Christy
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Posts: 389
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« Reply #120 on: Sunday, August 6, 2017, 23:00:12 » |
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It's a long way to Carlisle.
A long way and a long time to reflect too. It's thirty summers since I made this journey, a trip I remember like yesterday, whilst the miserable drubbing at Charlton in April seems a lifetime ago. That's time, and tricks of the brain for you. Or maybe just me?
So the last visit was, for anyone else who was there, unforgetttable as 'the Endersby one' - I've seen maybe 600 games since, and that particular curious football fan culture mix of celebration and celery on one hand and pure vitriol on the other - remains unrepeated. So too, thankfully, was the experience of being driven home at such speed that I was back in West Ox for 8:20.
The pre-match rain puts paid to any idea of much of a walk around before the game, but like the County Ground, one new side apart, nothing's changed at Brunton Park. Presumably this is how our visitors feel too, as we grow old in our ever more familiar and ever shabbier surroundings. I went to Supermarine, but the warm up is the first sign that there is some change in the air: gone are the Barca tika taka and the lazy, sloppy unpressured shooting exercises. Instead we have Purkiss and Hussey practicing lumping it 40 yards, and the central defenders heading it so far and so repeatedly, that I want to check for a welfare hotline.
About thirty years later, it's time for the game, the season, our new life to start. Cards on table, I'm not sure me and Mr Flitcroft are going to get on. To his credit, his talk of professionalism, trying to win, engaging, togetherness, being genuinely passionate, are just what Doctor Power has rightfully ordered. But, but, I have a concern that it's going to be a little too much about him, and that he's going to provide some easily ridiculed soundbites when the going gets tough. We'll see.
There was a game out there as well, which I should mention, having gone so far and all that. I thought the first half was reasonably even and entertaining, albeit in a low quality sort of way. In the second half, we sat deep and whilst never convincing, did enough. For all those 'Swindon Way' disciples, it's going to be a 'behind the sofa' type of season. I'm sure we're getting the message, but the style of play is absolutely, entirely, completely different. It'll be interesting to see how we play at home, with an onus to be on the front foot. Winning games will help us getting used to a lack of composure and confidence in keeping the ball, whilst playing with obvious spirit, energy and intention will be galvanising across the club.
The support, the hope, the sheer bloody desperation of the 557 do epitomise this. All we ask is that you give us your honesty, your passion and your best, and we will be with you. The players celebration of the second goal, and again at the end, do reflect this new beginning: if hope is worth points we're already halfway to safety.
Mullin impressed playing behind Norris, as others have said, buzzing and annoying, making things happen and always in the game. We're going to like him. Goddard and Brophy were disappointing, careless in possession and ineffective defensively. Linganzi was poor, Iandolo needs some legs, Smith possibly some basic awareness help. As a result we were far too easy to get at, had to defend too many balls delivered from advanced wide positions - Carlisle were an interesting mix of pretty shapes and direct, I quite liked them.
I liked them even more as they let us have a couple of goals - and this is the important bit, this could be all the knowhow and resolution we need: hang on in there and let them muck it up. Straight from the Mourinho playbook, the easiest way to win games is to let the opposition lose them.
Having shared my Flitcroft concerns earlier, once back on that M6, I was reminded to be careful what you wish for. Or that beggars can't be choosers. Or something. The scenery was partly lovely. Anyway, Keith Curle came on the radio, and *spoiler alert*. If you think Steve White, well intentioned legend that of course he is, is the most wibbling, incoherent summariser out there, then all my living days, you are hopelessly wrong: please listen to Curle babble and waffle through his analysis. Absolutely stunning. However, as far as I could tell, he, the local press and their texters in, all thought they were unlucky to lose against opposition 'there for the taking', and I wouldn't necessarily entirely disagree.
As i try to make sense of that, making sense of the summer, and even the last thirty years, suddenly becomes an awful lot simpler. The clouds break, and it's only 90 miles to Preston.
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