This was a formality.
Against a team with, hitherto, a 4-from-4 perfect away record, City
had control of the game from its outset, capitalised on – sure –
some poor defending to score the first couple of goals, but hey. It
was an easy afternoon, and following one of the stupider dismissals
you'll see in a professional football game (first yellow for a dive,
second for kicking the ball a long way away) it turned from
“comfortable win” into “stroll in the park”. Even with the
game dead at 11v10, City played a very composed, mature, sensible
game, keeping possession, not taking silly chances, and scoring a
well-worked third goal to bury the men from Yorkshire.
A satisfactory
afternoon on its own terms then, and as part of an unbeaten League
run that (at time of writing) encompasses the first nine games of the
nascent season to take us five points clear at the top of the young
League One table, the bigger picture is all the more impressive. Win
has followed win, three goal haul has followed three goal haul, with
metronomic regularity. After all those years in the bottom half of
divisions it's a refreshing, not to say somewhat surprising, state of
affairs.
So why haven't I been
enjoying it as much as I ought to've been?
I haven't, you know;
not really. Oh, it's been fun going to the games. And even from
afar, it's certainly been nice not to have that heartsinking feeling
as Twitter informs me that we've conceded yet another early goal.
I've been pleased when we've won, but that's a long way from the
delight I really ought to be feeling; the delight I've every right to
enjoy now after what City have been putting me through in recent
years. Given how impressive the results have been, I've been feeling
oddly flat.
There are a couple of
things which, while not major contributors, are probably relevant.
The first is having given up the season ticket, which has slightly
reduced my exposure to the team and players (especially as we've not
yet had a south-eastern away game I can easily reach). I haven't
formed any sort of bond with these players yet; of our current first
XI, six didn't play for City last year, one did so only on loan, and
50% of the remainder I'm working hard to forgive for their poor
performances this time last year which led directly to our poor start
to the season. It's only Williams and Bryan for whom I have that
affection born of a season's exposure. I think they're the only
squad members Ross and I have come up with nicknames for (“Degsy”
and “GI” if you must know) and that tells its own story.
Combine that with not
living in Bristol and the emotional side of the game takes a further
blow. If you live in Bristol your investment in the team is, I
think, just as much about getting the win so that on Monday morning
you're quicker on the draw when you bump into the Gashead you work or
study with. Certainly that was the case when I was at school. My
best friend Pete lives in London, and is a Gashead, but he makes
about one game every five years so isn't much of a whetstone for the
rivalry. For this reason the entire rivalry, when conducted two
divisions and a league structure apart, seems a feeble affair; the
cult of Colin Daniel leaves me rather cold, I'm afraid, as the effect
is that the only thing reminding me of the existence of Bristol
Rovers is, um, Bristol City fans. As I say though I can understand
why it continues to matter within the city itself; but there's an
entire buttress of passion which I'm not really part of.
No, Buttress of Passion
is not an architecture-themed adult movie. Let's move on.
A more fundamental
reason, I think, might be that so far it's seemed almost too
easy. I feel nervous writing that, as though I'm the character in
the horror film describing something as “too
quiet”; but you know what I mean? One of our main targets in
summer 2013 was Britt Assombalonga. We couldn't match his wage
demands, so he went to Peterborough, scored lots of goals, and has
earned them a £3m profit moving to Forest. This summer, finally
free of the squad's deadwood and in a weaker division, we were the
ones able to take on the players you'd have to assume the whole
division was after. This isn't just a guess; a right-back from
direct promotion rivals, an attacking midfielder we'd all been
talking about since January, the a third member of the top four goalscorers from last time (the other three of whom all now play in the Championship);
the young, impressive captain of a good passing team. Keith Burt has
spoken openly about the policy being “buy the best players in the
division”, and there's a pretty clear Championship Manager logic
here – if you buy all the best players you will have the best team.
Indeed, we know that league placings, by and large, follow wage
bills rather than the other way round. I would be quite surprised if
we're not paying the second-highest wages in the division, and since
we are now spending our wages on first-team players it ought to
follow that we finish in the top two.
Now
of course that doesn't always work; we all know that. And Cotterill
deserves great credit for getting through one transfer window at the
speed it would normally take to get through two, and then being able
to create a proper team out of the group of players so assembled.
But it still means that the early part of the season has had a slight
sense of unreality, of playing Pro Evo with the settings on beginner
(or indeed just playing against Pete the Gashead). It's nice to win,
but the games just haven't seemed all that competitive yet. Again,
though, this is from afar – the experience may have been different
at many of the matches – but certainly the Doncaster game only
reinforced that view. That second goal! That sending off! Dickov
may as well have asked Cotterill if he wanted to take advantage of
the gift-wrapping service at no extra cost.
I'm
sure the pressure will come – quite possibly against MK Dons this
weekend. I'd like us to be in a heartracing promotion battle with
four points separating first and sixth. That's something I could get
behind.
And while this gets
closest to the matter at hand, I don't really think that's what's
going on here. I think that, building on my last blog, my
disaffection has actually come from a less obvious result of being an
exile in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Having to
follow a successful football club on Twitter.
I mean, this can't be
specific to City. I'm sure many other clubs have the potential to be
this awful, if you follow the right (wrong?) people. The problem
with fandom, though, is that it's your own side you're exposed to the
most. And the Soccer AM-ification of modern football is something I
experience most as a City fan.
I'm talking about the
retweets of imbeciles with their endless hashtags and breezy
disregard for anything approaching originality. I'm talking about
the match reports providing enough material for @FootballCliches to
write his second book (yes, I know they're written fast, and partly I
think that's the problem – we can wait that extra hour for a
genuinely illuminating report, surely?). But most of all I'm
talking about the #banter. The awful, ongoing, never even remotely
funny #banter.
A few quick caveats. I
know this isn't only my club that does this; but it's only mine I
see. I know the media team have a bloody hard job pleasing every fan
and I think their coverage is often excellent – the Botswana tour
videos were wonderful, even the one where every player universally
describes a safari as “great experience” as though they've just
played out a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful cup tie against
Liverpool. And I follow, and am fortunate enough to be followed by,
a number of intelligent, witty, grounded Bristol City fans who I
would not have met otherwise and with whom I greatly enjoy discussing
the club.
But the most important
caveat is that I don't have to watch the stuff.
Advice I've given myself for some time now, but have only just got
around to taking. Because of my attachment to City I've been trying
to consume everything we produce, and it's been an enormous mistake.
Much of it simply isn't targeted at me, and that's fine. We'd be in
a lot of trouble if it was. So I am doing something that we now all
have the opportunity to do; I am tailoring myself a bespoke
interaction with the club.
I've
got rid of the Twitter accounts of buffoons like Scott Murray, the
matchday DJ and (for the time being at least) the head of media, thus
at a stroke removing vast amounts of guff from my consciousness; it's
still there, and it's not funny, but I don't have to know about it.
I'm focusing in on the matches, what the players do, and what the
manager says. I really miss having the manager's programme notes on
the website and I wish they'd come back. I've realised that while I
love much of the experience of football, it doesn't follow that I
must love all the extraneous noise and confusion around it. We all
know that 90%, at least, of what any football club says is nonsense.
Get rid of that – pare back to the game, the experience of going,
travelling, watching it, spending time with friends, all of that –
and the whole thing is a lot more satisfying.
This
is where it all connects up I think. I've lost a fair bit of the
experience of going to games this season, but like someone who loses
their vegetable garden so eats Haribo to make up the difference I've
become bloated, unsatisfied and left with an unpleasant taste in my
mouth. I need to focus on the real nutritional stuff and maybe I'll
be served up something I can really look forward to.
I
want to salivate again. And I hope the new diet will make me do
that.
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