All the farce of the fair.

As I looked up toward the North stand car park, there seemed something cruelly surreal about it. The fairground lights dazzled with intoxicating dreams, as young things full of hope flew wild and high into the night sky.

Then I looked down at it. I say it – I can’t bear to give it a name any more. It has become a shame, an embarrassment. If it were a fairground ride – then I clambered on at the top – and it plummeted toward the depths of hell at unstoppable speed.

Just occasionally, there are terrified screams. ‘Let me off, let me out.’

For the lucky ones, they are able to escape. More recently, they throw themselves off whilst the ride has barely begun. For many of us, we are less fortunate. We are super glued to our seats, programmed for life just like machine to be strapped on this sickening descent.

Misery becomes an addiction when you’ve been tortured for so long and last Saturday we got beaten ‘til we could barely lift a finger in protest. The life has been so choked out of us, that where others might throw bottles, we throw only boos – even they are timid in nature. When you’re so used to watching a disgrace, disgust almost seems frivolous. As losing becomes the norm, perhaps we should start cheering instead - the bigger the breakdown – the louder our lungs are lured to scream. On Saturday it would have been a standing ovation. Stockholm syndrome comes to Sixfields; no need to be kidnapped for the pleasure.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you haven’t. Apparently it was our worst league defeat at home since 1947, a year when most of our team consisted of war heroes – albeit most of them left standing on one bloody leg. I only wish some of today’s team could put one foot forward, let alone a whole limb. If only we could sentence them for cowardice; then banish them to some long-forgotten isle where the few indigenous people left laugh in their faces when they claim they are ‘a professional football team’ -  and that’s after they’ve seen them play!

There is no point in a match report. We all know what happened. We want to forget. The only thing I cannot forget is the sheer horror inside me; blood boiling, bitter and burnt as I dragged myself desperately toward the centre-circle at half-time. It normally takes a lot for me to dish out abuse to my own kind, although I am not one of the many Sixfields zombies, generally I refrain from kicking our players in the Cobblers when they’re down. And down we are at the moment, or at least seem destined to be.

However, that all changed there and then. Perhaps it was that I’d been slaving away in a warehouse since 5am. Perhaps it was that newfound feeling for me at least – when your money is hard earned it hurts that little bit more when you feel it being frittered away on hopelessness.

‘Spineless!’

As soon as the word came shooting from my heavy hurting heart, I didn’t regret it. There was not even a second of guilt, the only following thought involved chucking my scarf away and walking out with my dignity intact. Don’t worry, it didn’t last long. I stayed sat in my seat long after the man in black had cast a white shadow over my cheeks, the life all but drained out of me and every single home supporter. There was no sense of relief – okay so if it had gone on any longer we would have been looking at triple-figures - but mostly there was just stunned silence. No-one seemed surprised; simply shocked at quite how much it had fulfilled our expectations. We came suspecting a thrashing and we left in bits, bones brittle and broken.

As I staggered to the car radio drunk with despair, at least our manager or the imposter acting as one would offer some sobering words of comfort. No, no it was too much to ask. Of course it was. There was no apology – only the apoplectic arseholery of an alcoholic. Perhaps David Lee himself had turned to drink in the face of our calamitous collapse, either that or he was determined to prove himself the most dislikeable person on the entire planet. Why should I be surprised? Lee the clown to the left of us, Joker Johnson to the right. Us stuck in the middle – the closest bloody thing to a manager there is.

Although Lee was not the answer nor even close to it, we are still left hanging like that awkward interview, question after question with no sign of response. That is something you cannot deny. My question is thus: How much more of this can we take? How much longer can we keep climbing on this reckless ride to the bottom before it gets too painful. Before we disappear and sink without trace beneath the surface. 

Fairgrounds for divorce? I bloody well hope not.