Reflections On The First Day Of The Season: Part 1

It's taken us almost a week to respond to the fact that the season is now up and running but we've woken up from our slumber. Adam Bushby gives his thoughts on a stolen afternoon in Kent. 

I remember the date vividly. Probably because it was less than a week ago and my short-term memory is pretty much fit for purpose. August 13. And I can tell you exactly where I was. I was stood towards the corner flag, in the away end of the Stonebridge Road ground eating a burger. I heard a booming Yorkshire voice, spliced with bile bellow: “And you can take your fucking chewing gum out an all linesman. Take your fucking gum out and start doing your fucking job.” After I heard this abuse, I smiled. ‘Why is this bloke so bothered about the linesman’s chewing gum?’, I pondered. I was watching York City v Ebbsfleet in the Blue Square Premier League, it was 15 minutes in, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. A new season has started. And I’m hooked.

Creepy Crawley

Time to fill out that expenses form...

The weekend just gone saw the first side across England’s top five divisions promoted. Yes, I said five divisions, because I’m a York City fan and I like to feel relevant. Crawley Town made it to the promised land of the Football League, leaving the other 23 Conference sides to scrap over the one remaining promotion place. And if you think I’m going to doff my cap in recognition of Crawley’s achievement, then you have another thing coming.

Crawley's Cup Runneth Over

"Never you mind how much we're on a week"

With all the batshit mentalism flying around in the Premier League on transfer deadline day, I’ve decided not to dignify it with a response. Aside from an unintelligible ‘URGH?!?!’. No doubt the Sky Sports Newsroom resembled some sort of binge-driven party aftermath this morning, as Jim White stumbled around mumbling something about helicopters and Iain Dowie’s face, and Bryan Swanson beats the shit out of what was LITERALLY his transfer window, screaming something about being a proper journalist and not a glorified gameshow assistant.

Moving On Up

Stevenage celebrate promotion

Watching Macclesfield play at Stevenage last weekend I was struck by a couple of things. The first was that it is very difficult to achieve things in a game of football (like attacking) when the ball spends seven minutes of every ten either in the air or out of play. The other was that it was almost universally agreed before kick-off that the sides promoted from the Conference, Stevenage and Oxford, would ‘do well this year’, with the only justification being that ‘promoted teams always do well’.

A 2-2 draw for the Silkmen was received well by most of the Macclesfield faithful. An 89th minute equaliser was hard to swallow, but again, the opinion prevailed that we would have taken a point before the game. Even Gary Simpson, speaking after the match, reckoned that, “We battled hard away from home against a side who I still believe will be one of the front runners this season.”