Frozen winter sh*t

Thank God common sense prevailed and the match was called off yesterday in good time. Was anyone actually looking forward to it? When the announcement was made, I was sitting in my kitchen with the heater on, a hot water bottle on my feet, wearing a hoodie with the hood up, wincing with a painfully seized up neck. I definitely wasn’t hoping I’d get the chance to stand in the Rocky for two hours today.

(The worst thing about my neck seizing up is that it’s trapping a nerve going down my right arm. The arm I pick up drinks with. Imagine the mess.)

“Grrrr why are we calling off matches after spending a million quid on the pitch, why haven’t we got undersoil heating, wah what a tinpot club”. You can listen to bellends, or you can listen to an undersoil heating engineer. Undersoil heating is expensive, and it’s not cost effective for a non-league club (I know I don’t like it either but that’s what we are) to install it to prevent a couple of games a season being rearranged. Our bling pitch and its frost covers can cope with it being a few degrees below freezing. It was -7C two nights running and the temperature didn’t go above -1C for most of the week. It’s one game. There was fuck all we could do about it, same as there was fuck all we could do about the fog. Shit happens.

We did get to play Eastleigh on Tuesday, and our disappointing start to the year continued in what was an utterly dogshit first half. The nearest to entertainment was the Eastleigh commentator, who informed us that both teams were “going at it hammer and tongues [sic]”, which a) simply was not true and b) the phrase is ‘hammer and tongs’, hammer and tongues sounds like some horrific kind of medieval torture.

I’m still convinced that the throw-in that the opening goal came from was a foul throw, but fucking hell we need to do better at defending set pieces. It was a well-worked move, but we should have defended the ball into the box better. It was a decent floating header to put it away, which was horrible to try to save/clear, but it wasn’t the world class finish that their commentator made it out to be.

We were lucky it wasn’t 2-0 a few minutes later when Hudson came sprinting out of his area to try to close down Shade, nearly leaving him with an open goal, but thankfully defensive colossus Reagan Ogle had him covered. I was worried he’d turned to shit now he’s cut his hair, but I thought he was MOTM for us. We put Eastleigh under more pressure late on in the half, Caprice especially, but it wasn’t a great 45 minutes.

Caprice continued to be a threat down the right in the second half, and Garner should have buried the cross that he put into the box early on but blasted it over the bar on the half-volley. Gardner was once again not at his best, and it was once again a surprise when it was Lundstram who came off for Kay and not him. Perhaps even more surprising was the return of the prodigal son, Alex Reid, to the fold, coming on for Garner.

62 minutes into the game, I went into the kitchen to make a brew. Even when watching the game on TV at home it works. I missed Clucas putting a great free kick right onto Raglan’s head, and the captain equalising. You’re all fucking welcome.

I made it back into the living room to see Clucas (who had apparently remembered at half time that he’s Samuel Raymond Fucking Clucas and he should be running rings around Eastleigh) putting an equally great corner right onto Fondop’s head, and God’s Number 9 buried it to put us 2-1 up. OK, maybe the subs worked.

Given that Ogle’s long throws had looked like a decent threat, it was all the more galling that we let Eastleigh get back level from the exact same trick. If only opposition teams defended Ogle’s throws the way we defend set pieces. What a mad seven minutes.

Ogle’s rubbish long throws should have put us back in front, and Clucas should have got the goal his second half performance deserved. Was it disallowed for offside or for a ‘push’? Either way, that’s two goals he’s been robbed of now.

It was the proverbial game of two halves, and we really went for it in the last 10 minutes. Gardner capped off his performance by groping an Eastleigh player and throwing him to the floor, then, having got away with that, got booked for dissent. Reid had a couple of chances to get the winner, we could and should have won it, but we could and should have played for 90 minutes and not 45.

I’ll be the first to admit that I hadn’t appreciated how important Conlon was to us, but our midfield looks a bit crap without him, doesn’t it? It certainly looks like he was bringing the best out of Clucas. And he might be off now. Fucking hell.

A couple of postponed games and four dropped points aren’t a disaster. Eastleigh are on an excellent unbeaten run, and a draw at their place wasn’t the worst result. It’s all just so deflating after the optimism of a month and a bit though, isn’t it? I was daft enough to lump on us winning the league after the win at Tranmere (it was an each-way bet, and 18-1 seemed very generous odds at the time). It feels like the wheels have come off slightly since then. We shouldn’t be panicking, but it’s a wee bit disheartening.

We’ve started bringing in reinforcements, and yesterday we announced the signing of midfielder Jordan Rossiter from Shrewsbury on loan for the rest of the season. He sounds like a Gregan-style midfield enforcer/destroyer – “I like to break things up, win tackles” – and I look forward to him deliberately getting a red card before St Patrick’s weekend and a video of him singing Whiskey In The Jar on karaoke in McHale’s in Liverpool at 2pm during our home vs Rochdale going viral. Robbie Fowler once called him “potentially a young Stevie G”, don’t you know.

The hashtag on Twitter has been great fun this last week (hi to York fan Alex, who has promised to follow this blog religiously). The highlight for me is this poignant poem by Otis Khan superfan TheReal­_AQ. I hope it inspires Micky Mellon to play him more. He seems like the kind of man who would be moved by poetry.

Maybe we’ll keep Clucas, maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll sign a striker, maybe we won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the Funky Chicken on… Sorry, I digress. My point is, whatever will be, will be. It’s shit that we didn’t get to keep Stones, it’ll be shit if we lose Clucas, but we’re not gonna sign Urko Vera.

Have a great weekend that won’t be ruined by the football. It’s lovely out if you wrap up. Go for a walk up Tandle Hill, it looks pretty in this weather. Come to Whittles and watch the Deep Purple tribute band and join in me and Andy arguing about who was fitter at their peak, Glenn Hughes or David Coverdale. (It’s deffo David Coverdale.) And by the next home game, we’ll have signed four more players and HMS Piss The League will be back on course. KTMFF.

Written by Arlene Finnigan. Pictures © Oldham Athletic.