Today was the last day of the Premiership football season, and I shouted myself hoarse as Bolton's crumbling form was just enough to see them into 7th place and snatch the last European place from Reading. A suitable metaphor for their form would be the car in "The Blues Brothers" that just reaches the destination before the doors fall off and the engine blows up.
On the terraces, there was much browsing of mobile websites to try and keep up with the changing permutations of results. One old bloke next to me took the lo-tech approach and called a friend watching at home for an up-date. This reminded me forcefully that gizmos really are for people who don't have friends.
If Bolton was like that, I can hardly imagine the feverish browsing going on at the relegation match at Bramall Lane, where Sheffield United's loss to Wigan was enough to pitch them out of the Premiership (subject to legal challenge).
I was reminded of a survey where Sheffield United was far and away the team whose fans thought about it the most. These people will be gutted (poor Sean Bean, for example), but support like that will get rewarded in the end. I'd say a fanatical support is worth two Russian oligarchs.
The Aston Villa fans at Bolton were wonderful - nothing to play for but singing their hearts out anyway. Absolutely the loudest away support all season. Very amusing song about Sam Allardyce too - great banter.
Days like this are what keeps me coming back to football. Forget the high finance and the lawyers - it's all about the team and your extended family of 30,000 singing that insert team here are the Greatest Football team, even though your striker couldn't hit the lake from a rowing boat.
1 comment:
OOh, I can feel my "cow's arse and banjo" graphic being brought out -- I haven't done that in a couple of months. :)
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