La Tristesse Durera (Scream "Where was Sai?")

“To Aldershot today, then, where the capacity is just 7100, so exactly the kind of Southern Wee Guy ground where our players tend to thrive. And let’s not forget that even David Unsworth managed to get us to beat them 5-1 at our place.” What a stupid, fate-tempting thing to say. What a dickhead.

I didn’t have the privilege of witnessing last Saturday’s shitshow first hand, but from eyewitness accounts of the horror and from the highlights it appears that we managed to play even worse than we did v Kidderminster. So, lads, you can’t play well in front of a sell out crowd at the Wembley of the North, and now you can’t play in a field in Hampshire where the ‘stands’ are dwarfed by trees. What conditions exactly WILL bring a good performance out of you?

I can only guess that Sachdev was injured in the warm up, because I can’t understand why else he wasn’t even on the bench after his MOTM performance v Bromley. If the intention was to rest him, why have him warming up? For the camaraderie? I’ve not seen any reason given for him not being involved, but it came back to bite us on the arse early on when Sutton was forced off after clashing heads with Garner. Two of our players managing to take each other out was a grim indicator of how the afternoon was going to pan out.

We’ve been accused of being arrogant for expecting to win comfortably at Southern leisure centres. That’s always been pretty tongue-in-cheek, but it definitely isn’t arrogant to expect Oldham fucking Athletic to put in a less piss poor attempt at defending at fucking Aldershot than we did for their first goal, which Mellon accurately described as “crap”. They just lumped it forward, our midfield made no real attempt to chase it down, and they were able to cross it into the box and score from a free header with no hint of a meaningful challenge.

The nearest we got to having a shot on target (yes, let’s take a sobering moment to remember that we did not have a shot on target, all game, at fucking Aldershot) was when Dallas made a good run forward and put in a great cross that should have set up Hammond for a tap-in, but instead he ran into the post. It summed the game up.

It could have been worse, and Hudson made a several good saves, including from a penalty he conceded by bringing Tolaj down (we couldn’t have complained if he’d been sent off) after we aimlessly hoofed the ball forward and gave it away cheaply in midfield. I suppose credit is also due to McGahey for managing to clear the ball off the line while on his arse, but I’d rather he took the slightly more orthodox approach to defending of staying on his fucking feet and not falling over with no one near him.

The second goal was, again, far too easy, with Frost almost strolling about 30 yards unchallenged up the pitch before scoring. It was a fitting end to an utterly appalling, anaemic, half-hearted sack of shit of a performance.

Micky Mellon was suitably scathing after the game, saying he was “thoroughly, thoroughly pissed off, to be honest”. He criticised the failure of players to take responsibility and to put themselves on the line and was clear that they need to do far better: “you should represent this brilliant football club better than that”. I couldn’t agree more, Micky. MAKE SURE THEY FUCKING DO.

It's an early kick off today for our game against Nottinghamshire’s 4th best team, mainly due to a section of Chesterfield’s fans banging on for months about how they’re gonna take our home end and invade the pitch and take over our town and shag our dogs. It needs to be a vast improvement on the pitch, because we deserve better than seeing Oldham Fucking Athletic getting turned over by Fairy Cake FC. Step up, lads. Represent this brilliant football club properly. KTMFF.

Photos © Aldershot Town FC. Written by Arlene Finnigan.  I know which county Chesterfield is in. Don’t @ me.