A couple of random thoughts that have been around my head this weekend :
– The more I think about Cambridge on Saturday, the more annoyed I get. Why? Because they weren’t much better than Mansfield, yet we made them look almost like promotion contenders at times.
I say this because I note TB’s comments on the OS just now:
“As Cambridge was the start of three difficult away games we now have to pick up additional points from what on paper looks like the two hardest away games of the season. Having gone to watch Luton play Oxford last Tuesday I am fully aware that the points on offer will be very difficult to achieve. However, we will be going to both games looking to play our normal game and looking for maximum points. Although the other results in the league on Saturday didn’t go well for us there are still 48 points to play for and I fully expect there to be plenty of ups and downs in the coming weeks.”
You can sense the glumness coming out of the computer screen.
Has he subconsciously written off the playoffs, even though we’re still in February? I suppose that will change with a couple of good wins again, if we’ll ever get them again, but it’s been a pretty shit couple of weeks for our manager. Think about it : he was really making a big push for the FAT, and we all know how that turned out. Since we went out of that, we haven’t exactly set the place alight.
But then, how many times do we see sides go out of a competition to “concentrate on the league”, then put in the same crappy performances anyway?
You do get the impression that this season could fall away into a load of nothing very quickly. In other words, our season could be over in March. That’s the expectation game though – in August, we would have been happy with a top 10 finish. Now, if we finish 8th-10th, we would consider that a failure.
One may argue that we need a disappointing season though. We’ve had four promotions in eight seasons, and in the years we haven’t done that, we’ve been in the playoffs in every other season bar the first one (and that’s only because the CCL didn’t have them). At some point, that has to catch up with you…
– Went down the club this afternoon to get tickets for our inevitable slaughter match with Luton. Looks like the floodlights are going in nicely, and by the time we play Alty in March the new turnstiles will be in. With all the talk about grounds etc, I think this does remind us all that no matter if we’re planning to move house, we do still need to have a front door in our current place.
I think KM is like a second hand car that you bought in good faith a few years ago though. At some point, it will become more costly to keep it running in its current state than by buying a brand new motor. OK, you probably can’t afford the new motor to be paid off outright, but it will work out less expensive per year than the supposedly “cheaper” option of your current car.
This is why IMO there’s that increasing groundswell in the club itself about returning to Merton. OK, we’ve been here so many times since 1991, and I expect yet again to be ultimately disappointed. But I think this is starting to get beyond the usual lip service by the club – those in charge are starting to realise that KM is starting to be a bit of a throw-good-money-after-bad type venture.
– Such a situation may also explain the results of the Dons Trust election. Basically, it’s WISA circa 2000/02. Well, two of its highest profile leaders anyway. I guess the DT electorate are more keen to have people with some actual dealings with Merton Council representing them right now – sure if you search the SW19 and WISA archives, you will see stories of Nicole Hammond and Kris Stewart regularly in contact with LBM/WFC. I certainly know that at least one of them was in this particular meeting.
Reading that back from over a decade ago now, it’s funny how things go full circle. We can safely ignore the figures bandied about for redevelopment costs – the people involved are different, the requirements are different. You can slash it down by a half these days, and if you were to schedule repayments over 20 odd years you wouldn’t spend significantly more per year than you would eventually need to at KM. This assumes we pay for the entire thing ourselves…
What it also proves is how the viewpoints of the DT electorate has changed. It has collectively decided that just being enthusiastic and committed to “the cause” won’t hack it any more. Nor the politics of personality, so to speak. The days of just being happy to have a club have gone.
But it’s quite an interesting change of priorities. It’s obvious that they still don’t see funding and investment as a major issue – maybe they don’t believe that’s what the DT is for? Or perhaps that’s not the issue right now? The DT electorate has basically said that it wants people with the knowhow and pedigree to negotiate with Merton Council on board formally. Rather than talk about funding it, the priority is getting a site in the first place.
I won’t mention the turnout, though it confirms my long-held belief that most matchgoers aren’t that interested in the political side of AFCW and are far more concentrated on the football. Anyone who remembers the Dublin protests and the early days of the MK shit will testify to that, and DT comments on this site always get low readership compared to the average match report. Although that could be just me.
Perhaps those in the DT should refer more to its membership as benefactors rather than club owners? Because ultimately, that’s what they are…
– Finally, all the problems over the weekend with SW19 are now sorted, hopefully. I’ve had to remove the font resizer thingy, so it’s back to squinting for the chronic masturbators amongst you.
A couple of people have recently suggested that I drop my long-standing objecting to being on Facebook, although I still fail to see the point of it full stop. I will be considering enhancements though to the SW19 experience, though the quality of writing will still be reassuringly shit.