Admittedly, this headline would make more sense if it was referring to us in a European competition.
It’s a shame there’s no such thing as a Europa Conference League for sides in the lower reaches of football.
It might be fun visiting backwaters in Albania with barely any running water and hostile locals speaking unintelligibly.
Mind you, we do that most of the time we go further north than Oxford…
At least we can enjoy things until Tuesday when we go to the poshe bit of Yorkshire, but this weekend will once again be a nice one.
Your editor was at Reading, and for once those who braved the Plough Lane traffic got the better deal this weekend.
Four goals at home, responding to an early setback, and the Iraqi Scouser netting a hat-trick. Marvellous.
There’s some footage on t’internet showing our goals, and they really are moments of beauty.
Granted, Tranmere are second from bottom for a reason, and it’s only Sutton** holding them up.
** – I wonder if gravity is hitting at GGL, namely Sutton are a non-league club that took their opportunity to be in the EFL, and it’s now catching up with them.
It happened to Dagenham and Redbridge and Barnet too, so perhaps the bubbling rivalry with them will fade quickly.
But if you’ve got anything about you, you should be putting teams that low down to the sword like we did.
Especially when they go down to ten men. Hell, being ahead in both goals and players is usually a recipe for disaster…
AAH is getting the plaudits this morning, and rightly so, but Sasu is being mentioned in dispatches too.
We clearly want him to be part of our first team squad, and while playing the better teams might be too much for him right now, it won’t hurt to feature against the shittier ones.
But then, it sounds like nobody played badly, especially after a lousy start.
I don’t doubt the Little/Reeves factor is a, er, factor. But it seems we’ve overcome our fear of winning games.
For now, anyway.
It’s ironic that perhaps going behind made it easier for us to win yesterday, as we didn’t have to deal with the mental issue of actually taking the lead first off.
Granted, even at 3-1 I was glad rather than ecstatic that we got the fourth. But then, PTSD is a bitch.
And I think we can justifiably say it was a good performance all around. I’ll leave others to decide on JJ’s post-match comments, but you can’t blame him for being happy.
I wonder how many who wanted him gone by last summer are changing their minds? Though I bet a couple are still going to praise Craig Cope instead.
As it stands though, we’re in a good place, and it’s nice to feel that way after so long. I know you can point to the last couple of seasons, but it’s really been a lot longer than that.
I mentioned earlier about being at the Madejski Select Car Leasing Stadium, and it was eye-opening just how ordinary L1 is.
We really, really, really fucked it up with our arrogance, hubris, and cluelessness, didn’t we?
It would be ironic if at the end of this season ourselves and the Royals swapped divisions, but I expect we’ll be a L2 side again next season.
Although if we have a good January transfer window for once, who knows…?
A couple of other things. It sounds like getting to/from SW17 yesterday was a nightmare, and I heard of at least one bus-related horror story.
There’s probably some people this morning who have just managed to get to their stop after jumping onboard after the game.
And they wonder why people use their cars.
It sounds like the queues to get in were also the stuff of nightmares, and perhaps a simple “get there early” message from the club beforehand might have helped.
Apparently it’s a bit more relaxed steward-wise as well, although even the East German secret police were a bit more reasonable than some of our security has been.
Finally, I suppose I ought to mention Macklingate again, with what came out last Monday.
It’s not good to read, even six days later, and you do wonder what else will come out of it.
I’ll be honest here – I’m keeping out of the whole thing, as there’s clearly so much we don’t know about.
It’s a bit odd writing about it the day after a good win though, as it seems a little bit out of place and almost irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
It’s not, obviously, but I wonder in times like this morning whether some people get a bit too obsessed with off-field stuff.
I read some of the shenanigans about the Dons Trust, and what various board members do and don’t do, and I just think it’s nerdy and geeky.
And not in a good way, either.
It really only reconfirms what your editor has thought for a long time, namely 95% of people who support us put the first team at the very top of priorities.
Things like the temporary MD/CEO are important, but it only really matters if they directly impact on the first team.
As it stands, it’s not affecting things at the moment – although of course it was very relevant in the past couple of seasons.
It’s effectively a employee getting caught reacting in a poor work environment but likely not much more beyond that.
Calling a co-worker a fucking slag, and wanting to throw them through a fucking window is juicy stuff for the papers but for 99% of us that’s all it is.
I noticed when the news broke a fair number of people said things to the effect above – if it doesn’t affect the first team, why over-focus on it?
The first team is the main reason why over 7000 of us regularly attend a stadium in south west London every other Saturday (and the odd midweek).
Anything else is an optional extra. And writing these last few paragraphs after a 4-1 win just makes me believe that more and more…