There used to be a telly programme called 'It's a Knockout' when I was a nipper. It dominated Friday evenings in our house. We'd get fish suppers from our local chippy (Large cod, medium chips, the odd wally for Dad, which is what they called a gherkin). Curry sauce was unheard of. You put the vinegar on first before the salt. It was wrapped in magnolia-coloured greaseproof paper. The bloke who cooked it wore a white coat like a doctor. No-one wanted 'scraps'. My mum never even ate the batter. It came straight off and went in the bin. Dad and I felt guilty eating ours after that.
Big pot of tea on the table. Cork table mats, no sauce bottles allowed because it looked working-class, and Mum had an innate fear of looking working-class. I don't remember ever having tomato ketchup (as we called it) on fish'n'chips (sorry, missed the 'and' out. That was punishable by death by my Mum). Woe betide me if I even THOUGHT about a dash of Daddies brown sauce. We had tartare sauce instead. Or they did. I wasn't allowed tartare sauce for fear I'd start imbibing it on everything.
Supper over and plates, cutlery and whatever else had breathed the same air as the chip bag washed up, it was 'It's a Knockout' on telly. Stuart Hall, later disgraced like Savile and Harris, barked whooping laughs as contestants dressed as comical giants, penguins or polar bears tried to negotiate coloured liquid across an obstacle course, frequently falling over and dropping their load.
I thought of those early 1980's days whilst watching us puff and pant to another Premier defeat at PR last Saturday. True, we were unlucky. True also, I was very, very drunk. But we played portions of the game like an It's a Knockout event, lumbering around, Brentford faster to loose balls, not dropping their red and white-striped liquid unnecessarily in the final third. Had we played wearing comedy giant penguin costumes, we might have won the sympathy vote. But that's what unnerves me a bit about our forthcoming Championship season; we're just so easy to win against.
Everyone says Luton as a stark reminder that relegations can easily follow each other, and whilst I'm positive we won't suffer that, you do struggle to see what the signs of progress are, along with the quality we'll need just to make the top six next season. Even Terry, who can't now make West Ham because he's going for a weekend away with Tony, Sandy and Mrs Tel to Brighton, even he, disillusioned by the Premier League, embittered by some of the recent performances and the lack of seeming fight from very well paid playing staff who just don't seem able to cut out the mistakes, even he said "Might make play-offs next year I reckon". In tones of acceptance. What the heck?
It's a blow upon a bruise yet again. All those years when mid-table in League One came to be the pinnacle of hope. I was there in the late 1990's when we couldn't win an end of season play-off home tie to save our lives. That was disappointing. This is just rudderless, uncertain and unyielding defeat. I expected Albert Steptoe to score against us yesterday. It was what the media wanted, it was destiny. Yet, when it happened and I checked my phone, my first thought wasn't shock that we were losing, it was acceptance. It barely made a dent.
Perhaps we've been spoilt? The suddenness of our rise, the excitement of holding off Leeds and Southampton last season for second place, the open-top buses, the keenness of players like Chaplin and Burns and Woolfy and Burgess and Morsy to get back out there and show the PL what they could do, unburdened by slogs in Accrington and Morecambe and Lincoln, the quality of a Championship success still glimmering in the sun on an Ipswich summer day. And then......? Well, that was a let-down, wasn't it? I didn't expect too much, but I did expect a bit of nous, a bit of fight. And now we just look like an expensive team of strangers, don't we?
I'll miss Terry at West Ham. But I don't blame him. It's been a strange season after all. Perhaps accompanied by a Stuart Hall whooping laugh as we close the door firmly behind us after letting Leeds and Burnley through. I can't foresee the future, more's the pity, but when I think about next season, I'm not quite as blasé as I was. Interesting summer here. Very interesting. |  |
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