You’ll never buy the title…
It’s funny how the whole AFCW “thing” keeps coming full circle. We’ve faced teams like Oldham, Wigan, Bolton and other WFC foes in the last couple of years again, and now we face Jack Walker’s beloved tonight.
Those of a certain vintage will remember one of the more famous nights of the wretched WFC Selhurst era, which you may be tempted to watch repeatedly tonight in your own warm front room.
Things were clearly different then, of course – playing the league leaders at somebody else’s ground that is woefully inadequate for what we need. Wouldn’t happen now, of course.
Back then, it was the height of the OGEM regime, where we were on the cusp of something legitimately special. It didn’t last, of course – Terry Burton was ousted, our decline started** and the rest is unfortunate history.
OK, calling the reason why we have the AFC prefix “unfortunate” is a bit like calling our tactics earlier this season “misguided”, but you get what I mean.
** – as an aside, I think it was around about that time where the whole Dublin Dons bollocks reared its ugly head. Back then, we dismissed it as sabre-rattling but it was the first step on the path towards the whole AFCW/Franchise thing we enjoy today.
To this day, your editor remains convinced that it distracted Kinnear – and apparently he stood to become very rich if that move happened – and I don’t think WFC ever recovered from that breach of trust between club and supporters…
But yes, a 4-1 victory tonight will go down very well indeed. Will it happen? Probably not, although in this strange season one can never rule anything out.
By the sounds of it, unless there’s a massive snowfall between now and kickoff, the game is going to go ahead. We’ve gone to Chelski to get more covers from them, and it should do the trick.
I say “should” because bitter experience has proven that just because it should be playable doesn’t always means it goes ahead. Think Bury away this season…
It will be a tad nippy this evening, and for once staying in the bar during the game will have nothing to do with what’s being served up on the field of play. And yes, no doubt some wit will be bare-chested tonight to prove how hard/drunk they are.
Whether many will be there tonight is another matter, especially as Sussex, a lot of Surrey and Kent have taken a whalloping snow wise. There’s only sunshine at SW19 Towers, but then around here does have its own micro-climate.
The ground is a bit firm though, and if it’s going to be -2c a couple of hours before kickoff, one suspects a few might end up sacking it off this evening.
As for whether our players will turn up themselves tonight, that’s the $6bn question. I didn’t bother writing anything about Peterborough, because there was something familiar about that game.
Letting the game slip like that shows a mental weakness that will plague us until the end of this campaign. We could have done with the three points there, and by all accounts we did well to get just one in the end.
Tonight should be considered a free hit, just like the game at Ewood Park was, but right now we can’t afford to do anything other than go for the win each game. We can’t rely on other teams being equally shit, after all.
We could have also done without facing a Rovers side that has won its last three games in a row, and six out of the last nine. We will have to put ourselves out big time to get something out of it.
There is no doubt we’re in a relegation scrap, so tonight we’d better prove that we can fight our way out of it.
It doesn’t help that like our survival chances Darius is 50/50, although if he can play he should. We don’t have the luxury now of resting players, although after tonight there’s no excuse for that anyway.
And above all else, the only people who should freeze tonight are those on the terraces…