Friday, 2 May 2008
The wait of expectation
Lots of people can't stand waiting for a bus because there's nothing you can do to make it arrive more quickly. Waiting for something good to happen to your football team is much the same. You can shout encouragement or abuse at the players or sound off on a messageboard until you're blue in the fingers. But you won't make any more difference to what actually happens than if you were to stand at the bus stop yelling: "Booooo, this is rubbish! Sort it, Stagecoach!"
The bus eventually turns up, though, and sooner or later something good happens to your football team. Although, granted, nobody publishes a timetable for winning promotion.
Town fans are getting twitchy because next season will be our fifth in a row as a fourth division team. This represents our worst spell, in terms of league status, since we joined the Football League as founder members of the second division in 1892. True, we spent the 1910–11 season as a non-League club. But the league still only had two divisions at that time, so that wasn't so bad. And in those days you didn't have TV companies promising the league 300 million quid and then welching on the deal when they didn't sell enough advertising.
But five seasons in the basement is nothing really. Rochdale have got themselves into the play-offs this year. If they win they'll be promoted for the first time in 40 years. And from 1970 to 1989 they failed to finish higher than 15th. At least we had a day out in Cardiff the other year and the fun of knocking Lincoln out of the play-off semi-finals.
And three or four decades of fourth division football were the stuff of dreams for Accrington Stanley, of course – liquidated in 1962 with debts of less than £50,000. A reformed Aldershot will return to the league next season after suffering a similar fate in 1992. But Stanley fans had to wait 44 years for their big comeback. If you're stuck for what to do over the close season, nip out and buy a Travel Scrabble.
When Town were relegated to the third division in 1997, our opponents this weekend, Hereford, went down to the Conference. It took them nine years to return, and tomorrow they'll be celebrating another promotion – on an average attendance nearly 1,000 less than ours this season.
And the greatest consolation for Town fans is that when our club eventually gets itself together and achieves promotion, the momentum tends to carry through to the following season and we often go up again. For the Mariners, promotion really is like waiting for a bus: you're stuck there for ages and then two come along at once.
The bus eventually turns up, though, and sooner or later something good happens to your football team. Although, granted, nobody publishes a timetable for winning promotion.
Town fans are getting twitchy because next season will be our fifth in a row as a fourth division team. This represents our worst spell, in terms of league status, since we joined the Football League as founder members of the second division in 1892. True, we spent the 1910–11 season as a non-League club. But the league still only had two divisions at that time, so that wasn't so bad. And in those days you didn't have TV companies promising the league 300 million quid and then welching on the deal when they didn't sell enough advertising.
But five seasons in the basement is nothing really. Rochdale have got themselves into the play-offs this year. If they win they'll be promoted for the first time in 40 years. And from 1970 to 1989 they failed to finish higher than 15th. At least we had a day out in Cardiff the other year and the fun of knocking Lincoln out of the play-off semi-finals.
And three or four decades of fourth division football were the stuff of dreams for Accrington Stanley, of course – liquidated in 1962 with debts of less than £50,000. A reformed Aldershot will return to the league next season after suffering a similar fate in 1992. But Stanley fans had to wait 44 years for their big comeback. If you're stuck for what to do over the close season, nip out and buy a Travel Scrabble.
When Town were relegated to the third division in 1997, our opponents this weekend, Hereford, went down to the Conference. It took them nine years to return, and tomorrow they'll be celebrating another promotion – on an average attendance nearly 1,000 less than ours this season.
And the greatest consolation for Town fans is that when our club eventually gets itself together and achieves promotion, the momentum tends to carry through to the following season and we often go up again. For the Mariners, promotion really is like waiting for a bus: you're stuck there for ages and then two come along at once.
Labels: accrington, buses, conference, hereford, itv digital, play-offs, promotion, relegation, rochdale
Friday, 25 April 2008
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate
I can't say I've ever cared a great deal for Peterborough United Football Club. In this, at least, I have something in common with most of the population of Peterborough.
Partly this is my generalised horror of all those commuter towns north of London. There's never anything to do there because it's all happening down in the capital. Seriously – if you think living in Grimsby is boring you've never spent a week in Bedford.
As far as the football goes, it's about envy and fear. All through the 1980s and 90s, Town's shrewd management meant we punched well above our weight, one or two divisions higher than the teams representing much bigger towns and cities like Bristol, Northampton, Stoke, Hull and Peterborough.
And just as you always knew that eventually Town would mess it all up and crash back to the fourth division, you always knew that eventually some 'self-made' business types, with no charisma, no mates and nothing more fun to do, would see these small clubs in big towns and splash loads of money in the hope of making them the new Reading and winning some admiration to compensate for the lack of love they received from their parents in early life and the incessant bullying they suffered at school.
Sure enough, all those clubs are now comfortably better off than the Mariners. And Peterborough stand poised to surge up through the divisions thanks to the personal fortune of a bored Irish millionaire who stuck a pin in a map.
The one thing in their favour, though, is that they are not Milton Keynes Dons. They may represent perfectly the abhorrent current tendency for the outcomes of football to be distorted as clubs become toys for rich men to amuse themselves with. But at least they haven't stolen their league status from another community 60 miles down the road.
So despite my gut dislike of Peterborough I was looking out for their results all season in the hope that they'd pip the Franchise to the last promotion spot. It's like that presidential election in France where it got down to the last two and everyone voted for the horrible right-wing candidate, just to keep out the even more horrible extreme right-wing candidate.
But of course, the Franchise are already up (they've had even more money pumped in than Peterborough) and their 'fans' will be looking on the internet for the songs that football supporters are supposed to sing when their team wins promotion.
So it's back to business as usual tomorrow. The Posh are just another club with much less history than us and a shedload more money. And if they all keep getting promoted ahead of the Mariners, who will we have left to despise?
Partly this is my generalised horror of all those commuter towns north of London. There's never anything to do there because it's all happening down in the capital. Seriously – if you think living in Grimsby is boring you've never spent a week in Bedford.
As far as the football goes, it's about envy and fear. All through the 1980s and 90s, Town's shrewd management meant we punched well above our weight, one or two divisions higher than the teams representing much bigger towns and cities like Bristol, Northampton, Stoke, Hull and Peterborough.
And just as you always knew that eventually Town would mess it all up and crash back to the fourth division, you always knew that eventually some 'self-made' business types, with no charisma, no mates and nothing more fun to do, would see these small clubs in big towns and splash loads of money in the hope of making them the new Reading and winning some admiration to compensate for the lack of love they received from their parents in early life and the incessant bullying they suffered at school.
Sure enough, all those clubs are now comfortably better off than the Mariners. And Peterborough stand poised to surge up through the divisions thanks to the personal fortune of a bored Irish millionaire who stuck a pin in a map.
The one thing in their favour, though, is that they are not Milton Keynes Dons. They may represent perfectly the abhorrent current tendency for the outcomes of football to be distorted as clubs become toys for rich men to amuse themselves with. But at least they haven't stolen their league status from another community 60 miles down the road.
So despite my gut dislike of Peterborough I was looking out for their results all season in the hope that they'd pip the Franchise to the last promotion spot. It's like that presidential election in France where it got down to the last two and everyone voted for the horrible right-wing candidate, just to keep out the even more horrible extreme right-wing candidate.
But of course, the Franchise are already up (they've had even more money pumped in than Peterborough) and their 'fans' will be looking on the internet for the songs that football supporters are supposed to sing when their team wins promotion.
So it's back to business as usual tomorrow. The Posh are just another club with much less history than us and a shedload more money. And if they all keep getting promoted ahead of the Mariners, who will we have left to despise?
Labels: chairmen, franchise, peterborough, promotion, relegation
Friday, 18 April 2008
Living on the edge... of Cleethorpes
We all need the buzz of a little danger in our lives. Some people get their fix from rock climbing or bungee jumping. Others seek out the biggest, fastest rollercoaster rides on the planet. Me and you, we go and watch Grimsby Town play football.
After Town's seventh defeat in nine games, against Wycombe on Tuesday night, Alan Buckley concluded: "This season we have either been really good or very poor" – neglecting to mention that we were also either really good or very poor last season as well. Nevertheless, it all still amounts to an improvement on most seasons in the first half of this decade, when we were just very poor.
Form, they say, is temporary, while class is supposed to be permanent. Michael Owen's career was widely written off earlier this season, only for the player to return to form with four goals in five games during March and April, whereas it showed a permanent lack of class last month when John Terry parked his Bentley in a disabled parking space.
With the Mariners it's permanently one extreme or the other. Never mind this season and last season – we're always either really good or very poor.
True, the manager does have previous in this respect, as the awesome and awful runs Town have experienced in the past year are not unprecedented in his career. In the middle of the 1995–96 season Buckley's West Brom side suffered 12 consecutive defeats. Immediately afterwards they became the form team of the division, losing just two of their last 19 games.
To any observer at the time, this turnaround was nothing short of remarkable. To a Grimsby Town fan in 2008, it's just remarkably familiar.
But it's been this way with Town forever. When we're not celebrating consecutive promotions or lamenting consecutive relegations, we're hanging on for dear life in 21st place or fluffing a play-off final. And this is like a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster where Crystal Palace are in the car behind you and you wallop them 5-2 and then plunge horribly to the bottom and crash into ten-man Tranmere in front, and you want to get off because you're somewhere between feeling sick and losing the will to live.
So for Town fans, football is our extreme sport, no less blood-curdling than jumping out of planes or dangling from a thread off a massive cliff. We saw many worse performances in 2003 and 2004 than we did against Wycombe, yet on Tuesday the gate was lower than at any league game for around 20 years. Ultimately, maybe it doesn't actually matter to us whether the side is "really good or very poor" – as long as the outcome can still scare the bejaysus out of us.
After Town's seventh defeat in nine games, against Wycombe on Tuesday night, Alan Buckley concluded: "This season we have either been really good or very poor" – neglecting to mention that we were also either really good or very poor last season as well. Nevertheless, it all still amounts to an improvement on most seasons in the first half of this decade, when we were just very poor.
Form, they say, is temporary, while class is supposed to be permanent. Michael Owen's career was widely written off earlier this season, only for the player to return to form with four goals in five games during March and April, whereas it showed a permanent lack of class last month when John Terry parked his Bentley in a disabled parking space.
With the Mariners it's permanently one extreme or the other. Never mind this season and last season – we're always either really good or very poor.
True, the manager does have previous in this respect, as the awesome and awful runs Town have experienced in the past year are not unprecedented in his career. In the middle of the 1995–96 season Buckley's West Brom side suffered 12 consecutive defeats. Immediately afterwards they became the form team of the division, losing just two of their last 19 games.
To any observer at the time, this turnaround was nothing short of remarkable. To a Grimsby Town fan in 2008, it's just remarkably familiar.
But it's been this way with Town forever. When we're not celebrating consecutive promotions or lamenting consecutive relegations, we're hanging on for dear life in 21st place or fluffing a play-off final. And this is like a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster where Crystal Palace are in the car behind you and you wallop them 5-2 and then plunge horribly to the bottom and crash into ten-man Tranmere in front, and you want to get off because you're somewhere between feeling sick and losing the will to live.
So for Town fans, football is our extreme sport, no less blood-curdling than jumping out of planes or dangling from a thread off a massive cliff. We saw many worse performances in 2003 and 2004 than we did against Wycombe, yet on Tuesday the gate was lower than at any league game for around 20 years. Ultimately, maybe it doesn't actually matter to us whether the side is "really good or very poor" – as long as the outcome can still scare the bejaysus out of us.
Labels: attendances, buckley, danger, fear, form, promotion, relegation
Friday, 15 February 2008
Football's just a branch of science
The laws of football, you would expect, are the chief set of principles that guide events at Blundell Park – closely followed these days by the laws of finance and of economics. But all these systems are overwhelmed by the most powerful laws of all: the laws of physics.
If you break a law of physics the results can be catastrophic. You might turn everything to grey goo. You might unleash a devastating wave of destruction as the fabric of the Universe collapses in on itself. Or, worst of all, you might stuff up your bid for promotion out of the fourth division.
One of the best-known laws of physics concerns momentum. Momentum is defined as the product of mass and velocity. This means the heavier something is, the longer it will keep moving. But Town's 2006 play-off campaign ended in disaster at Cardiff as this law of physics was flagrantly contravened every week by Tony Crane.
Momentum also means that large objects need more of a push to get going, but once they've started there's no stopping them. Gary Jones, you may have noticed, doesn't tend to score many goals in the first two or three months of the season, while his form from about December onwards is invariably fantastic.
Earlier in this decade, and for much of the 1990s, it was the momentum created by previous upward motion through the Football League that sustained the Mariners as a second division club. In 2003 and 2004, as Town plummeted two divisions to a level more suited to our modest degree of support, we discovered the dangerous consequences of attempting to defy gravity.
Another important concept in physics is Brownian motion. This is the principle whereby a group of particles move at high speeds in random directions and frequently collide, resulting in chaos. Real-life examples include specks of pollen on the surface of a liquid, traders on the stock market, and Town's back four in the first three months of this season.
And while some have accused Jason Crowe, Martin Gritton and Stuart Campbell of being lazy players, they were simply following the laws of physics: in their case, the law of the conservation of energy.
Finally, there is quantum physics – the study of all those really tiny little things and how they act really weirdly (do stop me if I'm getting too technical). Quantum scientists have recently discovered that the form of some bodies actually changes if you study them too closely.
So you feel the urge for a 'P' word in the weeks ahead, don't think about play-offs and don't think about promotion, because the form of the bodies on Blundell Park will change if you study it too closely. Think about physics instead.
If you break a law of physics the results can be catastrophic. You might turn everything to grey goo. You might unleash a devastating wave of destruction as the fabric of the Universe collapses in on itself. Or, worst of all, you might stuff up your bid for promotion out of the fourth division.
One of the best-known laws of physics concerns momentum. Momentum is defined as the product of mass and velocity. This means the heavier something is, the longer it will keep moving. But Town's 2006 play-off campaign ended in disaster at Cardiff as this law of physics was flagrantly contravened every week by Tony Crane.
Momentum also means that large objects need more of a push to get going, but once they've started there's no stopping them. Gary Jones, you may have noticed, doesn't tend to score many goals in the first two or three months of the season, while his form from about December onwards is invariably fantastic.
Earlier in this decade, and for much of the 1990s, it was the momentum created by previous upward motion through the Football League that sustained the Mariners as a second division club. In 2003 and 2004, as Town plummeted two divisions to a level more suited to our modest degree of support, we discovered the dangerous consequences of attempting to defy gravity.
Another important concept in physics is Brownian motion. This is the principle whereby a group of particles move at high speeds in random directions and frequently collide, resulting in chaos. Real-life examples include specks of pollen on the surface of a liquid, traders on the stock market, and Town's back four in the first three months of this season.
And while some have accused Jason Crowe, Martin Gritton and Stuart Campbell of being lazy players, they were simply following the laws of physics: in their case, the law of the conservation of energy.
Finally, there is quantum physics – the study of all those really tiny little things and how they act really weirdly (do stop me if I'm getting too technical). Quantum scientists have recently discovered that the form of some bodies actually changes if you study them too closely.
So you feel the urge for a 'P' word in the weeks ahead, don't think about play-offs and don't think about promotion, because the form of the bodies on Blundell Park will change if you study it too closely. Think about physics instead.
Labels: campbell, crane, crowe, failure, gritton, jones, laws, physics, play-offs, promotion, relegation, rules, science
Friday, 7 September 2007
Modern life is rubbish
The trouble with modern life, and all its whizzy gadgets and conveniences, is that we have come to expect everything, and expect it instantly, when very often it's more rewarding to wait a bit longer for stuff.
Take the railways. I've been going to London a lot lately – it's actually a really good service, and pretty cheap if you book in advance and all that. This is clearly not the way to run a railway in Britain in 2007, so the franchise is being given to other train operating companies who promise to get us there about ten minutes quicker, just as long as we let them put up the fares at three times the rate of inflation.
And it's only recently that we've watched the football through the filter of these inflated expectations and deflated attention spans. For the first Town fans, back in the 1870s and 1880s, life was rubbish and there was stuff all they could do about it. Every week the trawler owners' lackeys would get you of bed at 3am, burn your house down and make your children into soup, so it scarcely mattered if you'd spent Saturday afternoon watching the Mariners lose 9-0 at home to Goxhill Clodhoppers.
Conversely, in these days of luxury we have a coronary if we have to lift the cushion up to get the remote control, so it's beyond all human toleration when there are things we can't change immediately just by pressing a button – like Town being stuck in the fourth division.
And some are already condemning the Mariners to another disappointing finish this season – on the evidence of just four league games.
Partly I blame this newspaper for saying Town are "joint bottom". We're not joint bottom – we're ahead of Wrexham and Accrington on goal difference, which is just as valid a measure as points. When Arsenal scored with the last kick of the 1988–89 season to seal the league title on goals scored, even Liverpool fans would have been too embarrassed to claim their team were actually "joint champions".
But at the same point in bygone years, we wouldn't have a league table to be joint bottom of, because nobody drew one up until mid-September. Nowadays websites publish tables before the season has even begun, and some fans spent July calling furiously for Alan Buckley to be sacked because Town were several places below Accrington on alphabetical order.
Four games into the 1997–98 season Town were in a relegation spot – and I trust we haven't forgotten what the current manager achieved just afterwards. If I had my way, Buckley would be manager for life – and I'd probably have him running the railways as well.
Take the railways. I've been going to London a lot lately – it's actually a really good service, and pretty cheap if you book in advance and all that. This is clearly not the way to run a railway in Britain in 2007, so the franchise is being given to other train operating companies who promise to get us there about ten minutes quicker, just as long as we let them put up the fares at three times the rate of inflation.
And it's only recently that we've watched the football through the filter of these inflated expectations and deflated attention spans. For the first Town fans, back in the 1870s and 1880s, life was rubbish and there was stuff all they could do about it. Every week the trawler owners' lackeys would get you of bed at 3am, burn your house down and make your children into soup, so it scarcely mattered if you'd spent Saturday afternoon watching the Mariners lose 9-0 at home to Goxhill Clodhoppers.
Conversely, in these days of luxury we have a coronary if we have to lift the cushion up to get the remote control, so it's beyond all human toleration when there are things we can't change immediately just by pressing a button – like Town being stuck in the fourth division.
And some are already condemning the Mariners to another disappointing finish this season – on the evidence of just four league games.
Partly I blame this newspaper for saying Town are "joint bottom". We're not joint bottom – we're ahead of Wrexham and Accrington on goal difference, which is just as valid a measure as points. When Arsenal scored with the last kick of the 1988–89 season to seal the league title on goals scored, even Liverpool fans would have been too embarrassed to claim their team were actually "joint champions".
But at the same point in bygone years, we wouldn't have a league table to be joint bottom of, because nobody drew one up until mid-September. Nowadays websites publish tables before the season has even begun, and some fans spent July calling furiously for Alan Buckley to be sacked because Town were several places below Accrington on alphabetical order.
Four games into the 1997–98 season Town were in a relegation spot – and I trust we haven't forgotten what the current manager achieved just afterwards. If I had my way, Buckley would be manager for life – and I'd probably have him running the railways as well.
Labels: accrington, buckley, history, league tables, patience, promotion, relegation, trains
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