I occasionally wonder if I sometimes go over the top with criticising fellow supporters who moan about our Management team, losing the odd game, lack of cover or even chips at Latimer Park. Or when people gripe about the Trust, and what they've done for the club.
I was searching google for images of Juventus v. AC Milan to use as the basis of a gag about the way Hanwell's and our kit looked yesterday. As you do. Good for a quick giggle. Instead I happened upon a couple of articles from the website "200%" from what looked very much like our final days of existence. One of these articles included some particularly fine writing from the Blog you are now reading, and a link to PATGOD from October 2012.
An hour later and I had re-read everything we'd written during the ill-fated removal to Non Park, Imraan, Rolls, Non Park, Not playing football for a month. Re-birth at Steel Park. Gates down to 150. The club barely hanging on by a particularly narrow thread. Huge defeats. Relegations.
I hadn't gone back before and looked over the stuff we wrote during this period. Why would I - far too depressing! But I found I wasn't depressed by it. Not to sound too self-serving, but it is a gripping story. Horrific, but nevertheless gripping, even though we know the ending. In over 140 years of history I cannot believe the club has been at such a low ebb. Reading our bumf from back then, you genuinely cannot see how the club could come out of it's nosedive to destruction.
All of this wasn't 20 or 30 years ago under Gingell or English. It was just 2 years ago. It all happened since the London Olympics. George Rolls is still only halfway through his 5-year ban from football! Events so recent that they have yet to fully pass into the fabric of the club consciousness. At least for some people, who wave away those days, and the efforts of those who effectively saved the club, in a rush to go back to moaning about the most incredibly trifling of matters.
If you're bored, have a pop back to the blog from the start of the 2012-13 season. Compare where we were then to where we are now and tell me we shouldn't still be pleased and grateful to still be able to complain about our football club. So much has changed. Oh, except for Pedro looking to launch another "Stay -a - Weymouth!" Some things remain comfortingly familiar.
And I hope you'll be big enough to agree that I foresaw (along with a few others), what would happen after that fiasco at Wicksteed Park. One thing you can't disagree with is that I have always wanted the best for the club, team and supporters. My views on the current management team are well known, and again it's only because I want to see us playing champions league football as soon as possible I'd change them. I could be proved wrong and nobody would be happier than me.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me fly another little flag up the pole. It's always bothered me a little as to my Ritchie (who I'm a huge fan of) bothered to get involved with a lost cause like the Poppies. Something stills nags at me about Sausage Rolls. Could you use the Poppies as a means to get some prime building land on the cheap?
Perhaps you can call me paranoid...!
Yes, you're paranoid. But that doesn't always mean you're wrong......!
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