/dons hard hat
Alright, first things first, this is just my personal views, nothing else, but let’s get a couple of the myths out the way first. Firstly you can see the pitch, but it’s not exactly a comfortable experience to watch it, so anybody who claims the ‘only going because of a free view’ is a mentalist IMHO. Also, not sure if any of the people there post any confrontational stuff on the message boards but if they do they don’t do their cause any favours. Was slightly concerned I’d rock up to a bunch of frothing mentalists, but it’s not like that… they all seemed perfectly decent, reasonable.
So anyway, we’ve established we’re all fans of the same fucking team, right? It’s been a while since I’ve been to a proper game, like. King played, we played Cardiff at the Ricoh, that’d have been my last one. Lost the will to live where CCFC was concerned after that. Did ironically go to Sixfields to watch Northampton lose 4-2 to Cheltenham. Thornton swaggered aimlessly around for 5 minutes, Bas Savage warmed up, fans pleaded for him not to come on… was quite a fun experience.
But somewhere deep within me still beats a heart that cares about this club. I have to show it some way, I want to see us all care, I want to be part of something that shows we all care. I'm no leader of men, but it doesn't stop me having ideas of what directions we should be heading in to show we care.
Today? Certainly not fun! Just rolling up to the ground, all kinds of odd emotions really. It’s actually just as quick, and easier, for me to get to Sixfields as the Ricoh. But well, Claret and Blue aren’t a good combination to throw together for us, are they? The place just had the stench of death about it. Let’s call a spade a spade, shit attendances in the ground, shit attendances outside it. Vast, open, empty spaces and just a general feeling of getting on with it. We’ve got the best (well, maybe not best, but most positive) team we’ve had for ages, it should be an air of anticipation but instead there’s a sense of making the best of it.
There’s also an air of resignation, and that’s worrying. The only impression we’re giving at the moment is that nobody wants to watch the team, nobody wants to stand up as a fan of us either. If you were a watching owner keeping a weather-eye on what to do next, if you were a potential buyer of the club, if you were a passing landlord wandering whether it’s worth keeping the ground open for them… unfortunately to all of them you’d call it that the club may as well be allowed to die as dignified a death as it’s possible to do so. The emptiness, the lack of desire, the sheer open spaces… it’s just not saying ‘passion’.
I’ll add the personal thing here too. Having friends who are either plastic fans of bigger clubs, fans who’ve lost interest, or fans who can’t bring themselves to go to Northampton I find myself having to toddle up alone. In itself this is a depressing event, football’s supposed to be a social event, right? Frankly it was all so miserable I couldn't speak to anyone. Just stood there, a slight feeling of despair that it comes to this.
The whole thing has the stench of death about it, and that’s been brought home to me today very clearly. This is our club in its last throes. It’s a bit like with a terminally ill relative, better to visit them even though they’re not aware you go, or keep the memories of when they were well intact?
So let’s not beat about the bush, let’s call a spade a spade. The hill is not working as a protest, not enough people are willing to go there. The only image we’re giving off is that nobody cares about the club and that’s not true, is it, as otherwise we wouldn’t be wasting our time posting here and elsewhere. We need a leader, we need the ability to rouse some passion, to assert that we are Coventry, we need enough people to get up and say that. To remind the powers that be that a club’s worth saving.
At the moment, frankly, it isn’t. It’s a basket case that’s only going to get worse, and we’re not even showing we care, just that everybody’s given up.
So what we need is not recriminations, but we do need a consistent message, we do need something we can all get behind, we have to remember, all of us, that what we write on here can often seem worse than in person. We all (all of us) need to stop our self obsessed ego centric views and we need to all have an open discussion about where to go next. We need to start reminding ourselves we care before it’s too late, and for god’s sake that needs us all to come together. I'm reminded of cashless's report on the trust, that they were decent, well meaning people in need of some help, and the same probably applies if we're looking at getting messages out there. I can salute peoples' efforts, be concerned about the effect of those efforts.
Because make no mistake, as it is our club will die, and the only thing we can do is show it's worth saving.
