Page 10 - 364645 LP243221 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 Aug22

SAY HELLO,
WAVE GOODBYE
After four seasons in the league that time forgot, there are a lot more than ten things that have ceased to be entertaining, as you well know, but here’s some off the top of my head to get you started. Stop me at ten, please.
PORTALOOS AND TENTS
No, not the Manics Live at Glastonbury album, but the facilities somehow deemed sufficient by certain clubs for the visiting fans. The former have a habit of rolling over if encountered by over-exuberant fans, and tempt players to have a quick pre-match sit down. The latter flap and rattle, and patently fail to keep out the elements they were intended to protect you from.
CERTAIN MATCH OFFICIALS
So intent on showing they won’t be cowed by officiating a game involving Sleeping Giants that they show a bias which would be coveted in the world of crown green bowling. Then there are those who obviously spend hours looking at themselves and insisting on a tighter shirt.
MK DONS, FRANCHISE FC
Because they make us visit Milton Bloody Keynes for a start, and because they shouldn’t exist at league level and are a sign of all that is wrong with football governance in this country. Their ground really is too big for them and they haven’t earned the right to play league football.
“CHARACTER” MANAGERS
“Character” managers who aren’t quite “character” managers. Steve Evans, once of Gillingham, springs to mind even if he did look more like a Jacamo advert. I know we’ll come up against similar people in the Championship, but the failed efforts of wannabe Klopps and Mourinhos had, after four years, got on my wick a bit.
ADAMS PARK
The access to Adams Park. Even when it opened in 1990, the planning department must have realised that having a football ground at the end of a cul-de-sac was a bad idea, especially if there’s no provision at the ground for parking coaches. I’ve better things to do with my
Saturday evenings that sit in an industrial estate next to a huge solvent storage tank.
SHOULDN’T BE IN L1
“You’re bigger than this, you shouldn’t be
in League One.” If we were, we’d have been somewhere else. You end up in the league you deserve to end up in, even if it feels like you don’t fit and the fanzone is two picnic tables.
EFL TROPHY
Putting the first team in the Football League Trophy. Look, I know we got to the final 50% of the time, and won it once, but ha’way man, we’re bigger than that. See, even I’m doing it.
OUTNUMBERING THE HOME FANS
Outnumbering the home fans at away games. It was fun for a while, actually, it was fun for the whole of our stay, but that’s not the way it should be. I want our travelling fans to actually have a bit of competition when it comes to making a noise, and there to be a frisson of nervousness about attending away games.
DRUMS
Drums. I realise there will be percussion instruments in the Championship, but hopefully not at the expense of fans using their voices and hopefully with some imagination in the riffs they use. In a perfect world, of course, there would be no drums in football grounds, but that will almost certainly remain a forlorn hope.
FOUR SIDES
Grounds with less than four sides. Aye, Oxford, I’m looking at you. There are enough vertically challenged stands in League One to facilitate the hoofing of the ball out of the ground without the complete absence of one end and to make things worse, the miserable beggars have put up a screen to block the view from the car park.
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