Gas v Accrington.Match Day thread.

Impossible to guess a DC starting XI at the best of times... today particularly so. Would like to see two of Payne / Reilly / Jakubiak start up front. Also hope that we don't continue with Locks/Craig as CB's as we will continue to concede goals from anything lumped into the box. Impossible to predict the outcome. UTG...

First home game of the season, what are we expecting? and will expectations match our hopes?

The first part of the duality that makes a football fan, every good football fan has a passion for their club. An emotional attachment. A lot don’t go to all games yet still follow a club looking out for its result. Some are looking on several results, but theres always one they look for first. Count their marriages, count their love affairs. But there’s only one football result they look for first in their entire life. This emotional attachment means we have no embarrassment but enthusiasm to sport the colours, shirts, scarfs, hats, badges. Boxers. Romper suits, baby grows and bibs.

And then the yang to the ying: an understanding of football tempers our emotions, like boron rods in a nuclear reactor preventing enthusiasm from boiling over. Not just appreciation how hard it is to play at a level, fitness, strength, skill and concentration - and the sublime enjoyment to see all that done well by people wearing our colours! But for the real fans an appreciation that many will take part, but when alls said and done, only a few walk away winners and going places. And in some 50/50 moments the few invariably got lucky.
We got lucky on our last visit to Wembley, did we not?

So Enjoying Football for itself isn’t all about winning and going places, supporting your club through thick and thin is not about knowing where you are going, or knowing for sure you will actually get anywhere, it’s about wearing the colours, and on the whistle plunging into a chasm of darkness, taking a leap of faith every match day of the season.

So, winning a match, or winning a season is not our only measurement of progress, it’s not the be all end all football is all about, there is something less tangible we can and should measure. Optimism. What we expect from our manager and the team around him is to build our optimism. Good squad+Good players+Good football=optimism. It’s all about building hope, so when that whistle goes, and we step into that chasm of darkness, we leap with faith, with hope for a soft landing.

I’m at the game. I will report back. And I will measure the performance I see, not on the result, because Lady Luck can have her fickle way with that, but on whether our team played with composure, organisation and confidence. Composed, organised, and confident, playing close to the best they can be. That is what I expect. I hope for nothing more.

It would seem to be a good idea to get there early and avoid the rush.
Oh and tell everyone who is not on the t'interweb to get there early as well to avoid any issues on the turnstiles....

Come on Gas...

Early season match, I expect it to be competitive. Accrington will want to keep it tight for as long as possible, hoping to knick what they can. We must keep calm, patient, work on producing quality with our possession, look to score first even if that’s late as last quarter.

Will you behave and stop getting over excited.   No one in the world makes such a change and sets up day 1 as though in steadystate.  On day one there’s all sorts of planning, extra things you don’t need in steadystate put in place to make sure change goes smoothly.    

Major accident hold ups on M6 at both J21 and 14 so hope Accy fans find a suitable diversion/s.

0-1 Accy

FFS

Get in! 1-1 Payne!!!

Glad I didn’t go.