Today we're playing Bromley. I can't really accept that we're playing Bromley.
It feels like I must have fallen asleep for a decade or so and we have have been relegated several times and reallocated to the Beazer Homes South East Division. James Alexander Gordon never said "Bromley", in a upward, downward or neutral inflection (depending on the result) after he precisely intoned "Football League, Division 3"
Bromley. We might as well be playing Sidcup, or Yarm or Erith and Belvedere. This is not the name of a football league team. Surely?
Yet it is and here they are in a kit the colour of some expensive silky pyjamas. The type that Daily Telegraph readers might wear. I'm going to call it 'jade' or 'teal' - I don't know what colour it is. Whatever it is, it is not a football colour.
Don't be fooled though. They are no set of hillbillies from some sleepy little backwater. I pass by a little gaggle of their supporters. I'm guilty of thinking 'oh, how nice it must be for them to be here' whilst I muse upon which of our players will score his hattrick first. Once I'm inside though, the effect of their sheer physical mass as team puts aside any thoughts that we might be playing a ramshackle bunch of lovable no hopers. They're fucking huge. I've fallen into the exact same trap that so many must have fallen into whilst they've climbed to where they now are. I've patronised the fuck out of them and assumed that, because we won the cup in 1953, we will obviously roll them over 10-0.
Football, sadly, doesn't work like that. You'd think I'd have learned by now. I haven't.
This is a challenge. This is the challenge of this season defined. It's all very well playing football on the break and having dynamic tactical flexibility and all of that modern jazz, but how do we fare against the teams in this division who pare things down to the absolute essentials and don't give a fuck about half spaces and the like.
It's tempting to write about their shithousing, their time wasting, their reliance on set plays and shirt pulling and a referee who seemed to have had a bang on the head before the game that caused him to see left as right and up as down. I'm not going to fall into that familiar territory because I'm bored of it.
It's what I've written oh so many times before when we play a 'teams like' team and don't do very well. Instead, I'm going to say this - I admired Bromley. I admired how they've maximised their resources. I admired how they didn't crumble when we scored and instead launched a genuinely impressive bombardment of our goal, all the big lads thundering forward, the weight of their boots on the turf producing a low rumble, like the guns of the Somme. I admired how their manager looked like a bloke from the pub and seemed to be revelling in every little bit of skullduggery and wind up merchant behaviour, whilst our urbane, tactics talking, slacks and tailored fit jumper wearing manager seemed more and more frustrated as the game went on.
Football goes in cycles. For every heralded innovator, for every heralded guardian of the sacred spirit of the beautiful game (a Cruyff, a Pep, the holy Liverpool way etc) there is the counterpoint, the positional of maximum opportunity, the sum of the parts becoming greater than the whole, disruptive, simplifiers. One is never better than the other.
The beauty of the game is, yes, in the Dutch teams of the 1970s, in that Barcelona side who no one could lay a finger upon, in Stanley Matthews timeless ability - but it's also in Wimbledon winning the FA Cup, it's in Arsene Wenger's frustration at how his team's fluid football foundered every time on the jagged Big Sam shaped rocks at Bolton, it's maybe even in how, after so many failings time after time in a league hyped as the next level of football, a game so evolved it had become entirely abstracted from what went before, Arsenal set pieced their way to a title, with scrambled fist fights in the penalty area like it was 1976 all over again.
We go in cycles too, Big Mick with his back to basics ways, Critch with the ipad and steering wheel, the gang of Steves, Evo and the all-timer tangerine crew. We seem to flip flop between ideas, forever building towards something, but never getting to the end point. This season has, thus far (Reading aside) provided some hope that we might actually be moving towards realising an idea.
It doesn't seem to matter what our guiding ethos is though - we hate playing 'teams like' teams. It's your Crawley Towns, your Stevenage's and that type of thing that strike terror into the heart. Surely, surely, surely, we should be able to out football them? Surely we should be able to dance, move, pass, dribble, better than them? Surely we can't fall into the trap, yet again?
---
You know the score. It's us. We don't start hugely well, but we score first. Albie smacks a free kick right down the middle. He's leathered it, but the keeper definitely should do better. Hurrah, well done chaps, we'll cruise this 4-0 now... We don't. For a ten minute spell, there's just tangerine bodies bouncing off jade shirted monsters.
It's like a bunch of soldiers from a Soviet war memorial have come to life, huge figures, all angles and granite muscles and a terrifying sense of purpose and in middle of them Brown's bald patch and Albie's little frame run around ineffectually like a dad and his lad dropped into the middle of a Premier League game. Even Karoy looks diminished in this company.
They score. Inevitably it's the goal we concede all the time. A cross, not dealt with, blah, blah, blah. A 'teams like' team scoring that goal. Our players looking like confused skittles at a bowling alley. The ball in the net. Skittles turning into sad teapots. The tinny roar of a tiny away following. Again. FFS Pool.
I'm not sure on the order of things if I'm honest but Bromley put a lot of pressure on us for a while. There's an absolutely absurd scramble which looks for all the world as if it's gone in. We can't seem to get the ball down and play. When we do, it looks as if we're a division better, but when we don't the effect is reversed. It's actually quite interesting as a clash of styles - but it's very frustrating.
Tom Bloxham has emerged as my unlikely key player for this team. I was never convinced by him as a striker last year - but this season, he's emerged as the player we can't do without. Every time he leaves the pitch we seem diminished. He's a point of difference and there's a hitherto unseen intelligence about his forward play, drifting to the wing, dropping off, sitting on the defenders shoulder. He's got the pace, the power and the touch to do all of those things. Suddenly it seems like Bloxham plus one of the others when perhaps it felt like he might be the one pushed out.
The second goal when it comes seems perfectly timed. We've established a bit of pressure, we've spurned a few chances (Karoy most notably, missing what felt like a sitter and a beautiful through ball from Bowler setting Bloxham for a decent effort, well saved.) Monroe does well to keep a misplaced Morgan shot alive, pull it across the box and Bloxham gets a reward for for his efforts this season, a simple tap in, the ball basically colliding with him, impossible not to end in the back of the net. The relief is palpable. The order of things are restored.
---
Half time. I'm not sure what we should do. Dion has basically not been playing today, even though his name is on the team sheet, so it might be an idea to give Jerry a go - but beyond that, I'm not really sure what we could add from the bench to assert more control. Perhaps we just need to let time take it's course. Maybe another 45 minutes and this lot will fall over.
---
That doesn't happen. The second half feels a bit like sitting through a company briefing in a boring job. It's all just routine stuff. Bromley maximise the disruption, the referee marches around pointlessly intervening in things and ignoring stuff that he might actually deal with. It's fair enough. If the ref lets you do it, do it.
We look any good when we just move the ball about. It's that simple. If we pass it, relatively quickly, side to side or sharply switch it to the wings, we get in. You can see what Bromley want to do, every time they have a goal kick. They crowd all the play into as small a section of the pitch as possible. They don't want us to be expansive, they want the game compressed because if you do that, then the physical advantage comes into play.
There are chances. Bowler waltzes through and then hits the corner of the stand, rather than the top corner. Jerry slides in on one laid through, but either his run is slightly off the pace or the ball is slightly too heavy. Bloxham gets wrestled to the ground in the box, from an entire pitch away, I can see that the defender has his shirt in his fists and is pulling him, but the ref isn't interested in such things, he's more keen on marching players back, using his shaving foam with an authoritative flourish. I bet he gets home and cuts the match video up to the points where he's on screen whistling and pointing and drawing foamy lines and saves them in a big file to watch back himself. Clarkson misses from our bast move, a bending shot, that doesn't bend enough. Sometimes it feels like our technical abilities might get ahead of doing the simple things in front of goal. Yes, you *can* bend it in the top corner, but perhaps just smash it on target instead sometimes.
They have chances too. BPF produces a fantastic fingertip save to tip one over. They hit the side netting (and think they've scored) - they're not all massive brutes, they've got a sprinkling of nippy little lads with good feet and our defenders aren't the quickest, so it's always a risk when we commit forward and so many times we seem to give the ball away in attack at the point where we've thrown everyone as high as we can.
The equaliser itself is comical. I'm sure you've had the kind of morning where your alarm doesn't go off, you jump out of bed, stub your toe, hop downstairs and then open the cupboard only for the cerial to fallout and go all over the floor. The world seems weighed against you, the gods are frowning upon you, laughing at your misfortune. Jordan Brown has the football equivalent. We have one of the frequent fairly promising bits of build up, but when Brown tries to chop onto a different foot to take a shot, they nip the ball off him, leaving him wondering where it's gone as they burst up the field. Brown recovers, turns and launches into a lung busting run to try and get back, he makes it, he slides in, right on the edge of the box. The referee blows. From my angle it looked like a good challenge, but this ref and this moment of luck isn't smiling on the monk-like one. A free kick then, a carbon copy of the moment Morgan put us ahead. It's blasted, it's ok, it seems for a split second, it's off target but then, suddenly, as I track the ball, Jordan Brown is in the frame, seemingly unaware and the ball is hitting him, changing direction and giving BPF no chance. A goal, created and scored by Jordan Brown - just for the wrong team.
Their goal is where the game seems to end. What I've written above happens both before and after it - but beyond it, everything seemed inevitable. I watched the game after their equaliser in a kind of silent reverie. Why can we not deal with this kind of football? Only one moment briefly inspires me. Bowler, who second half is wasteful and more uncertain in his play than he's been all season, has that moment, twisting, turning, wriggling and getting a shot away. It could be that this most glorious of footballers has risen above the level, has turned the inevitable on its head.
A low save, the follow up isn't there. Another 'teams like' team will go to their fans and soak up the acclaim. We will slink off and wonder what might have been.
---
If we go up at any point in the next century, we'll be that 'teams like' team. We've been the 'teams like' team plenty of times in recent memory. Again, I'm not going to whine at Bromley. Fair play to them. It's remarkable how far you can get with keeping the game relatively simple, some joined up thinking and a lot of effort. That's not snobbery, it's admiration. We've tried teams full of big lads but not had the intelligence to find someone to take a decent corner or long throw. We've been shit every time we've tried that kind of football since Fat Sam's reign so to look down on it seems misguided. Bromley weren't shit at what they did and they deserved a point.
I'm not going to complain that lads like Clarkson and Morgan couldn't out battle them either. It's like expecting a ford Fiesta to crush a monster truck. What I will complain about is the lack of dynamic movement and the lopsided nature of our play. Whether it's because Earle has the acceleration of one of those trucks that takes a NASA rocket to the launchpad and therefore he didn't want to leave vast spaces behind him, or because he's just callow, Monroe wasn't really effective as an outlet. Bowler did some lovely things and some rubbish things. Bloxham was very handy - but beyond that, we didn't grab the game, we didn't make them dizzy, we didn't stretch the pitch as we could - and it became very obvious, very quickly that we wanted to get the ball wide right as often as possible.
It seems simplistic, but it felt as if had we been more unpredictable as we attacked and had we done what we did faster, we'd have asked a lot more questions. We've played some very fast football this year - but it feels like it takes an opposition who play the same sort of thing to remind us that we're capable of it - and that's going to define our chances. If we want top 6, we can't let 'teams like' teams dictate what the game is going to be like, we can't slow to a crawl against them, unless we're going to combine that with bursts of invention and incision and have the confidence and the right shape/balance, to really go at them, force them back and neuter their own desire to break on us.
The last three games have been a reality check. Autumn is coming and the sun soaked optimism of a few weeks back seems giddy and foolish. It's always a battle though and how we come into January, whether we're in a place for it to be worth complimenting what we have and, up to that point we learn to reliably maximise the abilities of the players we already possess will define us.
Onward!
You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.
It's like a bunch of soldiers from a Soviet war memorial have come to life, huge figures, all angles and granite muscles and a terrifying sense of purpose and in middle of them Brown's bald patch and Albie's little frame run around ineffectually like a dad and his lad dropped into the middle of a Premier League game. Even Karoy looks diminished in this company.
They score. Inevitably it's the goal we concede all the time. A cross, not dealt with, blah, blah, blah. A 'teams like' team scoring that goal. Our players looking like confused skittles at a bowling alley. The ball in the net. Skittles turning into sad teapots. The tinny roar of a tiny away following. Again. FFS Pool.
I'm not sure on the order of things if I'm honest but Bromley put a lot of pressure on us for a while. There's an absolutely absurd scramble which looks for all the world as if it's gone in. We can't seem to get the ball down and play. When we do, it looks as if we're a division better, but when we don't the effect is reversed. It's actually quite interesting as a clash of styles - but it's very frustrating.
Tom Bloxham has emerged as my unlikely key player for this team. I was never convinced by him as a striker last year - but this season, he's emerged as the player we can't do without. Every time he leaves the pitch we seem diminished. He's a point of difference and there's a hitherto unseen intelligence about his forward play, drifting to the wing, dropping off, sitting on the defenders shoulder. He's got the pace, the power and the touch to do all of those things. Suddenly it seems like Bloxham plus one of the others when perhaps it felt like he might be the one pushed out.
The second goal when it comes seems perfectly timed. We've established a bit of pressure, we've spurned a few chances (Karoy most notably, missing what felt like a sitter and a beautiful through ball from Bowler setting Bloxham for a decent effort, well saved.) Monroe does well to keep a misplaced Morgan shot alive, pull it across the box and Bloxham gets a reward for for his efforts this season, a simple tap in, the ball basically colliding with him, impossible not to end in the back of the net. The relief is palpable. The order of things are restored.
---
Half time. I'm not sure what we should do. Dion has basically not been playing today, even though his name is on the team sheet, so it might be an idea to give Jerry a go - but beyond that, I'm not really sure what we could add from the bench to assert more control. Perhaps we just need to let time take it's course. Maybe another 45 minutes and this lot will fall over.
---
That doesn't happen. The second half feels a bit like sitting through a company briefing in a boring job. It's all just routine stuff. Bromley maximise the disruption, the referee marches around pointlessly intervening in things and ignoring stuff that he might actually deal with. It's fair enough. If the ref lets you do it, do it.
We look any good when we just move the ball about. It's that simple. If we pass it, relatively quickly, side to side or sharply switch it to the wings, we get in. You can see what Bromley want to do, every time they have a goal kick. They crowd all the play into as small a section of the pitch as possible. They don't want us to be expansive, they want the game compressed because if you do that, then the physical advantage comes into play.
There are chances. Bowler waltzes through and then hits the corner of the stand, rather than the top corner. Jerry slides in on one laid through, but either his run is slightly off the pace or the ball is slightly too heavy. Bloxham gets wrestled to the ground in the box, from an entire pitch away, I can see that the defender has his shirt in his fists and is pulling him, but the ref isn't interested in such things, he's more keen on marching players back, using his shaving foam with an authoritative flourish. I bet he gets home and cuts the match video up to the points where he's on screen whistling and pointing and drawing foamy lines and saves them in a big file to watch back himself. Clarkson misses from our bast move, a bending shot, that doesn't bend enough. Sometimes it feels like our technical abilities might get ahead of doing the simple things in front of goal. Yes, you *can* bend it in the top corner, but perhaps just smash it on target instead sometimes.
They have chances too. BPF produces a fantastic fingertip save to tip one over. They hit the side netting (and think they've scored) - they're not all massive brutes, they've got a sprinkling of nippy little lads with good feet and our defenders aren't the quickest, so it's always a risk when we commit forward and so many times we seem to give the ball away in attack at the point where we've thrown everyone as high as we can.
The equaliser itself is comical. I'm sure you've had the kind of morning where your alarm doesn't go off, you jump out of bed, stub your toe, hop downstairs and then open the cupboard only for the cerial to fallout and go all over the floor. The world seems weighed against you, the gods are frowning upon you, laughing at your misfortune. Jordan Brown has the football equivalent. We have one of the frequent fairly promising bits of build up, but when Brown tries to chop onto a different foot to take a shot, they nip the ball off him, leaving him wondering where it's gone as they burst up the field. Brown recovers, turns and launches into a lung busting run to try and get back, he makes it, he slides in, right on the edge of the box. The referee blows. From my angle it looked like a good challenge, but this ref and this moment of luck isn't smiling on the monk-like one. A free kick then, a carbon copy of the moment Morgan put us ahead. It's blasted, it's ok, it seems for a split second, it's off target but then, suddenly, as I track the ball, Jordan Brown is in the frame, seemingly unaware and the ball is hitting him, changing direction and giving BPF no chance. A goal, created and scored by Jordan Brown - just for the wrong team.
Their goal is where the game seems to end. What I've written above happens both before and after it - but beyond it, everything seemed inevitable. I watched the game after their equaliser in a kind of silent reverie. Why can we not deal with this kind of football? Only one moment briefly inspires me. Bowler, who second half is wasteful and more uncertain in his play than he's been all season, has that moment, twisting, turning, wriggling and getting a shot away. It could be that this most glorious of footballers has risen above the level, has turned the inevitable on its head.
A low save, the follow up isn't there. Another 'teams like' team will go to their fans and soak up the acclaim. We will slink off and wonder what might have been.
---
If we go up at any point in the next century, we'll be that 'teams like' team. We've been the 'teams like' team plenty of times in recent memory. Again, I'm not going to whine at Bromley. Fair play to them. It's remarkable how far you can get with keeping the game relatively simple, some joined up thinking and a lot of effort. That's not snobbery, it's admiration. We've tried teams full of big lads but not had the intelligence to find someone to take a decent corner or long throw. We've been shit every time we've tried that kind of football since Fat Sam's reign so to look down on it seems misguided. Bromley weren't shit at what they did and they deserved a point.
I'm not going to complain that lads like Clarkson and Morgan couldn't out battle them either. It's like expecting a ford Fiesta to crush a monster truck. What I will complain about is the lack of dynamic movement and the lopsided nature of our play. Whether it's because Earle has the acceleration of one of those trucks that takes a NASA rocket to the launchpad and therefore he didn't want to leave vast spaces behind him, or because he's just callow, Monroe wasn't really effective as an outlet. Bowler did some lovely things and some rubbish things. Bloxham was very handy - but beyond that, we didn't grab the game, we didn't make them dizzy, we didn't stretch the pitch as we could - and it became very obvious, very quickly that we wanted to get the ball wide right as often as possible.
It seems simplistic, but it felt as if had we been more unpredictable as we attacked and had we done what we did faster, we'd have asked a lot more questions. We've played some very fast football this year - but it feels like it takes an opposition who play the same sort of thing to remind us that we're capable of it - and that's going to define our chances. If we want top 6, we can't let 'teams like' teams dictate what the game is going to be like, we can't slow to a crawl against them, unless we're going to combine that with bursts of invention and incision and have the confidence and the right shape/balance, to really go at them, force them back and neuter their own desire to break on us.
The last three games have been a reality check. Autumn is coming and the sun soaked optimism of a few weeks back seems giddy and foolish. It's always a battle though and how we come into January, whether we're in a place for it to be worth complimenting what we have and, up to that point we learn to reliably maximise the abilities of the players we already possess will define us.
Onward!
You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.
Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - but if you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.
