As I looked down from the hill a few short weeks ago as we faced Bury, it was hard to feel anything at all.
I had a train to catch before the final whistle blew and perhaps the hardest thing was how easy it was to decide not to be another click through the turnstile. Instead there I sat, an attendance of one in my own private box of isolation, a recovering addict who'd withdrawn sufficiently but who needed that little shot of something to see the day through.
So from a prescribed position of safety, I stared blankly on at the family I once shared a bond with, and even as the heart was ripped out of them again and again, even as the bodies probably slumped gutlessly over - it was really okay, to be honest. The only half of the pitch I could see was the only half I identified with. A barren stretch of nothingness where cowards ceased to venture and attacks failed to grow - the opposition's half.
I left at half-time, at least, I clambered from a grassy verge, my football club now reduced to a distant numbness and the North Stand now a cover for the once predictable pain that was finally out of my sight. The journey to not-really-giving-a-fuck-any-more was almost complete, it was just a wonder I hadn't booked a one-way ticket away sooner to pursue a relationship I did actually still care about.
Football fans are fickle but for good reason - we ride together on a wave of emotion and climactic moments, of giddy goals and disgraceful decisions. Through a sporting lens, life is suddenly magnified a thousand times over and presented in front of our fervent eyes, all the passion of what it is to be alive is suddenly condensed into ninety minutes of glorious escapism from the mundane and monotonous. If I am rational and diplomatic away from a football ground - then I am biased as hell when on the inside - I am what society sometimes doesn't allow me to be or I don't allow myself, but by bloody God I am part of a community that cares.
Somewhere along the line, I started retreating back into my shell. I started dragging all the worries of my week with me to Sixfields, and all that we created was an ampitheatre of anxiety, a place too familiarly like the outside world. All we got back were eleven fearful shadows, or one-hundred-and-three if you count the Gary Johnson (error) era. It may be difficult to quantify, but there are moments when you step into a football ground and you just know that there is a special feeling, you just know that you can help carry them over the line. What we have suffered through, particularly since Wembley, but mostly ever since we wilted pathetically away at Leeds not long after dreaming of the Championship, has felt like one of the worst spells that I can remember and it's no wonder its reduced us to this absolute apathy.
This season has been coming and coming to get us for a long time now, and whilst we have just about gasped for breath at the vital moment previously, after the Bury game I rationally and diplomatically looked at it, and thought we were finally screwed. More to the point, we almost certainly deserved it. Then, something curious happened.
I don't know why but I walked up to Sixfields on the afternoon of the Burton game, and I started to believe. I walked into the ground and this time something did firmly click into place, because I could feel that sense of belief beginning first, as just a piece of card on an empty seat. What had seemed a cheap gimmick then started to spread into something more productive, as clap banners battered my ears, cynicism slowly being replaced by the thunderous beating of positivity amongst the claret faithful. If I heard those pesky things every week I would probably halve the average attendance with a shotgun, but in that moment of need, we needed a tool to repair us and by some kind of miracle, I think it started to work.
There was an admirable air of patience, the man at the back of the West who loves to shout 'GET IT FORWARD!' at every irritating opportunity was drowned out by a sense that we were driving forward in unison, for the first time in a long time. We were tenacious, tough-tackling and together. Even if the Burton goalkeeper may as well have been sponsored by the Northampton clown, it was a start. We could survive. We really could.
Looking back now, I think that Bury game finally awakened us from a slumber. We took a good look inside ourselves, as fans and players and decided it wasn't good enough, and it quite simply hadn't been good enough for a while. Instead of moping inwardly we began to look outward again at each other as we committed to a single goal. Not too big to go down and certainly not too good, but too shaken by years of depression and too damn proud of what this club can be and what it should be: a football league club for now and for our children yet to come.
To be continued...
