In an earlier piece I talked briefly about how sport and emotion are intrinsically linked. Here I shall reminisce about how it used to feel, and why increasingly it's becoming not just a bore - but a chore.
Why we just don't care any more.
Arguably, things have changed slightly in the Cardoza era. Whether we want to admit or not - money breeds impatience - even for a club as tin-pot as ours; and when you've had even a small amount of power; it can be extremely difficult to relinquish it.
Whilst Sixfields has never been the San Siro (or even the San bloody Racecourse), in the early days there was still a buzz in the ears; if not an outright rumbling. People tend to look back on the past with fondness - as we grow older it's in our nature - however I am not going to delude you into thinking there was ever a cauldron of noise. I cannot speak for the County Ground days as sadly I was too busy glory-hunting as a baby, but on those first trips to Sixfields and even in those first few years, it was still such a thrill to look down on the hill and see the newness of hope dazzling in glorious bright white light before us.
Who still gets that feeling now? If you closed your eyes once, and you let yourself go, I swear you could reach out and touch it; you could caress that sense of excitement until you felt it creep under your skin. Sixfields has aged with us - quickly and sourly - 'til all that's left seems to be dull concrete blocks and desolate corners which are battered by the freezing elements.
Every match day was Christmas day as a young'un. I pulled up with my Mum, looked skyward with doe-eyed wonder at our very own stadium of dreams, and dragged a whole net of butterflies with me. My net these days gets about as much use as the ones we use in shooting practice; seeing as it's full of dead, rotting fish, optimism seeping steadily out of their every pore until all that's left is the smell of dread.
Santa delivered more often than not; some days the raleigh bicycle we always wanted, other days the cheap supermarket knock-up. But that was the day you realised he didn't exist, and you understood it was all your parents could afford. You learnt to respect that they'd slaved away to buy something that would fall apart within the week. Atkins' team was like that. Sometimes the quality of the product was shocking, but when you saw their blood, sweat and tears, you knew that they cared - and that more often than not, the day would be a winner.
It used to be fun around the dinner table that was Sixfields. You'd look to your left and see a friend. You'd look to the pitch and see a friend. You'd look to the dugout and you'd see the manager; making sure everything was in its right place, that everyone knew their role. And even if our role wasn't always to entertain - even if the standard of cooking was more McDonalds than Michelin - the important thing was that we left feeling full of the warmth of family.
Now we look to the seat next to us - it's empty. We look to the pitch and we see a stranger, a beggar who hops his way from family to family cheating them out of food when the reality is he earns a lot bloody more than the rest of us. We'll probably never see him again. Even the dugout has become a revolving one - by the end of the ninety minutes its turned 180 degrees and a whole new set of conners have taken their seats; the truth is they're never likely to get up off their a**e. As for the manager, who is it? An assistant? A goalkeeping coach? The sodding postman? The truth is I have as good an idea as the rest of you; no idea.
That is why we just don't care. We turn up passionless, we go home pointless. We don't just expect defeat - we expect disaster. We step into our own home and we know no-one. We walk out blind and numb onto deserted streets - as empty as the feeling inside our hollow hearts.
Forget Santa - I only have one wish this Christmas.
Dear Cobblers,
Please, please, please, make me fall back in love with you.
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