Sunday Dec 6, 2009
As the title of these meanderings suggests, it's rare that I don't watch the full 90 minutes of a game at The Lamb from the middle of the Shed....
I did so recently, when a friend brought his young sons to the Hayes game and, as I said here afterwards, he wanted to protect delicate young ears from the more exuberant noises emerging from BTAD.
And as a matter of choice, that's where you'll usually find me - on the halfway line, soaking up the atmosphere generated by the shouting and screaming from both dugouts and TFC's noisiest fans.
Sometimes, I'll rush round the back of the Shed just before half-time in order to be first in the queue for a half-time pint (it never works - I'm about six inches too small and about 18 inches too narrow) and I'll watch injury-time by the food hut, but that's usually a rarity. So I'll say that what happened at the wind-battered Altrincham game was down to the after-effects of a tough day, the cold and wind and the increasing effects of age.
Sensing half-time approaching, I left the warmth and relative comfort BTAD and ran round the back of the Shed to watch the last few minutes from near the corner flag. It was only after about a further eight minutes that I looked at my watch and realised there were at least another eight minutes to go. For some reason (as I say, I blame my age...), I'd got it into my head that the game had kicked off at 7.30pm, as all midweek games once did, rather than 7.45. Dohhh........
Yet I'm glad I did move because those 15 minutes gave me a better view than I would have had from the Shed of what everyone can see is a growing problem - we just can't put the ball in the net.
In that 15 minutes, we had at least three chances which, if we had put even two of them away, would have wrapped up the points and sent the Shed's favourite manager, Alty's Graham Heathcote, home disappointed. Yet they went begging and although the 2-0 scoreline eventually looked harsh, we were really made to pay for the lack of confidence in front of goal.
It seems to have been the same at Grays last weekend and although I write this before Tuesday's visit to Kidderminster Harriers (and the splendid real-ale pubs of nearby Bewdley), it would be nice to think this ugly streak could come to an end pretty quickly.
Yet it was interesting to see that when someone tried to raise the temperature over this on the fans forum at www.tamworthfans.co.uk at the weekend, they were pretty quickly brought back down to earth. Much of the criticism pointed out, yet again, that staying in this league will be an achievement and that staying in it and playing decent football for much of the season so far would be a triumph.
That's the feeling I've got from standing BTAD this season and my unexpected 15 minutes at the Castle End on a wet and windy Tuesday night reinforced that view.
It's even more the case at a time when over-ambitious non-league clubs are still dropping like flies. The angry fans who caused the abandonment of Chester City's game last weekend kept their club's plight in the spotlight while it came as no surprise to me, following their summer spending spree, that Kings Lynn have been wound up. When will these clubs learn about spending money they haven't got? And when will some fans appreciate the fun we all have from standing in the ice-cold rain on a wet and windy Tuesday night in November - and how much we would all miss it if it was suddenly taken away.
