Football

Martin mentioned the lack of reports about NTFC. Well....my mother always told me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So with apologies to my mum, here goes.

As some of you will know we were relegated last season. We would not have been relegated if the players had collectively given a toss, but they did not and last May I was feeling like this about the team.

I fully expected if I am honest that anger and depression would have worn off by the time the new season started as with each new season usually comes new hope, but at the start of this season all I had seen was 3 out of our 4 decent players leaving - and no one inspiring coming in. Specifically no new goal keeper came in and we kicked off this season as we had played most of last season with a young and obviously* not yet ready for league football keeper, and a 16 year old reserve.

I missed the first few matches anyway as I was away. I missed our next one at home as I chose to go and see Reidski instead. I decided I had better things to do of a Saturday afternoon to go to the following match which was away at the mighty Burton Albion, but I have to say I did confidently expect that we would win that one by a margin of at least 5 goals. My son went. At quarter past three when we had been playing for all of 15 minutes I checked my phone to see as I did actually say to Reidski at the time, if we were five nil up yet. There were three texts from my son waiting to be read. The first one said 'Oh god - now it's 3.' It was only when I saw the other two texts that I could fully grasp the fact that it was 3 - 0 to Burton. I texted him back and said 'Please tell me you are joking.' He wasn't. He doesn't joke about anything that serious. We had conceded 3 goals in the space of the first ten minutes.

That obviously had to be an aberration. I went to the next game and I took Reidski with me. We both wished I hadn't. We were played off the park at home by Barnet whose wage bill is £500,000 less than ours is. There was not one single positive to take away from that performance except that it brought to a close Stuart Gray's time as our manager.

Saturday saw us under a caretaker manager taking on Notts County who have come into loads of money this season. A lively start saw us go 1-0 up. Hooray! although that elation was subsequently somewhat dampened by us then conceding 5 goals.

Suffice to say that the football team previously referred to as MY team still have quite a long way to go to reclaim their hold on my heart. Last season I won money on our relegation, and I am seriously considering placing a bet right now on us going down to the Conference at the end of this season because we are seriously poor right now.


* Obvious to everyone that is but our then manager.



It will be a relief to get back to talking about China after that little lot.