Here's a joke for you. Why did Aidy Boothroyd cross the road?
He didn't. He looked both ways, put one foot cautiously forward, then saw a Skoda was approaching on the very edge of the horizon and nervously flinched back on to the pavement. 'Sorry team, the traffic lights are a mile or two down the road but I just don't think it's safe to cross here.'
When the players finally arrived at Blundell Park, they had blundered a short hop across the road from the coach in favour of a bloody long walk. 'Mandela himself would have approved boys!' No-one laughed. It was wholly inappropriate. Not to mention the fact it wasn't freedom approaching, but the kind of footballing prison where feet are kept away from ball at all possible cost.
As the minute's applause to one of our greatest thundered around the surprisingly calm North Sea sky, so the only storm brewing were the clouds of negativity steadily gathering in Boothroyd's mind, impairing his increasingly robotic view. It is an away match. Must. Not. Play. Two. Upfront. Must. Proceed. With. Caution. And so, like a dalek itself he exterminated Clive Plattinho with the kind of cold, calculated efficiency that comes from someone totally unable to see outside of their own warped views. He later said he was saving Platt. Saving him from scoring a rare fucking goal, perhaps? Or the unlikely scenario of him still being alive come the end of the season if he spends too many minutes on a grass playing field.
The Mariners are a league club, a decent club, and they will escape the grimness of the thing that lies below eventually, but yesterday they were there and maybe would have remained below their station if we hadn't given them a free ticket to the potential riches of the next round. We didn't so much as show them respect, more bowed down as submissive playthings, trousers at our feet ready for our punishment. It doesn't seem to matter who we play or who is fit, our philosophy away from home comforts conforms to the same level of stupidity every single sodding time. 'Come get us. We're waiting. We'll try and hold out for as long as possible. We'll try. But secretly, we enjoy it. God, yes. Stick one in the net for us. Stick it in hard!'
Hard as he tries, he just cannot change. More leopard than lizard, more absolute and total joylessness for our intrepid and faithful followers. Not that there are many of them left now. Soon we'll have more players than away fans, as Aidy pisses another few grand of the chairman's hard earned cash up the wall. Another short-term solution to try and fix a long time problem. Him.
Lo and behold we nearly kept the tidal surge at bay as Aidy finally acted, bringing on the tree to try and help us branch forward. It did not work. You can change a formation but an attitude remains more stubborn, and soon we were sinking, shaking and eventually shocked. Not that you could call it a shock, despite a valiant attempt by the papers to find romance where there was none. It was predictable, inevitable, boring. Another loveless night spent trying to work out a doomed relationship; the absolute refusal to adapt to one another's needs.
Wembley was not a one-off. It was a warning.
We need to act. Act now whilst we are still rational, still communicating enough with each other to admit the sheer levels of frustration pumping away in our claret hearts. We are on the brink of something. Blame him if you must, but our chairman is committed and passionate, which is why he's understandably unnerved by the prospect of yet another fresh start. Listen to us, Mr. Cardoza. We appreciate all that you've done and regret all that you haven't - yet ultimately it is you who pays for what is squandered. We might scrape a point at Gigg Lane, we might grind our way to a few more thrilling Accringtonesque home performances. We may pull ourselves out of the fire and into the distinct mediocrity we've felt all along. This is not that time.
This is the time for some purpose, some planning - something that lasts beyond yourself, even. You have the keys ready to a shiny new home, we shall no doubt smile at the freshness of paint, the quality of seat, the pride of something that gleams. But materials are immaterial if you don't build the right foundations, if your legacy is nothing more than a perfect property. We require some balls, some bravery, some bite back. Aidy Boothroyd is a nice fella, a good honest Yorkshireman but he does not stand for a future that should be vibrant and colourful.
He is outdated, out-thought and out the door if you can just see what we are now seeing. Over and over, his strategy is safe and the same, prehistoric methodology stuck on repeat. I like him, I like what he did, but I'm beginning to loathe the football, the lack of it, the sheer lifelessness that the onset of caution has brought upon us.
Build a product of patience and practice, of flexibility and imagination, why not a manager of ideas instead of the same old creative black hole that seeps downwards, into the cracks. Into us all.
Look to below, look to above, look to wherever you have to for inspiration but first you must look honestly into the mirror and ask yourself this:
Is this really the best we can be?
