My thoughts

[Herbert Anchovy]

I felt utterly flat after the game last night. It’s the hope that kills you, and I was convinced that we’d do the job to get us to Wembley.

Nothing really clicked for us last night. Too many passes were intercepted or missed their man, Hursts penalty shout that would have been given in any other game, a few runs that weren’t spotted by the ball holding player, tactical changes that perhaps could have been made sooner etc… but if I’m honest we just weren’t at the races.

I’m not very good at identifying formations but there was one occasion early in the first half that raised an alarm bell. We had a quick break down the left hand side and the only Rovers player in their box was Ironside surrounded by 4 of their defenders. The ball comes over and was easily cleared. Where were the midfield to support him? I looked over at Wood who was playing merry hell at someone about it.

During the second half in a break in play the Crewe players looked absolutely dead on the ground and I said to my mate that only one team would go on to win this. I got that wrong.

At half time we got chatting to a bloke sat in front of us who claimed to be ‘in the know’ and said there was some discord in the Rovers camp around players stalling on contracts and waiting for offers from other clubs who have shown an interest. He didn’t name anyone and I’ve no idea who he was so make of it as you will.

Anyway, what an amazing and bizarre season we’ve had. I’m signing off now for the Summer. I might pop back and have a chuckle at the arguments on ‘off topic’ if there’s an election but apart from that I’m done.

I’ll leave with one thought though. Our little club, our stadium and our fans can, when galvanised, make more noise and have more passion, than a Premier League stadium filled with 10,000 real fans and 40,000 tourists. The Premier League and most of the clubs in it are soulless, vacuous, greedy money making monsters trying to eradicate history and tradition, dropping their historic fan bases in the name of money. Our club is the polar opposite of that and is everything that the ‘bigger clubs’ hate and I know for an absolute fact that fans of these clubs would give their right arms for what we have and experience as Rovers fans.

Have a good Summer

Rovers till I die

[Chris Black come back]

An exciting summer of mid table obscurity for Yorkshire awaits as well. What a time to be alive.