Friday, 9 November 2007
Having a 'mare
I had a dream the other night that Town were in the Conference. The Osmond stand was falling down, and the fans were making up new songs about all the turmoil. Everyone was having a laugh.
Tomorrow the FA Cup takes Town to Carlisle, who were bottom of the entire league for about eight years before they finally dropped into the Conference, with a chairman who said he'd been abducted by aliens. In case everyone wasn't already thinking he was bonkers, he went and appointed himself manager for a year, just to make sure.
I think Brunton Park is a fine ground. Maybe this is because I can't stand big, ostentatious stadiums that say "this club is going places". They're rubbish. Give me a ground that says "we don't know where this club is going, really – it's probably just staying here for the time being because we haven't got any money".
And there's nothing very wrong about staying in one place for a while – as I like to tell myself when it's almost noon and I haven't got out of bed yet.
Dozens of clubs have been brought to the brink of ruin by 'visionary' businessmen who have seen 'potential' and massively over-invested. Eventually they always discover that the reason nobody had tried it beforehand was not that they alone among all humanity had the true vision and the sheer guts to take their club to the top. It was actually because they were completely, spectacularly wrong.
And maybe Town's problem right now concerns our own expectations. Whatever might be wrong off the pitch, we're all still mightily irked that we're in the fourth division – despite having a fourth division stadium, a fourth division catchment area and fourth division support – and much of that disgruntlement is feeding back onto the pitch. We expect the players to give their all for 90 minutes – but what sort of signal does it send to them when Blundell Park has almost emptied after only 80 have been played?
Maybe we could learn from Carlisle, whose fans realised that the right thing to do to pick up their club from the very bottom was to pack into Brunton Park week after week and sing their bloody heads off.
And maybe, just maybe, we can learn to just support our club from one week to the next, without wishing we were somewhere else and beating ourselves up about where we are in the league, and where we think we ought to be.
After all, if we don't relocate to the Fentydome, the chairman may leave. We could end up in the Conference with a ground that's falling down. And the only way we'd get through that is just by making up new songs and having a laugh.
Tomorrow the FA Cup takes Town to Carlisle, who were bottom of the entire league for about eight years before they finally dropped into the Conference, with a chairman who said he'd been abducted by aliens. In case everyone wasn't already thinking he was bonkers, he went and appointed himself manager for a year, just to make sure.
I think Brunton Park is a fine ground. Maybe this is because I can't stand big, ostentatious stadiums that say "this club is going places". They're rubbish. Give me a ground that says "we don't know where this club is going, really – it's probably just staying here for the time being because we haven't got any money".
And there's nothing very wrong about staying in one place for a while – as I like to tell myself when it's almost noon and I haven't got out of bed yet.
Dozens of clubs have been brought to the brink of ruin by 'visionary' businessmen who have seen 'potential' and massively over-invested. Eventually they always discover that the reason nobody had tried it beforehand was not that they alone among all humanity had the true vision and the sheer guts to take their club to the top. It was actually because they were completely, spectacularly wrong.
And maybe Town's problem right now concerns our own expectations. Whatever might be wrong off the pitch, we're all still mightily irked that we're in the fourth division – despite having a fourth division stadium, a fourth division catchment area and fourth division support – and much of that disgruntlement is feeding back onto the pitch. We expect the players to give their all for 90 minutes – but what sort of signal does it send to them when Blundell Park has almost emptied after only 80 have been played?
Maybe we could learn from Carlisle, whose fans realised that the right thing to do to pick up their club from the very bottom was to pack into Brunton Park week after week and sing their bloody heads off.
And maybe, just maybe, we can learn to just support our club from one week to the next, without wishing we were somewhere else and beating ourselves up about where we are in the league, and where we think we ought to be.
After all, if we don't relocate to the Fentydome, the chairman may leave. We could end up in the Conference with a ground that's falling down. And the only way we'd get through that is just by making up new songs and having a laugh.
Labels: carlisle, chairmen, conference, expectations, fa cup, fentydome, new stadiums, support
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]