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It was all so crushingly predictable… that’s what really hurts…

20th April 2009 By Guest Blogger Leave a Comment

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No one warns you of days like this when they first set you on the road to football fanaticism.

Your Dad doesn't put his arm around you at the age of six as you settle into your seat, come clean and declare that you're far more likely to get grief out of this pastime than pleasure.

You'll be sustained by sepia-tinted memories of Jimmy Neighbour on the wing and Steve Bruce headers, but by and large it's one long painful slog with intermittent heartbreak and the very occasional moment of ecstasy puncturing the whole thankless experience.

It'll cost you a fortune, cause domestic friction and just once in a while it will throw up an absolute heartbreaker like Sunday.

Stan should have been in bed rather than at Porterloo Road. He's had a pretty nasty dose of the squits for a day or so but he crawled from his bed on Sunday morning somehow drawn to his footballing destiny due to take place 50 miles and four hours distant.

Common sense should have said stay in bed? but then common sense would also say football is a mug's game, don't bother.

So dosed on Imodium and feeling much like Maximilien Robespierre on his way to the Place de Revolution to become acquainted with the guillotine (where according to legend, he was the only man to be guillotined face-up, so he could see his death approaching!) Stan set off down the A140 with two, equally resigned looking characters for company.

And so totally unsurprisingly, but still horribly painfully, it came to pass a few hours later that we lost to Ipswich after taking the lead. We were then subject to the delights of Portaloo Road baying as one that '? the Scum are going down'.

Indeed, oh the joy of being a football fan.

As said in previous posts dissecting how our footballing fate came to be hanging on the whim of incompetent officialdom can wait until the fat lady is belting out Nessum Dorma in a couple of weeks time. So for now Stan will focus on Sunday in isolation.

The team Gunn sent out was pretty much as expected. There was no need to question any of the decisions made. McDonald for Mooney and the possibility of having Carney on the bench was about it. It all looked fairly balanced and reasonably solid, bar the usual Achilles' heel or two.

In all likelihood had this side started 80 per cent of our matches this season we'd be happily swanning around in mid table now, but instead they are trying their hardest to remedy the wrongs of the past eight months with the sand very nearly gone from the hourglass.

We started well. Prior to the goal we looked OK. Lee was getting some joy through the inside left channel and there was menace from elsewhere.

Mooney took his goal very well and for a brief moment you sensed that the blue hoards smelled Magilton, rather than Canary blood in their nostrils.

This is why the equaliser was such a killer. It lanced a boil and from that moment on there was realistically only ever going to be one winner. The departure of Thatcher also worked in Ipswich's favour.

His injury induced departure heralded the arrival of a far more fleet-footed Peters who then caused Otsemobor all sorts of problems. This also had the effect of forcing him further back down the pitch thus cancelling much of our threat down the right.

The penalty just plain wasn't a penalty, but it's what we are coming to expect. When you're heading for the abyss you don't get the rub.

There was something so crushingly predictable about the referees decision that it drew from Stan little more than a resigned shake of the head. The emotional toll of this season and those past is finally catching him up.

Our penalty had hints of 'Sorry about the other one…' from the ref and the final whistle was barely audible above the baying of the natives who were busy revelling in our pain.

Unlike the team has on so many occasions the fans stood proud and dignified to the end as the ground emptied and the goading slowly diminished. 'I'm City 'til I die' we bellowed in defiance.

Unfortunately, the way Stan's feeling right now, that's the bloody problem!


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