As of today, and for the first time since 1991, we are officially no longer homeless. As a press conference tomorrow will confirm, we’ve bought out the Kingsmeadow leasehold and can now start doing things like putting decent beer in the bar, or decent food. Maybe even do some things to the toilet. That sort of thing. Anyway, everyone is really happy about it
I’ve said too much unpopular stuff over this already, so I won’t bother repeating myself over it. I just can’t help thinking “Selhurst” all over again, and that killed one club I loved. I don’t want to go through all that again. If today’s purchase is a dilution of returning to Merton (which after all was our home, was stolen from us and until we get it back we will find it very hard to fully move on) then it will be disaster for AFCW. All the “it’s only 1.5 miles from Merton” and “It’s our best hope” talk will count for nothing.
Tomorrow, there is going to be the first of probably many piss-ups that AFCW can claim the bar takings to, though if the standard of food and alcohol remains the same the club will probably end up losing money. I won’t be there, I won’t be able to touch anything anyway, and given all that I have written all this above I would feel just a little bit hypocritical being there. And besides, I don’t want to intrude on anyone else’s celebrations…..
As far as I am concerned, today is the day that we secured a platform to move forward. This gets us an asset, not a home. We are not where we want to be yet, we are still travelling the Holy Grail. The day we lose sight of that is the day that we repeat the Hammam/Koppout era mistakes. To (probably inaccurately) quote somebody from last season about buying Kingsmeadow, “It’s not the glorious homecoming we want”…….