Owls v Crystal Palace

So that’s it.

It’s all over.

We’ve been put out of our misery, so the misery can begin.

Most will have seen the game so I’m not going to go into any great detail about the pattern of the match. But this is how I saw it.

A few of us had been out the night before at the Comedy night at the City Hall. It was a good night and a nice way to meet up at the end of the season. A few drinks before hand and then 3 good comedians with a good compere. When they cleared some of the tables to start the ‘nightclub’ element of the night we all sat round a table and the enormity of the game started to hit. You could see it in everyone’s faces. Conversations were limited but I think we were all just sitting there imagining all the possible scenarios. We were literally counting down the hours ‘til kick off…

I went to the Phes for a couple of pre-match nerve-calmers but it didn’t work. Walking down to the ground I ended up in amongst all the Palace fans heading to the away end. It suddenly hit me just how big this was for both teams and their fans and that some of us would be devastated in 2 hours time. It really came down to which team kept their nerve.

Just before kick-off they brought on the opera singer they’ve had before – Andrea someone or other. She’s got a great voice she has but someone at the club needs to have a word with whoever thinks it’s a good idea to have her for big games like this. There is enough atmosphere and tension in the ground – no-one is interested in hearing someone sing Nessun Dorma. Unless she sings “If you don’t fookin bounce” then just don’t bother. She got polite applause from the crowd that realised it’s not her fault but really it was unnecessary.

The teams came out and Clarke had come in for Soares. As so often in recent weeks it was an attacking team on paper, but it was anyone’s guess as to how positive we would actually be.

Understandably we started the more nervous team. What we desperately needed was an early goal to calm ourselves down but we couldn’t force any real chances. Clarke seemed to be hauled down but Mike Dean (and his linesman on the North Stand side) saw nothing wrong. It wasn’t pretty to watch at times but the occasion made it gripping. The ball spent far too long in the air for us to really get the key players into the game that we needed to – Potter, JJ, Tudgay all huffed and puffed but as usual it was James O’Connor that was involved in every move. He took an elbow from Shaun Derry and got a split head for his troubles. Derry got nothing more than a free kick against his name. We knew Palace would come to try to bully us - it’s what they do and we’d seen they were allowed to get away with it against West Brom. It seemed Mike Dean wasn’t going to stamp down on anything today either.

I was very concerned before the game about Ambrose’s free kicks and Grant made a good save from one such opportunity, but apart from that they created little in the way of chances, while our best efforts were from long range and didn’t really test Speroni.

Then they took the lead from a corner while we were down to 10 men as O’Connor’s wound opened up. No complaints, the rules say he has to stop the bleeding if it is there but it seems rather unfair that the victim of an elbow is punished doesn’t it? The unmarked Lee scored a header and when O’Connor returned to the pitch he was less than amused.

The Wednesday fans immediately tried to lift the atmosphere. We knew there was a lot left in this game. But if we were going to have any chance of winning we simply had to score before half time.

After Clarke had been apparently tripped in the box and Dean yet again waved away the appeal in dramatic “look at me” fashion, I commented that Clarke may as well go home as he was getting nothing from the officials.

Then we got the break we needed.

Clarke harried Butterfield into making an air shot that a lot of officials may have deemed a foul, but Dean pointed at the ball and Clarke ran into the box, looked up at his options to pull it back to but ignored them all and finished crisply, much as Varney had at Coventry a few weeks earlier. The cheers from the home stands were filled with relief, joy and hope. Another glimmer of hope in this season of false dawns. Clarke ran round the back of the net, ‘shushed’ the Palace fans and came to celebrate with us in front of the North Stand.

As we calmed ourselves down Clarke was still fiddling with his boot in front of the North Stand. He took an age to get back into our half to let them kick off and I think Dean thought he was time wasting. Ironic really considering the time-wasting antics of the Palace players from the first whistle that he did nothing to stop. As the game restarted Clarke just slumped on the floor and it became apparent that he was in real pain. When Palace won a corner this was the chance to get the physio on to look at him, but Dean waved the appeal away and told Palace to take the corner! If they had scored while we were down to 10 men again there would have been uproar but as it was we survived and Varney took the ball up the other end to win us a corner of our own. Finally Dean allowed Clarke to get treatment and he ended up being stretchered off. Hardly time wasting then was he?

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t a referee’s primary job to protect the welfare of the players? The first thing he should be doing is enquiring after a player who is down injured. If he doesn’t believe him then he should send him off the pitch for treatment. If he thinks he’s time wasting he should book him. But to just ignore him and encourage play to go on around him while he’s crying out for treatment? That’s just arrogant refereeing and I hope that as Clarke was stretchered from the field Dean reflected on his decision to ignore an injured player and came to the same conclusion that I did. That he is a twat.

Predictably Soares came on for Clarke despite calls from many fans around me to put Jeffers, or even Esajas on, and go for it. But that’s not the Irvine way, he would wait before risking everything.

As the half time whistle went O’Connor was still unhappy with Derry’s challenge and told him so. We could see it seemed to carry on down the tunnel but we needed to keep our heads if we were to have any chance of winning. 45 minutes to save our season.

As the second half kicked off I felt ill. I can’t quite explain what was going on in my head, stomach and everywhere else but it was a combination of nerves and, frankly, the temptation to just surrender. I didn’t have the energy to get through another 45 minutes. I could have happily just ended the season there and then. Put us out of our misery. Get me off the rollercoaster. It was to be hoped the players weren’t feeling like I was, but then it is their actions that led to my mood anyway. For the first time, and at completely the wrong time, I felt that I just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.

To be fair we went about our business in the right way for most of that second half in my opinion. We looked solid at the back, they still didn’t create any chances other than set pieces but we managed to force 2 or 3 opportunities. The story of our season continued though as we couldn’t take them. Varney hit the keeper with a one on one, Soares worked an opportunity well and then dithered over shooting but we were building pressure.

Potter ended up with a bloody head after another elbowed challenge from Derry that didn’t even earn a free kick this time. It was right in front of Dean, Potter showed him the blood pouring from his head and Dean ignored him, before remembering the rules and sending off Potter for treatment. I wonder if Dean looked at both of central midfielders with bandages on head wounds and reflected that perhaps he should have done more about Derry’s elbowing? Again, though, I’m sure he wouldn’t dare question his own decision making.

Then the sucker punch.

Somehow the dangerous Sean Scannell wriggled through 3 Wednesday players on the right hand side from a throw-in and got to the by-line. He pulled it back and Ambrose had the freedom of Sheffield to pick his spot. The sort of clinical finishing that has been missing from us all season. A breakaway goal from nothing and our hopes were all but extinguished.

Jeffers and Esajas came on and we went to a sort of 3-2-5 formation and it was a simple case of lump it forward and hope. Tommy Spurr was probably our most creative player as Potter drifted out of the game and we struggled to get JJ involved. When JJ did manage to create something Jeffers couldn’t get his head properly on the ball from 1 yard out and that summed up the game, season and our chances of surviving.

We tried numerous long throws and the thought crossed my mind that the only time I can ever remember us scoring from a long throw was at Hull in 2005. When we did finally make one count – Purse tapping in after Beevers’ flick on – the glimmer of hope was there that an even more dramatic winner than that day at the KC may be on the cards. But despite an Esajas free kick that was blocked and one last scramble we couldn’t break through.

The final whistle went and that was it.

Despite knowing it was a possibility for most of the season, a probability for most of the past month and an almost certainty for the last 20 minutes of the game, the final whistle was still a real shock. The reality hit. The Wednesday players collapsed, the Palace players ran to the away end. It was over. You couldn’t help but look but every moment was like a knife to the heart.

The police had lined up in front of the away end and the South Stand with a few minutes to go. I guess it wasn’t easy for them to plan, as if Wednesday had nicked a winner they would have been at the wrong end but still, when the Palace fans predictably poured onto the pitch they were outnumbered and couldn’t stop a mini-invasion. Obviously some of our fans took exception to this and did the same. Scuffles broke out and it took a few minutes for them to get anything like a grip on the situation, by which time hundreds of people were on the pitch. It then became apparent that a Palace player was still in among the away fans (which turned out to be the irritating Clint Hill) and as he tried to get back to the dressing room he got chased by a lot of Wednesday fans. They basically attacked the tunnel as he went down it and if we don’t get some form of punishment as a result then I’ll be amazed. We were all upset, frustrated and dismayed but this sort of stupid, childish, attention seeking behaviour is not welcome and if you were one of the people acting that way then you should be embarrassed and ashamed of yourselves.

I don’t know if the players would have come out to ‘thank the fans’ or not, and I don’t know what reaction they would have got if they had, but it wasn’t possible anyway so we filed out and headed home. Sitting on the train back to London with the carriages full of Palace fans was hardly the best way to end the season for me. I reflected on the season, my own personal commitment to the club and how I felt at half time. By the time the journey had ended I was counting the new grounds, the southern away days, the potential to actually win a few games.

One way or another, we’ll be back.

A few final thoughts:

- Can whoever it is that chooses referees for ‘big’ Championship games please stop allocating ‘Premier League’ referees? The best referee I’ve seen in years is Singh – give him to us please, stop this nonsense where idiotic attention seekers like Mike Dean come down and parade around like performing seals. We’re not here to watch you. Get a grip of the game, protect the players and then leave.

- We didn’t go down because of yesterday’s game. We’re not good enough and this game simply summed that up. Fair play to Palace, they aren’t one of the 3 worst teams in this league and they certainly know how to win ugly, something we have failed to do all year. Our season without a 1-0 win and a red card shows us that we can’t play the way you need to at times in this division. They looked solid yesterday and took their chances. We’ve not done both together anything like enough. That’s why we’re down.

- To the supporters that disgraced themselves and the club by basically attacking an opposition player on our pitch at the final whistle – don’t come back. We need all the support we can get in League One next season but not from idiots like you.

This whole season has been one to forget in many ways. We can spend the next few weeks picking it apart and then the summer begins. A lot of changes will happen at the club in the next few months, on the ‘pitch’ and off it. Let’s hope it’s a bright new future. I’m not sure I can cope with another struggle.

Up the Owls.

Baldy.