Missing our Boxing Day adventures

FAN’S VIEW

PLAYING Blackpool always brings back memories of this time last year, when all this madness was just on the horizon.

You were all scoffing your turkey and looking forward to a Boxing Day trip to the seaside, not knowing that this would be the last couple of weeks of normality that you’d see for a long time.

It was one of the best away games of recent times, a massive away following to a Lancashire rival with a stoppage time winning goal from a legend.

That celebration was what Stanley dreams are made of, chaos, flying limbs, achy heads the next day… take me back.

The Christmas football period is well and truly upon us and is usually a time that is so enjoyable for us all, I’m trying to not torment myself with daydreams of Doncaster and what might have been if the world wasn’t such a mess.

A trip to a desolate town lacking in character and colour never seemed so tempting. Boarding the bus, everyone raring to go after a day of listening to your elderly relatives argue over how ‘things used to be better’.

Everyone is wearing brand new underwear and socks and there’s a few new coats thrown in for good measure.

I can only vow to you that I promise we can make Christmas 2021 ten times better when this is all finally behind us. We deserve a cracking Boxing Day fixture next season. Every team does.

Up and around the media you’ll hear calls that the table is now taking shape, well, if it is, we’re in a gorgeous and completely new position at this level.

As I’ve said before in this column, games in hand count for nothing, but if we win ours, we’re top of the table. The League 1 table. Top. Us. I know. Just let that sink in at the front door, it’s been knocking for a few weeks now.

fought with Blackpool for a good point last week but now are faced with Doncaster, Sunderland and Charlton with a healthy dose of current league leaders: Portsmouth thrown in for good measure.

We’ve been able to gage that the side is capable against the

‘not so good’ teams and, on our day, capable of turning anyone over. What these games will present is an opportunity to show that we are serious about being taken seriously. That we have every intention of competing for those play off places and mixing it with the big boys of the division.

In the past Stanley sides have buckled under the pressure of these games and we’ve not done ourselves justice in showcasing our abilities when the eyes of doubters set up on us when the push comes to shove.

This set of players feels different and I fully expect this young, vibrant and excitable team to not feel this pressure, never mind buckle under it.

We have an amazing opportunity to make a real statement in the next four games and as I sit and write this I am getting butterflies at the thought of League 1 play-offs.

Picture the scene, little old Accrington Stanley defying the footballing pyramid once more, to the exhaustion of the sports cliché writers up and down the country.

I’ll sit on Christmas day enjoying a nice glass of port, stuffed with roast potatoes (me, not the port) watching some God-awful TV special and I’ll be gleaming from ear to ear with the dream of second tier football.

You should do the same. Merry Christmas to you and yours, make sure you stay safe, and as always, Up the Reds x