Funny old game, being a Reds fan

FAN’S VIEW

IT’S a funny old game. Not football. Supporting Stanley. I’ve spent 99 per cent of my life worrying about this football team and everything that I predict never seems to come true.

I’ve been trying for 20 years to figure out teams we’ve had. I’m rubbish at it and so is everyone else I know. Let me try and explain this to you over our start to the season.

First game, Peterborough. Tipped to go up. We all think we’ll lose, of course we win.

That gets our confidence up going to Burton against a side usually a bit naff. We lose.

Last week Oxford haven’t won a game so far and have no confidence, boom, they beat us. Sod’s law.

And then onto Wimbledon away, who haven’t lost a game yet and are flying high in confidence levels. You guessed it, we defy odds and win.

It’s absolutely impossible to predict what the team is going to do. If we supported a ‘bigger’ team, City, United, you can usually predict a win.

Or Burnley, predict a loss for most of this year.

But that’s the excitement of what we do, isn’t it?

That’s the point, it’s just a massive laugh all the time to the point I picture Coley chuckling to himself as he realises that he’s annoyed us all again and pulled something out of the bag that nobody expected.

So, what shall I do with a team that is impossible to predict?

Talk about the upcoming weekend and how I think we’ll do. Rochdale.

Those dastardly Mancunians seem to do us every single time we play them.

All form goes out of the window, it sort of reminds me of when we used to play Morecambe

(remember them?)

They could be top of the league, we’d be bottom and we still are definitely going to win 2-1.

But now the shoes on the other foot, Rochdale just beat us all the time. So that’s my prediction this week, they’ll probably beat us again because that’s how it goes (can you sense me trying to trick the football gods into surprising me? Correct).

Rochdale are a different looking team to the one that has had our number over the last few years.

Henderson gone, Camps gone, Andrew gone and you quickly give yourself an excited metaphorical nudge that without the same players they may not feel as confident against our young team with pace and nothing to fear.

Tariq Uwakwe is quickly becoming my favourite player of all time at the minute, I just think he’s a joy to watch on the ball and I hope he doesn’t get injured ever again because he makes such a difference to us moving forward.

He’s been joined by his mate Jon Russell this week, if he’s anything like Tariq then that can only be a good thing.

I had to chuckle at Coley saying Russell had ‘been on his radar for a while’, I think probably about two months since Anthony Barry got his new job. I’m not complaining, keep them coming Anthony!

A win this weekend would turn our start into a very positive one, we have a tough run of games coming up and bagging points against sides like Rochdale is a sure way of cementing your place in the division. So, forget the hoodoo, forget what’s gone before.

I challenge this current team to get out there, put them under pressure and express themselves on the glorious turf of

The Crown Ground.

Just whatever you do, don’t be too confident and bring in the jinx.