Well, I’ll be honest here. Before 3pm today, I would have happily bet on a hard-fought draw with us taken them back to their place on Monday. Not unreasonable to assume, one may think. So you can imagine my reaction after ex-WFC 4 ex-Canvey 0 can’t you? I’ve been on a mixture of imodium and acetaminophen this week and I swear I’m hallucinating today.
Did we really make the league leaders look ordinary? Did Danny Webb really score? Did Mark DeB unleash a thirty yarder? Did Jake Leberl and Finn follow suit? Did we pass it well? Did our defence look more cohesive? In fact, did we look like a team that might, just might, have justified the pre-season hype and TB’s reputation?
OK, I shouldn’t get carried away. But I’ve been waiting a long time for this type of game, and probably most other people have. We know we can play this well now – this was the type of performance that we expected when TB first signed up. The only regret I have from today – apart from us not scoring five – was that it wasn’t a league game. Had we won 4-0 with the three points, that really would have been a massive “reminder” to the rest of the league. As it stands, we’re “only” in the draw on Monday. But right now, it means a lot more.
There’s no point denying that we sent a message out today. Yeah, I know Chelmsford will say that it was “only” the FA Trophy, and that they’re concentrating on the league fixtures. Fine. But the FAT is the big non-league trophy. It ends at Wembley Stadium with Sky Sports covering it live. If that’s not an incentive to do well I don’t know what is. If you play well, or put the effort in, and you lose then fair enough. It sucks but it happens. But especially at this level, I just cannot understand why teams don’t want to go into the next round. Fixture pileup? Hell, if it meant that we won the league and got Jeff Stelling to read out my name in May, I’m sure I could cope with a couple of fixtures a week.
Today, what we said to the rest of the Ryman was this. We are capable of playing well and destroying the best. We proved that. We know it won’t be as easy in the league fixtures – at least, it shouldn’t be. But like playing a good round of golf, we’ve now proven to ourselves that it’s in us to play well. Today won’t have won the FAT, nor gained us any league points, but it did something almost as important – gave us confidence.
Had we shown today’s confidence in earlier games, we’d probably be talking about when we’d win the league by. Christmas, surely? Tell you what, make it February to be on the safe side. We didn’t and we’re playing catchup. But we are clicking now. And are we starting to get it together at the right time? We started off poorly this season and still kept in touch until things got better. Most of us agree that we’ve still got a way to go, anyway. But just imagine starting out of the blocks scoring 20 goals in the first four games of the season then stumble and fizzle out of the FAC/FAT by November and lose 3-0 away to Harlow the next game..
Yes, this is all sounding a bit triumphalist and no doubt we’ll play shit against AFC Coldseal and lose. But hey – we thrashed the league leaders at home, and if you can’t be happy at that then you shouldn’t be watching football…
Plus points: We won. At home. Against the league leaders. Clean sheet. Absolutely stunning strikes. Coping with the pressure to the point CCFC’s heads went down. Karl Beckford.
Minus points: It wasn’t a league game.
The referee’s a………: I like him. Can we have him again please?
Them: If they’re top of the league then we must be doing seriously wrong. OK, enough cock waving. They’re up in first for a good reason, they’re a good footballing side, and it wasn’t all plain sailing from us. But seriously, it just proves our biggest opponents are ourselves. Did they look like scoring? And if they were, could we have come back at them? Funny isn’t it, our last two games against probably the best side in the division has seen us score seven without reply. Make of that what you will, although it doesn’t bode well for their “we’ll do better in the league” approach now being taken. Oh yeah, their #9 is a dirty little cunt and deserves to be buggered in the cell by Mr Big for that assault tackle.
Song sung blue: “We are top of the league, say we are top of the league”. Next time, discretion is in order, perhaps? Mind you, we were quite quiet ourselves…
Point to ponder: Sorry to mention our opponents again, but of all the teams we’ve ever faced in the AFCW era they’re the ones who intrigue me the most. Anyway – were Chelmsford the club we would have become had we not got into the Football League? I don’t know how older Wombles will react to me saying this, but I suspect we were quite similar clubs – well supported, decent sides who could play at higher levels. Still are come to think of it. Actually, they fell right down and lost their home ground as well. Maybe that’s why I wouldn’t object if we got into the Conf South next season and saw their name on next season’s fixture list. That and the fact we seem to do well against them….
Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) More PA goodness – the Members’ “Sound of the Suburbs”. Seems like Mikey T is doing the PA more permanently these days, so perhaps I can ask him to play some Hungarian punk…. (2) Saw an AFCW fan getting treated by an ambulance on Kingston Road, Raynes Park, before the game. Didn’t look in too much comfort, certainly – anyone have any idea? (3) A3 buggered. Might explain the next entry.
Anything else? Yeah, the turnout today. Whether it was because of the A3 problem or not, but I really did expect more than 1683. Insert post-mortems here, although this should have grabbed the imagination a bit more than it should have. Are we expecting Sutton at KM next round so that it’ll advertise itself?
One other thing – that fucking “Easy” chant wank that some people did after the 4th goal. Don’t fucking do it, OK. Do you want to know why? Because every time you do it, it makes Tim Lovejoy’s ego bigger. If you want somebody to show what’s wrong with modern day football, it’s him. The guy supports Chelski but allegedly supported Watford before then – obviously a career move. He is without doubt the most shit, smug, self-satisfied piece of white rancid dog turd ever to do presenting. Everyone at Sky Sports hates him because of this, and the fact the guy is so up his own arse he can smell his own farts before he even brews them – though he probably thinks they smell of perfume. He makes Jamie Redknapp look like Des Lynam.
His success shows that all modern day football supporting is about is swapping sides when it becomes trendy, that ego and inflated self-worth is preferable to knowledge and gravitas, and that passionate football supporting is replaced by cliched robotic hand gestures, plastic empty gestures for plastic empty fans. Doing an “Easy” chant is proof that you willingly accept all that without question. Don’t fucking do it, don’t give the cunt even more of an ego trip. Trust me, if I had my way I’d drag anyone who did it out one by one, and hold you down with a nailgun against your head….
So, was it worth it? Might be.
In a nutshell: Same in a month’s time, please.