A great return to his old stomping ground for the Wednesday manager
2 -v- 2 
Chuff me I’ve done some driving this last 4 days or so…I had to nip down to Northampton in the morning to get my eldest….and then after a little nap a shortish drive over to Preston…not too bad but all this on top of that Swansea drive and I’m sick to death of seeing roadworks and 50MPH zones….I don’t know how you lot that drive for a living do it…
Anyway it all put paid to us getting away to a really early start but in the end we had loads of time. The traffic on the M62 wasn’t as bad as I’d expected so we get parked up opposite the ground in plenty of time and still some daylight left.
We park up at the side of the park and as we pull up behind a white van the side door opens and out tumble a load of Wednesday fans, cans in hand singing Wednesday songs…no sooner had that happened than a car pulls up behind us and out get some more Wednesday fans who shout…’Here lads, a ball’ and they kick a football their way…
Cue fat old blokes running around blowing heavily and trying not to spill beer…and STILL singing…'HOLLALOO LOO WEHEEE...WEH YA GEH YO AAHS'
We get our stuff and head to the pub and as we cross the park grass some young lads stop their own game of footy to come over and abuse/challenge the Wednesday lads…these are only kids, probably around 10 or 11 year old…most with footy shirts on...Premiership footy shirts...
‘Hey up, old blokes…giz a game!’
It fell on deaf, drunken ears….
One of the young uns in a Man Utd top starts singing…Come on yoooooooou RE-….Oooh…err….PRE-E-E-E-STUN!
We leave em to it…old blokes huffin and chuffin and young uns hurling friendly abuse…when they can remember which team they support. A cracking scene tharris ya know…cheeky kids, drunken old blokes...a park...a ball...the setting sun....Oh aye, a great scene...and a good start to the neet.
When we get into the pub, as usual it’s 10 deep at the bar and a mare to get served…but eventually we do and go and join everyone…Harry Speakup’s here and he’s brought Jwann Speakup…she’s doing some course or sommat at the local University and she’s brought along her 'friend' Murray…Straight away ya know, that with a name like that he’s got to be a Southerner…if that wasn’t evidence enough, he thought us saying ‘neet’ was excellent and that the 'pie, peas and gravy' you could buy in the pub was as Northern as it gets…
Well if that’s as Northern as it gets, what the chuff does going to a football chuffing match and taking your own chuffin snap that consists of uncooked chuffin food say about you?
You read that right…UN-CHUFFIN-COOKED!
RAW!
Fookin RAW!
He brought some of that Sushi with him.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll try owt me but me food has to be fookin cooked!
It’s pretty basic stuff with us Northerners….if it aint cooked then it aint fookin dead….that stuff he were eatin still had a heartbeat, I’m sure I saw it bleedin move….
To me…eatin raw stuff says one thing…SOUTHERNER!
Well two things…Southerner or Warren Barton…
Onny a Southerner or a ponce could eat sommat that’s
basically still
alive…or maybe the French…turns out he’s almost both…He’s from
Southampton. That’s closer to France than Hillsborough ya know.
And
worst thing of all?
He’s onny gone and got Jwann eatin it as
well…Good Northern stock Jwann…eating uncooked stuff…I sat there shekkin
me head…I were aghast.
 | I’m telling ya now…Sushi is filth…it’s
just filth…and there’s no place for it in Northern society…we’ll not be
having any of that stuff up here….not without a drop of gravy on it
anyway. Smashin lad he is…for a Southampton supporter…which actually explains a lot…he has a lot to learn about Northern Etiquette….Basic rules being…..Only eat dead stuff….and gravy goes everything. Jwann needs to sort him sharpish. |  |
We head of to the ground and I’m still in a bit of a daze...when I go to collect me tickets the lass at the counter tells me
'You’ve already collected em.'
I chuffin haven’t ya know.
You have ya know.
Listen flower, I’ve just got here and I haven’t…did you check the debit card?
Err….no….here, have these….
You might want to work on that collection system….
 | When we get in the ground just under the stand there’s a lad with a kids
megaphone starting Wednesday songs and it sounds excellent…he’s really
getting em going… When we get to our seats he’s stood not far from us so the atmosphere looks promising…and just behind us is also Lee Bullen…down just to watch the footy…the lad with the megaphone chants up…’ONE LEE BULLEN, THERE’S ONLY ONE LEE BULLEN’…He was loving it was Bully….everyone wanted to talk to him and shake his hand…a measure of just how loved he is by Wednesday fans. |
THE MATCH
-
There were different phases to this game…
The first phase was at the start when it was an open game…both sides looking to get forward and really applying the pressure in an effort to score….it was a reasonable game if I’m honest, end to end at times and both sets of defence lifting their game to keep the scoresheet clean…OK, we lost JJ early on, not sure what it was for and no one around us seemed to know but he went off. I suppose it wouldn’t be something trivial with it being that early….and maybe you could forgive some Wednesday fans for thinking that would make things harder for us as he’s our outlet, he’s our pace and of late, he’s been our talisman, but when Soares came on he really got stuck into the battle exceptionally well and looked quite impressive at times going forward….something like he was when he was younger and why everyone was looking to buy him….
| But neither side could carve open the defence and get the ball home…for
us Purse was outstanding during this period…he put in three or four
excellent headers, tackles and clearances and he looked right in the
mood…the one who looked really out of sorts for us was the usually
impressive Nolan and throughout this half he had a bit of a mare…his
best contributions were when putting the ball forward, some of his
passing was superb but his defending was dreadful and he looked
uncomfortable all night…whether this was because he was back at his
parent club and playing essentially against his team mates, I don’t
know, but let’s hope that’s all it was…we need the other Nolan back
ASAP. |  |
We looked comfortable with things and might even have scored…we’d played some lovely football and tested the keeper so it wasn't through lack of trying.
 | There was a cracking little cameo down our left…Mellor using all his considerable bulk to try and muscle Tommy off the ball but the youngster was having none of it and he muscled back…they were locked, shoulder to shoulder going down the touchline and neither was yielding…Tommy won the battle though and what’s more, he came away with the ball….fookin lovely stuff…kudos to the lad…they’d also tested Granty too and he’d been at his very best to keep them out….he NEEDED to be at his best too...they had 3 corners in quick succession and he was superb…absolutely superb, the one from a Billy Jones shot was outstanding and following that we go straight down their end and Tudders goes close too…that’s what it was like…excellent stuff….from both sides... |
They get to the byline pull it back and Mellor puts it in….VERY untidy and Purse did his best to get shut but they got the goal and we were fookin gutted…
From that moment we couldn’t do owt right and our defence looked very edgy…we couldn’t complete a pass…and Preston seemed to be all over us…
| The Wednesday fans were absolutely outstanding up to this point,
even at one down…we weren’t downhearted and we didn’t think the worst
and the lad with the megaphone was in fine form, keeping the Wednesday
fans making noise…he even got a rendition of ‘Boom-boom-boom let me here
ya say Wayho!….WAYHO!’ The Preston fans weren’t making any noise at all and they were getting it big style from us…’1-0 and ya still don’t sing…’ loud and proud… |  |
Preston kept on attacking, we kept on letting them…they put a lovely ball round Nolan with Purse nowhere and Mellor was on it…he twatted it and Grant was equal to it…he was equal to a few more shots before the half ended too and he was just outstanding…right when we needed him the most he was at his best…great stuff.
When they came back out we were still singing and things STILL weren’t happening for us on the pitch…in fact it got worse very, very quickly…
| I’ve no idea how they managed to score but they got to the fookin byline
AGAIN…I hate that chuffin byline…Ok..different byline…but I hate em
both…and from where we were it looked an impossible angle…no way could
they have scored…but they did…. The Preston fans started singing now and the Wednesday fans got very tetchy…there was a bit of moaning and whinging going on and you could understand it really…we’d been in this game and contesting it at least evenly and we’d let it slip with two really shitty goals and what’s more, we looked all over the place… We were down…and almost out....and then phase three happened… |  |
 | I jumped on Salop in the row below and grabbed a couple of huge
hands full of man breasts and tried like hell to pull him over the back of
the seats by the teats…it wasn’t working so I had some of Dessie at the
side of me and the lad near him…GET THE FOOK IN! Miller loved
it…Punching the air at the Wednesday fans…. The megaphone lad gave it some pasty now…mindst you he was warned by the police that he was OK to use the megaphone but he MUST stop swearing….no sooner had the copper walked away and he started a chant of….’If you wear a yellow jacket you’re a c***’ that was it…he was on his way out of the ground… |
NOW, we couldn’t do any wrong and you could see the players visibly perk up….we were sharper all over the pitch and when Soares put a fookin absolutely beautiful ball through for Tudders he just flicked the fooker over the flailing Preston keeper….AGAIN, we held our breath…it seemed to take an age to reach the net….it went all chuffing slow mo on us….come on you fooker! Some folk weren’t even convinced it had gone in when the rest of us once again, went abso-fooking-lutely crazy….
| More Salop…More Dessie….More Grabbing, now though it was any fooker in range….Tommo
ran over from his seat singing 'When Marcus Tudgay scores a goal...'…it was mayhem…I noticed Harryspeakup in the row
in front looking all shevelled and calm….I was determined to make him at least
dishevelled and dived on him, landing on him, and a lad who’d fallen from
the seats behind and on Danny stood at the side…. Fookin hell I couldn’t breathe…we hadn’t had a comeback like this for so fookin long…a goal like that for even longer and a Tudders goal in what seems like a lifetime…It was wonderful….. Jesus it was getting edgy now and still the chances came for both sides…but the tension amongst the crowd was incredible… |  |
It was broken for a moment when a player from each side went down and both sponge men ran onto the pitch…it turned into a battle…both sets of fans raised their voices as one urging their own sponge man on…who would get there first…the Preston man had a 2 yard start but our fella was closing…with every stride he closed…he was down to a yard…they were getting close…it was a foot…but the Preston man won…if only our fella had lunged at the line…we could have had that bastard! A great round of applause went all round the ground for both of em…
The ease in tension didn’t last long…and the final phase was on…it was back to end to end stuff…
 | It’s a measure of our season and how important the games have become
that I’m getting nervous and tense at the end of these games, I really
can’t bear it…. Hollie: When did you become such a girl? Me: When it started meaning sommat. I sat back on me seat again…head in hands…hiding behind Salop…not daring to watch until we’d cleared it… The Young Un kept tapping me ont head and saying it’s clear….I’d stand up…watch us attack, them clear it and I was back down…OH LORDY LORDY! |
Right at the death…Leon had a couple of fabulous chances, one of them smack bang in the top right hand corner…I mean you couldn’t have placed it more in the corner if the ball had been triangle shaped…it was perfect, Leon was ready to celebrate and Lonergan somehow got a very good hand to it…BOLLOX!
Straight up the other end…me dropped to me seat but not quick enough and I just caught sight of an open goal for the behemoth that is John Parkin with an easy inviting header to clinch the game and break our hearts…but the gret fookin ox put the ball wide…the could feel the sigh of relief from the Wednesday fans…
BLOW YOU BASTARD!
I seem to be saying that a lot these days…COME ON! BLOW REF! THAT’S IT!….Oooh, hang on we’ve got the ball and we’re coming forward….wait ref…WA-….the bastard onny went and blew…
Again the relief was tangible….we’d been put through the ringer emotionally and it was finally over…we lifted our voices again and the players came over to well deserved applause….
My head was pounding, my throat was sore and my nerves were in tatters…but there was a great buzz amongst our fans leaving the ground….
Preston may feel hard done by but as I said, we deserved at least the draw and we were at the very least their equal here…
This MUST give the players some real hope now…that they are capable of great things. That they REALLY can get us out of this mess…after a fight back like that WE believe it…or I do. I genuinely believe that…I don’t think we should fear anyone now.
We’ve played 4 very tough games, 3 of which have been away against very good opposition…we’ve taken 5 points from those games. THAT is something to feel good about IMO…it’s something to base your hope and faith on…to make us really get behind the team and get this fookin job done, once and for all.
| Grant was outstanding tonight and without a shadow of a doubt the
key to us staying in this game when we were really under the cosh and
our players all over the place. As good a performance as I’ve seen from
him TBH….Kudos to him. Tudgay was really up for this and he was trying everything, even when everyone else was in bits, he was still at it, trying to make it happen…I think he had 2 or 3 overhead kicks and went very close before finally finding the back of the net and I was genuinely pleased for the lad. He’s come under the periscope a little of late and some have questioned his ability and commitment but he gave his all tonight and he DESERVED that goal. |  |
I am loving this at the moment…this football…this team…this ride…
Fook me it’s horrible, it’s wonderful, it’s hard to watch it’s totally compelling…I will be drained by the end of this season…totally drained…but it’s going to be fun….get on fookin board…IT IS GOING TO BE FUN!
Even the extra roadworks on the way back couldn’t bring me back down to earth….I loved this night…great company, entertaining football….oh aye…loved it.
Cheers
Steve:Beastie
Owls Alive
