have enough quality to get enough results that the unthinkable image of the most well invested in Blackpool squad in years getting relegated to the 4th tier doesn't become a reality - there's no real confidence that we're going to go on a run to promotion because a) we've left ourselves so much to do and b) as it stands, whilst I think we do have quality, we definitely lack the collective character to grind out the kind of run we would need.
Tonight, was, therefore, fun - because we won, because at times we played quite well and most of all, because in what has been a bit of a grim and pretty joyless trudge in the muddy depths of the league, we're in the third round draw and we can, at least before we get drawn against fucking Oxford Utd or some other non-entity, dream of a little bit of cup magic.
Which, really, is the point of all of this isn't it?
Onward
It can, because I've just spent 5 minutes with an AI tool getting pissed off because it keeps generating a terrible version of the image above, in which Mick looks like a Hollywood hunk. I'm arguing with it as it produces ever less accurate images and tells me they're accurate. It's a post truth world I know, but Mick has not ever and will not ever look like the hearthrob types that the AI tool keeps throwing out.
.jpg) |
| Fuck off AI |
Sorry. This is supposed to be a football blog isn't it? True to the prevailing season, it pisses down for ages today but just before the game it stops.
I quite like the team. It's not perfect but we're not dealing with perfection this year. Perhaps the world isn't totally dystopian. I drink a pint. I watch the TV by the bar.
 |
On the screen is an advert for (I kid you not) dog food made of insects. The narrative seems to be about a dog that is depressed by climate change so his owner buys him happiness with insect protein. Cos that's not weird. We're truly through the looking glass in 2025. I give up. I preferred not living in a terrible SciFi future but here we are. Existential canine dread and ever inventive consumer solutions that capitalism always provides.
Anyway...
Carlisle have brought about 40000 fans in full voice. We've mustered a ragtag crew of people with nothing better to do who don't seem overly bothered that there's a game on. We've been really shit recently again.
What could possibly go wrong?
---
Pool make a bright start and put together the kind of nice move that Ian 'motivational linkedinspeak press conference guru' Evatt will surely approve of and see as a sign that process might become product. Hansson puts in cross, Fletch seems sure to score, but what happens instead is the ball is scuffed away and what I thought was a bit of a howler is given instead as a corner...
After the initial optimism, it's all Carlisle for a spell. They win corner after corner and come closest with a shot BPF kind of belly flops away like a kid surprised to have been pushed into a swimming pool. That sounds a bit damning, but it's actually a good bit of unorthodox keeping.
Bloxham runs the length of the pitch on the break and despite seeming to get past everyone, Carlisle get a goal kick. As a result of that, and the pressure from the team the man in front is vocally pointing out look like they're dressed in carrier bags, I'm a bit worried that we might be shite again.
Then things turn a bit. Fletch has an effort scooped of the line. Banks and Honeyman combine well. Banks scuttles across the box, Carlisle hack away hopelessly and can't take the ball of us - We seem to have about 3 scoring chances before Bloxham puts it away. It's a scruffy goal, but it's a great boost. I don't think we've looked much better than them, but we're in front.
Carlisle respond by slicing us to bits down our left. Everyone is waving at where everyone else should be and they make easy progress to the byline. They cut it back and a shot, and that's a fucking shit goal to concede... but it's not because BPF is flying, seemingly from a hopeless position and making one of the best stops I've seen in a long time with a very strong arm.
Carlisle's keeper responds to BPF's heroics by making a good stop from Banks, doing well to get low to a crisply hit shot and then the game falls into a trough of zero ideas. For about 10 minutes, it's dire and neither side does anything even remotely effective in an attacking sense and perhaps the thousands who have something better to do made the right choice.
This void of quality lasts till the frustrating Norwegian schoolkid (he's got a lot of ability, but the physique of a 14 year old), Emil Hansson runs right up the middle, lays off to Ash Fletcher who smashes it home with no hesitation. It's a lovely finish from Fletch who would definitely be right up there in a list of our least worst players this year.
2 is 3 shortly after as Scott Banks scores that goal that Scott Banks scores again. It's a great goal, just as it has been every other time he's scored it, cutting inside, showing a change of pace and then hitting a shot when it looks like he isn't going to hit a shot that curls beautifully and makes the side netting billow very satisfyingly.
---
I'm not sure we've been 3-0 better but we've definitely had the upper hand and after the second, we controlled the game totally. I'm looking forward to the second half and in particular, to seeing what the returning players might bring from the bench.
---
The exciting half time sub is Lee Evans. Hmmm.
My mate texts me, he's watching the game on telly. 'Not even Blackpool can fuck this up can you?' - My reply is predictable but borne of too many years of this.
Then, here we fucking go. Coulson backs off. At times he resembles a leaf and the player running at him a leaf blower. I even growl, Hayden, get fucking tighter! as their lad sends him back peddling. Carlisle score. For fuck's sake Pool. For fuck's sake life, for fuck's sake this season.
Casey, who has done well tonight so far, misses a tackle on the half way line. Their no 10 marauds forward, gets his head up, hits an ambitious ball across the box, but executes it brilliantly, a Carlisle man connects on the slide and I'm just about to hit the railing in front of me in despair at our general inability to do anything and the sheer fucking pointless hopelessness of following this stupid club, when BPF makes another stunning save. Thank fuck. We love you Blackpool. We do.
We need to get a grip and happily, we do. Great hold up play from Bloxham, who I've often criticised for the lack of the very element I'm praising - he plays a square ball which is turned on again, now it's wide and we're at the byline, a pull back and the coolest of finishes from Super Ashley Fletcher and the game is done. We needed to stamp down the Carlisle mini revival and we've done it with a clinical finish and a really nicely worked move.
The rest of the game is quite enjoyable. There's little tension though BPF makes another couple of nice saves, we largely control things and we play with some ambition. This is a long way from perfection, but you can see the influence of Evatt in the way we're keen to get the ball down and willing to try some intricate play. Imray comes on and immediately looks busy and purposeful. He's born to play a RWB role and could have a huge impact on the rest of the season because to me, in a side with wing backs, you have to have one like Imray, who just won't stop going forward, otherwise you end up playing with a back five and that's when the set up looks shite. Bowler comes on and looks, if not the full 230 volts, certainly to have been reasonably charged up.
There's a well worked free set piece that exploits Horsfall's qualities at the far post, there's a ball across the goal that Imray throws himself at and alarmingly needs treatment after, but appears ultimately none the worse for his efforts. There's a wonderfully entertaining cameo from CJ up front where, first, he chases down a long ball, and appears to miss, not once, but twice when it looked as if he had to score. Someone shouts "CJ, doing CJ things" and then, CJ does CJ things again, slipped through by a gorgeously weighted Bowler pass, he hits the keeper where again, it looked like he had to score. Bowler himself peels off a couple of lovely runs, one in particular has me in raptures as he slips past one, then between two, then seems to be bearing down on goal before he is sent tumbling. I'm not sure it was a penalty but it's a reminder of his quality and the absurdity of a side who can sign such a player being where we are.
Everyone wants another goal, we manage another move where we seem to fail to put the ball away about three times and then, even more entertainingly, Honeyman goes down, Mark Hughes isn't convinced by the agony that George appears to be in, Ian Evatt isn't happy with Mark Hughes making his feelings known and the two of them have a gloriously undignified verbal spat on the touchline. This is exactly what you want from such a game.
The whistle goes. We're in the hat.
---
In the end we won comfortably, but we did have some well timed, high quality saves from the keeper to thank for the game not becoming more awkward than it did. The returning players did us good as did the simple maths of having more first team players available to freshen things up. We do really need a striker back to add to that depth, though I've always quite liked the sheer chaos option of sticking CJ through the middle for 10 minutes (I certainly prefer it to him playing full back) and sooner or later, he will, whether by accident or design, score a goal, simply because he's very quick and that's something that we lack up front. We've plenty of other options to do the other shit CJ does - but really, no one to swap out for Fletch or Bloxham.
This season has been mostly disappointment and whilst I remain (largely) convinced that we really, really should have enough quality to get enough results that the unthinkable image of the most well invested in Blackpool squad in years getting relegated to the 4th tier doesn't become a reality - there's no real confidence that we're going to go on a run to promotion because a) we've left ourselves so much to do and b) as it stands, whilst I think we do have quality, we definitely lack the collective character to grind out the kind of run we would need.
Tonight, was, therefore, fun - because we won, because at times we played quite well and most of all, because in what has been a bit of a grim and pretty joyless trudge in the muddy depths of the league, we're in the third round draw and we can, at least before we get drawn against fucking Oxford Utd or some other non-entity, dream of a little bit of cup magic.
Which, really, is the point of all of this isn't it?
Onward
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