When routine bites hard,
And ambitions are low,
And resentment rides high,
But emotions won't grow,
And we're changing our ways,
Taking different roads.

Football, football makes you depressed, again

God, what a depressing game that was last week, and what a miserable bus home. I know we’re supposed to take stock and move on, but that one takes some getting over. I haven’t spoken to my Hammer mate since, and I’ll wait until I’ve had another game to get it far enough out of my system to do that. If Keano considers himself a managerial novice, what does that make Zola? All he did was do the simple things right and play people where they do there best work. Let’s hope Cisse and Jones get their roles the right way round this time around.

With Ellis Short making noises (at least according to the papers, anyway) about the amount we’re spending on wages, jobs amongst the fans disappearing daily, and the crowds falling way short of capacity, these are far from comfortable times for SAFC. In all honest, they’re far from comfortable at the majority of clubs. We’re probably better off than most, in reality, as far as football goes because we sell out all of our away games. This as least shows that the team and the club still has the backing of the fans, if it is struggling to attract new fans along and persuade those lost in the last six years to come back. Shame, because, although the game is now as far from the supposed “game of the people” played by men who lived in the same streets as the fans and travelled to home games on the same buses and trams as you can get, it can’t continue to distance itself financially from the people who pay to attend. It needs to hold on to those people who still turn up, otherwise Sky’s dream will come true and the day will come when everyone watches from home or the pub.

Still, on the bright side, Gordon is back in training. I’ve nothing against Fulop, but I think that, despite not being the shoutiest bloke in the world, Craig gives the defence a bit more stability. The youth team are at home on Thursday (7pm at the Stadium) in the FA Youth Cup against Cirencester, who’ve already played a handful of games to get this far. Get yourself there and shout the next generation on.

As has happened since August, the team that wins one week gets walloped the next. Man City lose then win, Arsenal beat Man Utd then lose, Bolton lose then win at Boro, Bolton win at Boro and lose at Sunderland….hang on, I’m getting ahead of my bit self there. We’re the team that always breaks those unwritten laws of the game, usually. Maybe this time will be different, and maybe Dioufy will rise to the occasion against his former employers and earn his corn. Maybe Cisse and Jones will click, maybe Richo will bang in another top notch strike. Maybe Anton won’t fall over, and maybe the opposition won’t see a deflected shot go in. Maybe we’ll get a penalty, although you’d need to buy me several pints before I’d bet a pound that I’d found in the street on that one.

Random fact of the week – Lawrence of Arabia’s mam was born in Sunderland in 1861. Remember that for the next quiz.

We departed Bishop in a frost thicker than Lee Clarke, and it stayed cold, cold, cold..

So we had a lovely pre-match bevy in TJ Doyle’s, huge roaring fire, great pint, the only downside being the lad who insisted on showing the worst builder’s arse in history. If you like showing your undies, fair enough, but to show your hairy crack to the world is a bit much. Pull keks up man, you look stupid…and you put me off my pint.

Gordon
Chimbo Noz Collins Bardsley
Steed Richo Whitehead Reid
Cisse Jones

So that took a bit of getting our heads around, but away we went, and looked quite canny at it as well. Steed did good work chasing back, and McCann did his best to cover the midfield as he did in days of yore. After a dodgy corner to Bolton on 9 minutes, we pressed on and played in Cisse in the inside right position. He took aim and fired in off the far post, and everything in the SAFC garden looked rosy. The crowd went up, the game went up, and all was right with the world. Steed looked a much better player with Chimbo behind him, and vice versa. We just managed to defend a free-kick, but five minutes later let in a soft equaliser when Gordon neither came nor stayed and the loopy header went into the only place it could have done us damage.

Arse.

Richo then managed to inspire a sort of decent spell of play for a few minutes, then they picked up on a decent through ball to make it 1-2. Two shots and two goals.

We won our first corner on 24 minutes, but we chose to play it short and it got nowhere. Their number 9 chose to dive to the ground after absolutely no contact, which to me is a sending off, but maybe I’m getting a bit picky. No, I’m not.

Jones got on the end of a cross to hot the bar, and we put the rebound away, only for the ref to decide that the linesman he’d been ignoring so far was worth watching, and took the ball back from the centre spot for a foul that nobody had seen. How the Bolton fans laughed. We gave them more cause for merriment with numerous Noz moments, and our defence got more shambolic by the minute. On 32 minutes, we contrived to almost gift the third, but managed to save the day. What more could we do to make it a nice day out from Bolton? Everything, as it turned out. Jones turned and shot just wide on 34, but a few minutes later Collins lost the ball and they drove forward and put in the third.

Double arse. Three goals from three shots, but that’s what it’s all about in this league. Just before the break, Jones and Cisse combined to run out of space, then Cisse took a decent ball from Reid but saw his shot save, and that was it for the first half.

Leadbitter replaced Richardson on the restart, and Cisse took a knock a couple of minutes later. Gordon saved a shot from distance, from which Bolton had two corners. Leadbitter then took the ball off Reid’s toes to fire wide, and the Deanno made the worst footballing decision of his SAFC career to turn back-over and lose the ball. Guess what? They scored, and a lot of people decide that it was time to leave.

Miller and Tainio replaced Steed and Reid, and Chimbo was booked for what looked like a certain foul on the lad. Once again, we had central midfielders aplenty, but were overrun in that department.

Jones did manage a shot which won a corner, but we took it too quickly and wasted the chance. From a game that looked at one stage to be a 5-5 possibility, we were reduced to keeping the goals against down as far as possible. As far as luck went, we couldn’t have won a raffle if we’d bought all of the tickets. They almost got a fifth but shot wide, and Jones saw Chimbo’s cross come off the keeper and his shins and go for a corner. As far as football goes, that was as bad as Portsmouth a few years back. As for moving the club on to the much vaunted next level, there are too many individuals playing who were part of the 15 point season. I’ve nothing against those people, but of we are intending to move on, it ain’t good enough.

At the end of it, they were bigger and stronger than us in central midfield, they wanted it more than us, and they put away the chances we gifted them. The game of Jack in the venue afterwards was more tactically complicated than what we’d seen on the field, and more effective. It did fall silent in there when Keane did his interview, but by then we were shell-shocked and dizzy.

I know it’s an awful thing to say, but I’ve been to way too many funerals this year, and they’ve all been more enjoyable than today’s offering.

Old Trafford next? Bring it on.

This is the crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept,
Turning around to the next set of lives,
Wondering what will come next.

Keep the faith

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