The dream finally ends....

Well the dream is finally over. It still feels extremely raw even 24 hours later. I suppose I’m like a lot of fans who really take it bad when we lose, don’t play to our full potential or like yesterday, get relegated. I try to shut it out of my mind by whatever means necessary. When we lose, I never what Match of the Day, I don’t watch the news just in case they show excerpts of the game, I avoid newspapers and I generally go to ground until such time the hurt starts to diminish. I didn’t have a ticket for the match at Old Trafford, mainly do the fact our allocation sold out to season tickets holders of 5 years or more, all 3,000 of them. What a paltry amount to allocate to visiting fans when Old Trafford now holds 75,000. It’s no wonder United are hated by most fans. So, as I don’t subscribe to that other hate of mine, Sky, I was forced to listen to BBC’s Five Live, with Jimmy Armfield commentating. I normally watch any Pool games I can’t get to on-line via WWW.livefootyonline.com but I’ve just got rid of my Virgin broadband because of our proposed house moving (that’s another story I’ll write about shortly) and replaced it with 3’s mobile broadband, which is ok for most things but live streaming is not one of them. So, as the game progressed I skipped from radio coverage to BBC TV coverage on channel 301 where Gaby Logan, Dion Dublin, Steve Clarridge and Garth Crooks held court to Sky Sports on-line and back again. I couldn’t settle all afternoon because one minute I was down then I was consumed with pride when Charlie equalised and Gary Taylor-Fletcher did the impossible when he put us into a match winning position with 20 minutes to go. But you just knew it would never last, being a Seasider for far too many years has taught me never to take anything for granted, in fact over the years it makes you the supreme pessimist. And with other results not helping, in particular Wigan (who have been in the bottom three all season along with Wolves) beating Stoke away, you knew we were doomed no matter what we did. Notice the pessimism creeping in again. When our fate was finally sealed I fell into a silent depression, which lasted until about a couple of hours ago. Ok, so I’m a bad loser, but that’s because I have always been competitive in everything I’ve done, ask my wife and daughter, they’ll confirm this. In fact my daughter even refuses to play Monopoly with me. She always blames me for putting her off the game. Well, it’s back down to Championship next season, which if I’m honest for me is more enjoyable than the premiership. Well at least we can expect regular Saturday football with disruption down to a minimum unlike what we’ve had this season.