Second home league game of the season, second win, second match I wasn’t at. Should I worry about my plans to attend the remaining 21?
It kind of goes without saying but watching the game on TV is a completely different experience but especially when its your team and maybe even more so when its your team at home and you are normally there.
Even though Aidy and the nice men on Sky thought we were rubbish in the first half, on the evidence in front of me I didn’t actually think we were so bad. Sure Poom’s mistake was a disaster but after that, rather than drop our heads we battled our way back into the game culminating in Priskin’s penalty shout and Harley’s excellent header against the post. I was rather surprised to hear faint boo’s echoing around the ground when the whistle blew for half time.
Of Priskin’s penalty that wasn’t, again Aidy and Sky eventually agreed that it wasn’t but I would argue that had this been a Premiership encounter and Priskin been a Rooney, Torres or Drogba then the result and opinion of the pundits would’ve been very different. Its very easy to imagine the Scottish tones of a Gray or Hansen saying something along the lines of ‘You can’t do that in the Premiership and not get punished even if its an accident’. However elsewhere in the footballing world you can push and trip a player who is about to score a tap in and its just one of those things.
The reason I wasn’t at the match and my half time entertainment as it were was I was going to see R.E.M at Twickenham. They were great although the atmosphere was decidedly Carling Cup with the stadium only half full and the crowd only really getting into it during the encore. Adding to the football analogy some people even left early using the aftermath of ‘Losing My Religion’ as the nominal 80 minute mark signifying the time to go.
Back home for the second half and the introduction of an already slimmer looking John Joe for Jordan Parkes who I will always remember swearing extremely loudly in pre-season against Wealdstone when at least 50% of the crowd was made up of kids.
Eustace’s goal was nice and simple, Williamson didn’t sulk when substitutied this time, we weren’t impeded by Francis’ introduction and Hendo mark II looks like he could be the next Scott Fitzgerald.
Ivan Campo is the second nomination for complete twat of the season, twice asking the referee to get his book out and generally moaning and complaining the whole way through.
McEnuff should’ve scored when it looked harder to put the ball over the bar than in the net, but made up for it in the dying minutes when JJ scored the winning goal for the second time in a week. Watching his interview after the game is the first time I’ve heard him speak and I was very surprised by the lack of thick Irish accent that I’d always imagined he’d have. To win man of the match when two weeks ago you looked like you’d seriously OD’d on Guinness and to have only played 45 minutes is impressive indeed.
Luckily for transfer window purposes Tommy Smith wasn’t as outstanding as in previous games (that’s not to say he had a bad game, maybe the others are just catching him up) and John Joe has probably left it too late to genuinely impress anyone enough to get out their chequebook. I do think that day will come with him though hopefully later rather than sooner.
Reading bhappy this morning it was kind of depressing in a good way to read the line about when was the last time we had this much fun at a football match. I’d hazard a guess that it was almost a year ago, again in front of the Sky cameras when we came from behind to beat Southampton 3-2. I wasn’t at that game either due to my parents ruby wedding anniversary. Maybe I should make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the team and consider becoming an armchair supporter or at least one of those who leaves after ‘Losing My Religion’.
