It's all Relative

Following up on our slagging off all Poppies fans under the age of 30, I wondered further whether the occasional bouts of blind fury we display when watching our team could have anything to do with the relative success we've had in recent years, and our becoming overly accustomed to nothing but winning?  Can it be that the drug of winning every week can lead to powerful withdrawal symptoms when denied?

And before anyone takes umbrage - "What do you mean, success?  We don't win EVERY match!!!", we would argue that success is a relative thing.

Firstly, we still have a football club to enrage us.  Over the last 30 years I have lost count of the number of times the Poppies could, and perhaps should have folded.  That we are still here is thanks to the efforts, over the years, of individuals, groups of people, and often pure bloody luck.  A number of clubs have folded who have done far less wrong than the Poppies.  This is why I feel uncomfortable with the chant of "You let your club die...."  It is never that simple.  Or easy.  And we've teetered on that cliff-edge far more times than many clubs that have gone over.

Since arriving at Latimer Park we have, lost a play-off final, won a division, just missed out on the play-offs and finished Top 10.  This season, barring something quite calamitous happening, we will be in the play-offs.  Five good solid years of success.  Most clubs would be happy enough with this.  I'm sure Corby Town would happily trade their last few seasons for ours.

Compare and contrast our last 4-5 years with the pandemonium of the couple of seasons before that.  Being relegated 3 divisions in 2 years?  Playing with 10 men in front of 250 people at Non Park on a day when we should really have played our last ever game?  What about playing with 10 men and a non-moving goalie in front of 150 supporters at a frozen, desolate Steal Park?

There was always plenty of room at Steal Park
as we tumbled a 3rd division in little over
18 months of football.

Those of us who lived through those hideous times seem to have a more sanguine outlook when it comes to the odd defeat or under-par performance nowadays. We are no less passionate than those who completely lose their sh*t if the opponents have the temerity to cross the halfway line.  We may just be slightly more balanced in our responses?

I am grateful I have a club to support (and moan at!) and try to remember how close we have come to shopping at Milton Keynes, or gardening, or, God forbid, becoming an armchair football fan on a Saturday afternoon .  Hopefully most of us feel the same.  If we do, perhaps we'll never be in danger of losing our club again.  And accepting that every time our team takes to the field there are always three possible outcomes.  Unless it rains heavily at Latimer Park - in which case there's a fourth!