Not too sure if I can be arsed to write much about Population Paste 1 Semen Staines 1. The weather was too bloody hot to think straight. Or was it the ref, a man who obtained his refereeing licence at Poundland?
So instead, some idle thoughts : if Slough showed us at our best, Staines showed us at our worst. We didn’t seem to have much of a clue other than aimlessly hoofing it. Maybe it was just one of those games where it didn’t click, but we could still be playing now and not be able to string three passes together.
That said, I wasn’t overly impressed by Staines, and they’re one of the better teams in the division this season. We pretty much had most of the possession and probably will beat these teams more often than not. Especially at KM. And yes, that does sound contadictory to my last paragraph. If I was doing a proper report, I would put us not losing as a Plus Point, and I suppose I’m more pissed off that we didn’t win than anything
Of course, the not much maligned Richard Butler going off is a blow, and a pretty shitty one at that. According to the OS though, it doesn’t appear as bad as first thought, so we can probably forget bringing back Joe Sheerin 🙂 Though I really don’t like the thought of Shane Smeltz (and his twin brother, Sean) having to do everything himself.
Elsewhere, turning on Sky Sports and not seeing us at the top of the table isn’t nice. Didn’t expect it to be H&R though, although thankfully Fi$her didn’t take advantage either. Quite ironic though that in a division full of Essex chavs, the top three clubs are all from t’Smoke.
Oh, and am I the only one disappointed with 2754? While the hAE Tempest End really needs to be open ASAP if only for comfortability, and August bank holiday is for some reason never a good time for a good attendance, it doesn’t bode well if AFCW have budgeted for higher crowds.
In one strange way, the worst thing is that crowds have stayed the same. If crowds go down, it’s down to a factor or two that eventually can be remedied, be it prices, standard of football, even that little thing called success. But when the attendances stay static, especially when you think that they should go up, it’s harder to see how to attract more people. It becomes more difficult to see what you’re doing wrong (or right).
Finally, you’ve all seen the programme and its, ahem, interesting interpretation of players names and our opponents. The people responsible for it have taken enough of a kicking for it, so I’ll save my steel toecaps for the next fuckup they make.
But how badly can AFCW get it? If it was the occasional error, then fair enough. Hell, this site isn’t exactly proof-read*. But to get it so blatantly wrong defies belief. Was the programme department seriously pushed for time? Were they drunk?
* – though the difference is that SW19 isn’t a money-making organ (sadly) and shouldn’t be treated as “official”.
Does it matter? Well, actually it does. A lot. Some of our fans may forgive this fuckup, but look at it from another angle : say we wanted to approach a company to help fund the rebuild of the John Smiths, a la Tempest. What’s one of the first things you give them? The programme. Probably the main bit of merchandise sold at games. Easy to distribute to potential sponsors. While I think that programmes generally are sanitised rip-offs (you could do a 12 page prog for a quid and still keep all the relevant stuff in), they do appear to be a rather simple yet effective marketing tool.
Or to put it bluntly, just imagine the sponsorship department of Elys picking up yesterday’s programme. It’s too late for Staines, but I just hope that this is all rectified, and soon.
The sad thing is, the prog’s content for the most part looks quite promising…