Yes, it’s a proper SW19 report again.
And what a privilege and honour to be able to watch Blue and Yellow 0 Yellow and Blue 0 in the flesh today.
A festive feast of football, a sizzling skillet of soccer, a carbonara of calcio, a фрикаделька of футбол.
Both for those lucky enough to be inside Plough Lane today, and the millions who watched it on television.
The nation will talk about this fixture from now until Xmas. Kids will reenact the passing at the back in playgrounds across south London and beyond.
People at work will deliberately go into their office to make sure they don’t miss out on the water cooler discussions about a Steve Seddon delivery.
Coaching manuals are hastily being rewritten to incorporate Alistair Smith’s flair and ball control in midfield. Already Pep Guardiola is driving down to SW17 to get the DVD of the game before anyone else.
Books will be written about today. Movies will be filmed, songs will be sung, plays will be, er, played.
Women will be weeping in sadness that the game was over, before the joyousness of knowing that they were able to witness it in real time overcomes their grief.
And today, babes in arms at the ground will in future years become parents themselves. Where they will sit in their chair, in front of their offspring gazing in admiration at them, before they get asked the question all AFCW fans will want to hear from their first born son.
“Daddy, were you at AFC Wimbledon and Mansfield all those years ago in December 2025?”
“Yes son. Yes I was…”.
OK, that was trying too hard to be entertaining. But it was better reading all that than reliving the game.
To be honest, I’m taking the point and forgetting the fixture ever took place. It was between two teams who were justifiably at the bottom of the form table.
Somebody came up with a theory on today about us that I’ll go into later, but I suppose all I can say really is that when you’ve got one point in the previous five games it tends to play on the mind.
Granted, it was a 12h30 kickoff because of Sky’s contractual obligation thing, which doesn’t help the flat atmosphere.
At least we were at home. We could have been Mansfield, or even worse Colchester going to Salford. And they lost 4-3 too.
All I want to remember from today was the own goal that we nearly got. Unfortunately, all I’ll actually remember is the amount of mistakes we made.
OK, Seddon hit the bar (with the ball, not his head) and Johnson had a free header that he managed to put wide. But that makes the game sound it had some smidgen of entertainment that it didn’t have.
Needless to say, the rest of it was pretty painful to watch. I think even the pre-match vibe was one where this was an afternoon to endure rather than enjoy.
If a picture could tell a thousand words then I would just use this popular meme, but sadly I can’t.
At least we drew though. Christ, imagine the collective mood if we had lost. Especially as it would have inevitably been a soft goal.
We did almost do that at the end, when we gave Mansfield a couple of free kicks on the edge of the box. Which they managed to respond with by hitting our wall on both occasions.
It was that kind of game.
JJ seemed to suggest there’s some flu about in the camp still (which may explain Reeves being on the bench).
He does also seem to be hinting that we’ll see some returning from injury (Stevens?) and that today was one of those needs-must ties.
I don’t doubt that we had the lurgy/shits, which led to Tuesday’s horror show, and there’s some residue from that even now.
It’s not an excuse, and should never be used as such, but it’s better to get it out of the system now than when the games start coming every three days.
Aside from all that, I’m now struggling. Not only with stuff to write about, but the motivation to relive any more of that game than necessary.
It’s a proper SW19 report, which means from now on I’m no longer obliged to write anything about the “action” on the field. And is something I’m going to take full advantage of…
Plus points: We didn’t lose. Clean sheet. Probably had better chances. Junior Nkeng’s debut.
Minus points: We didn’t win. Impotent. 90 minutes of your life you will never get back.
The referee’s a…: Gave them some fouls, didn’t give some others (usually on Bugiel). But he was the MOTM because he blew the full time whistle.
Them: About as good as we were, which is a bit like saying you’re as good as your one-armed neighbour in playing the trombone.
They were physically stronger, didn’t make nearly so many mistakes as we did, but as the game went on we figured they weren’t particularly special.
I mentioned their thankfully shite free kicks late on, but also one of their players took a throw in and managed to do a foul throw. So it wasn’t just us.
Decent turnout from them, to be fair (about 800 or so, wasn’t it?), and I doubt we’d take as many numbers up there on an early kickoff. Or would we…?
Point to ponder: Was today a case of being too scared to lose the game?
There were mistakes aplenty from us, along with a clearly conscious decision to pass it out from the back as much as possible.
Which as you can well imagine wasn’t good for the anxiety.
But while I’m fully aware we badly miss Stevens and Hackford, and that illness can definitely affect the energy levels, it felt that we were playing within ourselves even considering recent form.
I guess when you’ve had just one point in the last five games you tend to ensure you get the draw rather than try to win.
Earlier in the season, when we were a lot more confident in our own abilities, we would have tried to win that today.
But there’s a sense we’ve lost momentum and we just can’t get it back. We went backwards at a rate of knots at Exeter, after the heroics at Huddersfield.
Maybe Tuesday down in the west country had as much to do with today as anything?
I’m no sports psychologist, but I assume the reason we looked so sloppy at times is that we have a dented belief in our own abilities right now.
Yes, we’re not the best side in the division but on our game we can be quite effective. But we’re not right now, and it feels that 0-0 is currently the best we can hope for.
How we deal with that and our £0.30p budget for January I don’t know. We need a spark from somewhere, even if we can get somebody from the PFA summer training camp again.
It may be simply a case of the season reverting to what many (most?) thought it would be before the campaign begun.
But if news that Stevens in particular is about to reappear, that might be the boost we need. Otherwise, we might have needed that own goal we nearly got to kick us into life…
Truth is stranger than fiction: 1) Seeing a man in a Sheffield United coat outside Greggs beforehand. He had a distinctly unYorkshire accent. 2) Approached by a potential flat buyer beforehand in the “old” Plough Lane, asking about whether it was a decent place to live. I should have showed her where Kevin Gage had his spot kick saved against Everton in 87.
Anything else? This was my first trip to PL since 24th August (where we beat Barnsley), and it’s a good thing that it still feels as familiar as ever.
OK, I don’t remember Paul Strank taking over the south stand sponsorship (how long has it been named thus?), although the type of sunshine you get this time of year had the hue of the old Plough Lane days in December.
What I did notice was that the amount of people behind the south stand before kickoff and during the interval.
Now, you’ll expect me to say it’s emptier than it used to be, and that’s a bad thing. And yes, the former is true.
But you know what? I think that improves the experience.
Yes, some people are still moping about like a sulky teenager about MyPie (including MyPie themselves if you read their occasional social media post).
And yes, you don’t get the massive queues for it any more. But it’s ironic that their flouncing has made it less fraught at half time.
It got silly at times, and not a little bit dangerous IMO that you just couldn’t move about that easily.
Some have commented that there’s not so many buying stuff at the stalls. I’m not sure about that, either – the food trucks that were there today seemed to be doing decent business.
The price rises and the slightly less choice doesn’t seem to have done too much harm, at least from your editor’s brief observation.
Maybe the stallholders could argue differently when they count their takings these days, and some people have decided to eat/drink elsewhere.
The club clearly fucked up in the beginning and having to start charging the proper rate put one or two noses out of joint.
But I think it’s that counter-intuitive thing where having less people buying stuff makes it a better experience.
It’s a bit like the bar at Kingsmeadow, when a few were trying to push more punters into buying from there rather than the local boozer.
You don’t want everyone to pile in there, because nobody would get served. That’s something too many forgot back then.
We might have lost MyPie, but judging by my own experience today I don’t think it’s quite the disaster some think it is.
As a quick aside, and I’ve mentioned this before on SW19 – why aren’t there any burger vans outside the ground before/after the game?
Is it a street licence thing? Do they think there’ll be no custom? I mention this because somebody had one today in the Home Bargains car park, and there were a few of our lot queueing up…
So, was it worth it? Nope.
In a nutshell: The Beautiful Game, eh?