This is really emphasising the glass half full, half empty divide. I have always thought I was a glass half full supporter. However, on the back of two games that have seen us catapulted into an automatic promotion spot for the first time since we were relegated I have to say that I am finding myself being dragged into the enemy camp. Pre-Christmas I was feeling pretty confident. We weren’t playing stunning football but we were controlling games and getting a justified three points. The points we dropped were explainable. And then came Leeds. God but we were poo. Serious poo. Everton away at Christmas 5-0 hammering style poo. The nightmare of disappearing after Christmas (two seventh place seasons plus relegation season) reared its head in my head. And in this game we were jammy as hell. As someone said in the toilet at half-time “we should be 3-0 down and Forest haven’t had a shot” (well actually there were several expletives involved but this is a family report for f*ck’s sake). If Johns(t)on had a pair of boots that fitted him, he alone could have had a hat trick in this game – by the way have Forest put him in too hot a wash? He seems even smaller than last time we saw him.
Anyhow, we went with the same team as against Leeds, except it was all change up front with Elliot and Stew in for the largely ineffective Brown and Bridges from Sunday. First half frankly we just let them through too easy. Robinson had no presence in midfield (his worst game ever for us?) – anyone who wasn’t praying for Jeff to come on was in cloud cuckoo land. Johnson missed what has got to be one of the worst misses I have seen in my life (and the competition was stiff in this game alone). A Forest player got down their left wing right in front of us and squared it to the hot washed one who was about as close to the middle of the goal as you are to your PC screen. Myrhe was having a mare, stuck to his line all game long (except for one instance I’ll get to) so the ball at six inches out was too far out for him to get it. As we groaned Johnson, presumably still suffering the effects of the fast spin dry, screwed it wide. We laughed the laugh of the condemned man who sees the hangman trip on the stairs leading up the gallows.
Second half. Ah yes of course. I remember now. We are better at second halves. We took a well worked short corner. I assume you’ve now picked yourself up off the floor so I better repeat that. We took a well worked short corner. Lawrence moved backwards and the goalkeeper ridiculously moved along his line transfixed – putting him in the wrong position and on the wrong foot. Elliot put in an excellent header back across into the corner where I was sat. Excellent – here we go. 5,000 SAFC fans do the “we know this script – now we win” dance. But then bugger – a few minutes later Myrhe leaves the safety of his line. The defence is so shocked some awful mix up happens that I can’t even begin to explain and their forward gets the ball and does one of the those lobs that never, ever go in. So 1-1 it was. Aaaarggh! We went back to panic mode. Jeff came on for Robbo, which was good. The Ref obviously didn’t get the Pokeman card collecting set for Christmas that he wanted so he made up for it by trying to collect the whole of our team. Seven yellow cards!! Jeez!!
Then Chris Brown came charging through on goal. I am going to stick my neck out here cos I’ve not seen any reports on this incident or seen it on the telly but to me he was fouled outside the box by one player and then brought down inside the box. The ref gave a penalty but then turned and saw that his linesman was signalling a free kick. He changed his mind without even going over to speak to the bloke. Have you ever seen that? Needless to say we wasted the free kick.
And so the game headed for a draw, which actually was probably a fair result. And then suddenly Arca burst out. Stew did a superb diagonal run and took a quite perfect swing with his left foot to send the ball crashing into the net. Oh yes. We went absolutely mental. The lads had time to allow Forest one more shot that Myrhe saved well.
The lads were clearly over the moon because the celebrations at the end as they came over to us were particularly exuberant.
And so on to Preston. We’ve not played well for two games but we are into an automatic promotion spot. If we can get out of this league, stuff any glass, full or empty.