It was either that gag, or something to do with “Udder”.
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you – this is an SW19 update on a Friday before a game, like in ye olden days.
I kind-of miss doing them (earning money is much more of a priority), at least when we’re playing well and not constantly losing games.
When it’s not so great, it can be a challenge. Hell, even now it’s been bad enough writing about our latest capitulation on a Sunday, let alone trying to think of something to write twice a week…
But it’s a special day tomorrow. It’s the last game of the season, in a campaign that seems to have whizzed by.
Luton away was eight or nine months ago, although it sometimes feels like it was eight or nine weeks, and 25/26 doesn’t seem to have dragged as much.
Much more importantly, tomorrow doesn’t matter one bit. We’re safe. It’s a dead rubber. We could shake hands on a draw and nobody would care.
We could be 4-0 down in ten minutes tomorrow and we’ll probably be doing a conga around the PL concourses.
Sights of people slumped on the floor, semi-comatose, with too much merriment in the sunshine. And that’s just our back line.
Seriously, though – it’s been an enjoyable week, hasn’t it?
It’s been nice weather, you can relax about our games until August, you can stare lovingly at the League One table, and think how lucky we are we’re not either Exeter or Leyton Orient right now.
Being able to chill out about the football is a bit of a luxury these days. Even up until this time last week, everyone was on edge and wondering where our next goal was coming from.
And end-of-season tension has been the case for, well, a decade at least.
I think 23/24 (JJ’s second season in charge) was the last time the end of the campaign was a dead rubber before it ended.
Other than that, with one or two exceptions it’s either been us fighting to go up or trying to avoid the drop.
This season has been the latter again, and part of the reason why our safety has felt so good is because it’s been deja vu.
It shouldn’t have been the case, but it became yet another struggle to stay up, and I think it’s finally got to people.
There’s a whole discussion on that for another time, and it’s been a good few days, so let’s just look forward to tomorrow.
Our current manager was interviewed on BBC London this week, and it transpires that he gave the players until yesterday (Thursday) off from training.
I don’t know whether that was a sudden thing on his part, that because of the strain of what was almost our third XI trying to stay up everyone just needed a break.
Or whether he always planned to do that, and we just had to wait a little bit longer to do so.
But it must have been a sight yesterday down at training, seeing players who have had some rare time off trying to get back into the swing of things.
It must have felt like the last few days of term, when you’re all going to different schools afterwards.
Today will be the last training session together for many of these players, and for some the realisation they’ll be going elsewhere will be poignant.
Which makes tomorrow’s team selection interesting. Those with injuries probably won’t feature, at least from the start.
If people like Bauer and Browne and Hippo are playing at 70% fitness there’s no reason why they should play.
If two of those three are leaving, then obviously you’d expect them on the post-game lap of honour.
Which, by the way, will be a good chance for the amateur body language experts to predict they know who’s going.
Somebody waving a little bit too hard? They’re off. A few claps to the crowd more than everyone else? Sent to Woking.
Just try not to say anything when the player they’re convinced is gone signs a new deal with us in a couple of weeks time.
The game itself will matter as much as a PSF, though without the need to be about fitness.
It will be quite interesting who does start though. I would guess McDonnell**, Seddon, Reeves, Nelson, Stewart, Sasu and Asiimwe will feature from the off.
** – though almost a week on, I still find JJ’s comment about him being more “experienced” than Bishop intriguing.
Nelson, Stewart and Asiimwe are our loanees, and chances are this will be their last game for us.
I’d like to see if Stewart is a possibility though, out of what passed off as our strike force in recent weeks he was the most promising of the lot.
Maybe the wages will be too high, or maybe we could simply do better. But he came into the side in difficult circumstances, and getting injured as soon as he arrived didn’t help.
Maybe Tilley will start as well, and the transfer rumour mill is already starting to crank up.
That’s a plausible bit of speculation, and sometimes a player just “fits” a club. Which Tilley certainly does with us.
Again, budgets and all that. I just hope the decision makers realise what their plans could do for us next campaign.
There’s a lot off the pitch that needs sorting out, and Exeter sent out a stark warning to their own support this week too.
There’ll be plenty of that kind of thing to discuss in the summer. But that too can be put on the back burner.
As for everyone else tomorrow? We’ll just have to wait and see, although reading the Huddersfield forum this past week, they seem about as confident as we are.
Tomorrow could be a 0-0 bore draw, as we remember eunuchs have more firepower than we do right now.
Alternatively, the occasion will lead to a goalfest, and an exhibition of flair and ball skills, and it ends up being 5-4 to us.
It’s a cliche, but anything is possible. And I really do mean, anything.
Tomorrow is likely to be a very nice afternoon down at Plough Lane, and a well-earned one from all involved.
Somebody once said that one of the most underappreciated good things about football is being able to attend a fixture that doesn’t matter one bit.
Huddersfield is going to be exactly that, and one suspects the end-of-season shindig will last far beyond the final whistle.
Once the final whistle is blown, and we all eventually go home, we start looking forward to 26/27.
What happens then, who knows? I guess the released list will be, er, released by this time next week.
There’ll be plenty to do, and SW19 will be on cue for most of it (except at the beginning of June when I’ll be off to Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. If the Iranians don’t nuke it beforehand).
We’ll all be glad of the long break now, although let’s be honest – by the time May ends a lot of people will be panicking why we haven’t signed anyone yet…