So, why isn’t my inbox bulging with eyewitness reports to our latest stonking win/predictable loss at Brizzle Rovers over the weekend?
Oh.
Having your game called off over the weekend is always a bit of a strange one, especially when it’s postponed on the day.
By all accounts, it was the right decision, and at least it was done as early as possible without too many people properly setting off. Which makes a change from some cancellations…
It’s hard to say whether it helps or hinders us. The Yeovil defeat still lingers, there’s a need to bounce back and of course it does cause a bit of a fixture pileup.
Mind you, we’ve always been shit at Rovers, and this game was one of the most lousy in recent memory. And that was even before I arrived.
So not for the first time in recent years, it’s all a bit of a holding pattern right now. We’re (probably) not going to trouble the playoffs, because we’re (definitely) too inconsistent.
And no, we’re not even going to need to glance at the relegation dog-fight, beyond morbid curiosity. Not unless we get Darlogate III, that is.
If that happened, I think there would be actual blood on the walls.
Transfer deadline day came and went, and we ended up with Kelle Roos from Derby on loan. Not quite sure he should be using a certain other Dutchman as inspiration…
The goalkeeping situation isn’t an obvious area to sort out, to be honest, although I guess if we do need reinforcements elsewhere there’s the loan window open.
Shea got some brickbats after Yeovil, although our upturn in form co-incided with him returning. QED. What is clear is that here’s obviously little faith in McDonnell…
Come to think of it, the loans out are rather telling. Beere has gone to the Beaverdome, Harrison has gone to Tonbridge, and you suspect McDonnell will be the next one “to gain first team experience”.
They could do what Fitzpatrick could do, of course, although there’s equally a sense that they might be on loan a bit longer than usual.
It’s always the flip side of youth development – many if not most of the youngsters won’t make the step up. Some arguably should have been given more of a chance in the first team, especially in the dead rubbers towards the end of last season, and there’ll be a bit of a sense of, we’ll never know what they could have done.
As an aside, although there’s nothing officially confirmed as yet, it seems like we’ve withdrawn from the LSC. Which is a shame as I fancied a trip to deepest East London in the evening.
I’m sure we’ve done this before, which makes me think that like most professional football clubs in the capital, we’ll be giving this tournament a wide berth from now on.
Or if we do enter it, we’ll be putting it way down the list of priorities.
OK, we’ll miss out on London Bari, but if we won we’ll be playing Dulwich Hamlet, a fanbase with the unique blend of attention seeking hipsters and some of the most hardcore of the non-league family we so miss.
I’m surprised that Champion Hill hasn’t collapsed under its own self-congratulation yet. Still, they can act like it’s student rag week against somebody else instead. At least, until the next fad comes along…
Which leads us onto tomorrow in a more prestigious tournament – the FA Yoof cup. Not since the Scousers last season has there been such a genuine big game feel to this.
I didn’t know that Chelski are the FA Yoof Cup holders, and deep down most of us expect that our run in this tournament will come to an end by 10pm tomorrow night.
Well, I say that, but this bunch of players are a bit of a bolshie lot. They do have a bit of the fuck-you-we’re-Wimbledon attitude that has endeared them to so many fans.
They’re obviously disciplined, but unshackled as much as any group of u18s should be, and the game at Newcastle was a real pleasure to be at.
Maybe we can knock the holders out tomorrow after all? There’s been some pro contracts handed out last week, and one does hope they a) make it to the first team, and b) carry that same attitude if they do.
All I want to see is us to give them a damn good game. Not like Yernited did in the last round, where they got thumped. But then, that says a lot about Premier League Academies…
That’s for the future. As is NPL, which seems to be coming on like all big construction projects do. The whole Boris thing seems like a matter of planning laws and procedures, if you read what it’s all about, so if it’s all done correctly then it’s not really going to be an issue.
Your editor has mentioned this before, but in a previous life I used to work for architect and engineering companies as a CAD tracer (as dull as it sounded, and now pretty much an obsolete job), and projects this size and complexity are always like this.
That we probably won’t hear about the next stage until just about before Easter won’t be much of a surprise, and it’s much better to take a couple of months extra to get it right, than rush it through only to find it getting thrown back at us.
All planning projects are down to knowing what planning officers want, will allow and what they’ll reject. True, it’s a couple of months more than we’d like, but we’ve only had 26 years to wait until this stage.
If/when all this gets sorted, it’s going to suddenly start getting very real. Especially when it comes to actually asking fans what they want to see in it…