AFC Wimbledon, meet Planet Earth. Believe you aquaint yourselves every so often.
I suppose there’s a major degree of inevitability about H&Y 2 HBOS 1, and at some point we had to lose a league game. But this hurts. Not because it was a last minute goal totally against the run of play (it wasn’t) but it just looked a game too far. Think of the first half against Maidenhead last week without the penalties. Passing? What’s that? Defence? Missing in action. Looking like we’d get out of first gear? More chance of booking a flight on XL with a Lehman Brothers cheque.
It hurts even more looking at the league table right now. Going from top to third in the space of 90 minutes sucks. The thing is, we knew at some point we were going to get done over, and I’ve been boring telling anyone who would listen that we’d come a cropper yesterday. Best not to ignore me in future, eh? 😉 But really, this fucking hurts. It’s a kind of kick in the dignity of the way we played, or rather didn’t. OK, we’ve let in goals before, but when you pull a goal back like we did, a little bit against the run of play, you don’t decide that you shouldn’t be level after all and let the opposition have another goal.
There’ll be other days, and some afterwards were arguing how offside their goal was. But we had a reality check in more ways than one. And right now, I’m questioning whether Jason Goodliffe will continue his indian summer with us. We saw it last year at Chelmsford, and it happened again yesterday – as soon as we have a trickier side to deal with, he starts to look like a 34 year old. Not just me saying it BTW, at least at the game. Can you remember him getting taken off in a game with us where he hasn’t been injured?
But really, I can’t bring myself to single out just one individual. This was a bad day at the proverbial office. It was that kind of game we’ve been fearing deep down for a while. In effect, our luck finally ran out – when we hit the bar/post/defender in the dying seconds, you just knew, didn’t you?
Should I really be as downhearted? To play ten games with just two draws and one defeat (at a team second in the league and in a purple patch) is pretty good from an objective point of view. Yet knowing that makes it feel worse. See, since this season has started we’ve rather liked being the team to beat haven’t we? Being top really massaged the ego, and now for the next couple of weeks we’ll have two sides above us. A deflated sense of worth isn’t nice.
Is it a monkey off our back though? In truth, it probably is. Deep down, we all know we’ve delayed the inevitable defeat, and we now have two weeks to get our minds refocused. Yes, I know we’re at Bedford in the FAC, a game that won’t nearly be as straightforward as we hope. This is where the real test for us will come now. Are we going to start moping about in the corner, sulking and crying that somebody beat us? Or are we going to walk round like I still am at the moment, namely stung and more than a little pissed off at losing? I really wish we had a game this Tuesday to get this out of our system.
We need to get back to the AFCW that blitzed everyone up until Basingstoke. It seems a while ago now, but in the beginning we were new and we had a point to prove. If we get that attitude back, I still believe that we’ll win most games. One swallow may make your summer, but one loss won’t ruin our season. Or at least, it shouldn’t do. The AFCW that played against Newport or Basingstoke or nailed poor Furruk into submission would have won yesterday. Sadly, we got a rather different AFCW….
All this said though, I don’t have that same feeling of despair post-defeat that I did last season. Back then, that was seriously stomach churning. Right now, I’m fucked off but I know that very soon we’ll be back on form. We will lose games, and it’s surprising how long it’s taken (and I don’t mean that in a negative way either). This was an AFCW side yesterday that just needs to have a prod up the arse and has now gotten one. There are issues to iron out (Jason Goodliffe, midfield giving it away too often etc) but I suppose we’ve now got over that mental fear of losing a game.
We’ll see.
Plus points: We scored
Minus points: We lost. Shadow of our recent selves. Defending. Midfield giving ball away far too often. Didn’t even look likely to score at times.
The referee’s a……: Hmph.
Them: What is it about West London teams who play in red and begin with the letter H? Loads of Chelski/Arse/odd QPR shirt on, which makes their “we are top of the league” sound a little bit, well, contrived. Bit like their attempts to be original with pro-Franchise chants. By the sound of it, even their barstaff don’t like dealing with them. As for their side, they had a gameplan to nullify us, and they executed it well. Even down to timewasting about 35 minutes before the end. Time will tell if they’ll be top for a long time, in all likelyhood they won’t be. Just knew that Scott F would net as well…….
Point to ponder: Isn’t it so different from last week? When I was typing this out I read what I said, and it did seem a bit too much on the gushing side. Then again, in my defence it really was how I felt at the time, and it stings that we didn’t get remotely near that yesterday. We were warned earlier this week that DK and JM would take time to settle with each other – again, what you wouldn’t give for a midweek game right now….
Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) The streaker. Why do they bother? They’re usually ugly blokes with small dicks who obviously like to be naked amongst 22 athletes. Yesterday’s specimen certainly did. Oh, and I think there should be some amnesty for players who twat people who disrupt play in that manner. Just remember we had a free kick when he came on and building up a bit of momentum…. (2) A couple of decent tracks over their PA. Only a couple though. (3) Interesting reaction from other fans when we lose. Maybe this isn’t the sophisticated league we thought it was after all. (4) Page nine of the programme seems to have offended a lot of people. You’d think people would learn not to deliberately provoke us – yes, you’ll get a reaction all right, but one you won’t be able to handle…..
Anything else? The leaflet given out beforehand asking to save a local cemetery. Why? Because they want to put a new runway over it for Heathrow. Having travelled through the world’s busiest international airport recently, all I can say is – hurry up and build it. The way some people carry on, they’ll convince you that the area around Heathrow is full of bijou hamlets and significant areas of natural beauty. Truth is, the area around Heathrow is a shithole. A dank, depressing, characterless collection of crummy warehouses and ill kept houses. Ever stayed around Bath Road or at the Jury’s Inn in Hatton Cross? Or indeed, gone to watch Bedfont or Ashford? As if a few extra 777s will degrade the area.
As for saving cemeteries, surely the people most affected by it can’t answer back?
So, was it worth it? Fuck off.
In a nutshell: Bollocks.