This last season, Blues fan or otherwise, would have been a particularly frenetic, emotional and strange season anyway, even without taking into account the death of my best friend and Dad. Yet for me, it will of course have particular resonance. Having been to a record number of games this season (27, if you're wondering), I feel I have been more involved than ever before, and have, as the cliché goes, 'kicked every ball'. Therefore I feel in a better position than most to take a light-hearted (yet inevitably tinged with sadness) look at the season gone by.
August: I spent most of the first game of the season, away at Sunderland, knocking my new cricket bat in. You could tell what the score was by the pace that I hammered this new bit of wood with (ooh, matron!). When Sunderland went 2-0 up, it was reduced to a funeral march, yet as Blues made a late rally, the rate increased to a frenetic pace, in time with various terrace chants. On to the first home game, which, after much deliberation, we would attend with our season tickets. It was only then that I realised what an irrational hatred my Dad had of Paul Robinson, the Blackburn keeper. After a slightly-bad-but-by-no-means-catastrophic gaffe by Robinson, Dad began to gesticulate wildly at the big screen which showed England's Number 5 looking rather distraught. I assume he was distraught at the mistake, but my Dad was an influential bloke...
September: Incredibly, the game against Liverpool was the first game I'd ever attended, after 13 years of service, without my Dad. Luckily, a certain Chelsea fan found a common ground in the hatred of Scousers, and volunteered to come along. I soon realised how much Roy Hodgson ressembled the Maggie Thatcher doll from Spitting Image.
October: The month we started to believe that our name was on the Carling Cup, after a lucky shoot-out win against the giants of Brentford, I spent most of the derby against Villa pacing the Droitwich Lido, occasionally crouching down if my radio hinted at a goal. I came home, weighed myself, and realised I'd lost a stone.
November: What happened in November...? Did we even win any games? Clearly lost all memory in the snow and cold.
December: I've never been so sad at a Blues win. The disgusting scenes on the pitch after the cup win against Villa scarred and indeed scared me, and perhaps saddest of all, I could tell that any adulation my Dad might have felt immediately vanished. What horrified me most was the amount of people asking me seriously whether I was one of 'them' on the pitch. I have never been on the pitch at Blues, and, unless David Sullivan flies over with a jet hose spraying the Tilton end, probably never will be.
January: My favourite Christmas present this year was a DVD of the Blues' greatest goals. I didn't even know the Blues made things like that, I thought it was reserved for good teams, like Man United or Chelsea. Come to think of it, one of our 'great' goalscorers did look a lot like Zola... My favourite goal on the DVD was a heavily-disputed offside goal, where a bloke looking strangely like my Uncle Mick ran on to remonstrate with the linesman. My first away match in a long time came at the surprisingly smart Bloomfield Road, where my Dad lost his glasses, again, wildly gesticulating and knocking them off. My favourite moment of the season? Getting a wave from local radio commentator and all-round strange bloke Tom Ross. Or, as some might call him, Ron Toss.
February: It's so appropriate that the last Blues goal my Dad saw was at our end, the Tilton End, scored by true Brummie and modern hero Craig Gardner. It was only a week before that 'Our Craig' had fired us into the Carling Cup final, and I'd been jumped on by a 48 year old man wearing a suit. Yes, my Dad again. It was typical that, given the Blues' contrary ways, the team would break a run of 6 games at Upton Park without a win the day after Dad died. February 2011 will mean two things to me. The obvious to me, and the obvious to Blues fans: The Carling Cup final. From the moment the Arsenal keeper fumbled that long ball, I started blubbing, and only really stopped about 10 minutes after the final whistle. The emotions were so different that day to those in December: It almost seemed like the entire Blues community rallied round myself and Sarah; never before have I heard Keep Right On sung with such passion and feeling. Sure, it normally rouses the emotions, but this was something different.
March: Still coming down from that high...
April: As I've said before, travelling with 3000 Brummies all smelling of suntan lotion on numerous coaches in the searing heat, I could well have been on a package holiday. The difference was, this was Blackburn. To anyone who ever has the fortune to visit Ewood Park, I had a lovely bacon sandwich from a tiny little shop opposite the ground. No doubt soon enough it'll be transformed into a McDonalds, but the lad in there seemed like your stereotypical friendly Northerner!
May: The BBC Predictor is the spawn of the devil. Despite wanting to be told we'll be safe, the masochist in me has to tip a 5-0 Blackpool win over Man United on the final day, resulting in the Blues sat in the bottom three. There's only so far the yo-yo will stretch; if it is released again this summer, it might not bounce back.
And so on that cheery note, I realise that this season has been thoroughly mixed. The thing that, like a drug, is so more-ish, will always be the Blues, and despite the pain it puts me through, will always give me such great pleasure, that even if we do end up in the Championship next season, I'll tell myself that that's it, the well is dry, but I know, just like Chelsea, Leeds, Lincoln, fans of whoever, that it'll be 'same time, same place, see you in August'.
Monday, May 9, 2011
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