Sadly, the report on Hens 2 Stags 1 isn’t going to be as long or as “proper” as I hoped it would – I’m going here tomorrow and I suppose I ought to do some work beforehand – but I will do a proper one at some point at some game in the future.
Honest.
So instead, a few musings from this pretty bloody Good Friday.
– In the end, we deserved to win it simply because of our attitude. Today could have easily been a game thrown down the drain – we didn’t need to win, we could have rested a few more players, we could have taken it a bit easier etc etc. But in the second half especially, a bit more luck with the woodwork and this could have been a repeat of the game up Field Mill.
OK, we did get a bit lucky with the goals – a shoulder and an arsecheek – but if we’d gone away from KM this evening with so much as a single point, I would have been denying my pre-game “winning today doesn’t matter” comments. Is this the start of the playoff push? Or was this just a case of us continuing our recent good form?
– Today was warm. Very warm. It felt like a pre-season, just like last week. Although if you assume that the season starts again at 8pm tomorrow week, it may well be pre-season already. Hell, we even started with two debutants (Jack Turner and Reece Jones), though hopefully without the Derek Duncan Syndrome…
– At time of publication, TB’s comments have just got uploaded. Interestingly enough it seems we’re treating Grimsby as the first playoff game. Now, this could go badly wrong, as in DK shatters his knee, although one supposes the thinking is that if we’ve built up this momentum it would be criminal to lose it.
Which may make FGR on Monday the football equivalent of a sacrifice fly*. Half the squad who played today aren’t likely to start, although the theory is that we shouldn’t lose anyway.
* – baseball term, it means that a batsman whacks it high in the air so he knows he will get out, but while the ball is “flying” towards a fielder, one of the other batters runs to the next base knowing he’ll be safe. Bit like your editor’s game of rounders at school, minus the intention or making the next base.
Which begs a question – did we qualify for the playoffs too early? If we lose players through injury, or we suffer a lapse in form, then maybe we did. Think of the problem (albeit a nice one) that TB has right now – we now have two games to play where we’ve got to keep ticking over. We’re going to be no lower than third now, which is what we wanted, we need to keep the momentum up, but we also need everyone fit and raring to go.
Or have we managed to time it to perfection? We’re not knackering ourselves chasing for that all-elusive last spot. We’re not chasing Crawley all the way and having to settle for the “disappointment” of second place. We have that rarity for a top side, namely we can relax this week and prepare properly.
Jack Turner and Reece Jones got what they needed, as did we. If Seb or AN Other-Midfielder broke their penis bone during a game, we now know that both of them could step up and do the proverbial job. In a playoff game, where the result matters more than everything else put together, that’s one helluva advantage to have.
– Was it me or were Mansfield shite? They only had one shot on target, and that was only because we let them. Their defenders were releasing methane gas from their shorts every time we pushed forward, and they only started to put any remotely attacking threat once we went 2-1 up. Supposedly going to have a lot of money next season – they’ll need it.
Oh, and I’m sure the more “patriotic” of fan would be getting one of their away shirts for tomorrow…
– The PA wasn’t very good in the Tempest End, could hardly make any of it out. Did manage to figure that the Mohawks tune called “The Champ“, which for those with disturbingly long memories was a staple diet on the Plough Lane PA during the 1986/87 season. The other one was Sidney Youngblood’s “If Only I Could”, although you can find the link yourself for that one.
Perhaps it’s an omen for something that could be announced during the summer? If so, perhaps we could go the whole hog and have the sticking needle that the PL Dansette wall of sound had…
– Maybe it was the weather, but the TE had some odd songs about various people in said terrace. We did do a “We’re proud of you”, which is normally sung when you’re about to crash out of the knockout stages. Hopefully that isn’t an omen. Oh, and “2-1, thanks to Johnson’s arse”. Trust me, if we go to Eastlands and he repeats that trick in the 95th minute, Brett Johnson could have the botty of any AFCW fan he wanted that evening. He’d certainly get a few offers.
– Finally, what the hell was in that bottle that Stuart swigged from before the goal? I just hope it was water…