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4th May 2015 was a grey, grey day (at least from 17:30 onwards). Pragmatism and conservatism triumphed.
Before departing for Wembley I
had spent the day wallowing in nostalgia, watching the 92/93 play-off final
highlights and blasting out ‘Up Where We Belong’ (which strangely gets better with age)
not troubling myself with the fact that
Swindon, on a financial footing, are not really up way they belong: that’s the
bottom half of League One. It had also
been spent engaging in superstition – more so than usual – including avoiding
the number six in all forms, saluting magpies, circumventing three drains on the pavements and electing
not to wear my Swindon Town ‘Imagine Cruising’ Shirt, which I like very much, because
there was an outside chance that my non-supporting Swindon friends who gave me
the shirt for my birthday, one of whom is a Reading fan, might have put a hex
on it.
Alighting at Wembley Park, and
walking down Wembley Way, I tried to gloss over the stadium’s shortcomings – a structure
of compromise rendering it akin to a giant Cineworld – and the incongruous,
rather feeble, Bobby Moore statue. On entering the stadium I realised I was
mistaken; it was not a cinema, but an airport terminal. Still, I suppose it’s in keeping with much of
football today: hyped, vacuous and overpriced.
Three minutes into the game my
stomach lurched and doom descended. Swindon’s defensive shortcomings had been exposed and Nathan Thompson,
club captain, was being taken off on a stretcher. It was almost tragicomic. The tragicomedy was accentuated by a chap in
the row below me, with his two embarrassed teenage daughters who were gently
tugging his jacket imploring him to take his seat, pointing at a Preston fan
bellowing ‘YOU’ while simultaneously clenching his fist and banging it against
his head in a furious masturbatory motion. 2-0 down after 13 minutes I thought that it was probably over and so did
four ‘Swindon fans’ to my right who decided that they’d seen enough and that it was
time to go. Riled, I couldn’t help
castigating them, uttering 'that’s pathetic'. Five minutes later they were back, which might have been because they
weren’t allowed to leave; they had a change of heart; or perhaps they had simply all
needed the lavatory at the same time. I
didn’t enquire. Beckford’s
sumptuous goal just before half-time ended the game as a contest and my half-time
was spent cogitating on Swindon’s line-up for next season: Belford, Branco, N.Thompson………………
Hylton, Obika…….
The second-half was also a fairly
painful experience not helped by a group of idiotic 16-18 year olds sat behind
me, of which only one was a (nominal) Swindon fan, opining that Swindon should
be more direct and that Wes Foderingham was 'crap'. They also, on occasions, sarcastically applauded Swindon’s
mishaps. The only pleasant aspect of the
half were the cashew nuts supplied by my fiancée’s Dad, which went back and
forth between him, me, my fiancée and Mike. It was undoubtedly Mike’s favourite part of the day; he ate half the
bag.
Mercifully, the full-time whistle
did not result in a vast outpouring of anger, dismay or tears with most Swindon
fans quietly scuttling home. Had I been
on my own I might have remained in the stadium waiting for the darkness
to envelop me, pondering on what might have been and that the minor miracle of
Swindon’s 14/15 campaign – perhaps the most interesting, innovative and odds
defying campaign of any English football club in 14/15, and worthy of at least
a chapter in Soccernomics 2 – would not receive the wider acclaim it
deserved.
But then I looked at Nathan
Thompson hobbling around the Swindon half of the ground on crutches, broken and
defeated, applauding the Swindon fans and realised that winning, while
important, particularly as it would have kept Swindon’s special group together,
isn’t everything. Would I have swapped
Swindon’s season for Preston’s? Nope. I
wouldn’t have wanted to have missed the evolution of the first sweeper/keeper
in League One; the tiki-taka passing triangles; the Iraqi Pirlo; the 1-0 victory against Bristol City that irked Steve Cotterill so; the four goals against Walsall with the snow descending;
Australia’s MVP; a technical level that, at times, surpassed many Championship
sides; the 5-5 draw; and witnessing the development and progression of Swindon’s
apprentices, and the bond forged between them. To be trite, and (very) cheesy, I remembered
the exchange in the first Mighty Ducks film – a childhood favourite – between
Gordon Bombay and a chap called Hans (Gordon’s mentor, father figure – a wise,
detached, Gandalf type).
Gordon: [on coach Riley – the
baddy – who reminds me of Alex Ferguson] 'the guy wins'.
Hans: 'it’s not about winning,
Gordon, it never was. Just show them how
to play, show them how to have fun; teach them to fly!'
Over the course of the 14/15
season the Swindon fledglings flew; at times they soared.
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