Sulphuric Acid

06/04/2025 05:16

In homage of the rather cool Harrogate Town nickname of the Sulphurites…

Your editor was at Plough Lane yesterday, but I was doing the day job (or what remains of it these days**) and my main focus was on that instead.

So, no notes or “hilarious” observations or indeed anything that takes up a proper SW19 report.

** – your editor is always looking for casual work, preferably in the journalism sphere, and right now probably more so than ever. Anyone who has a lead or two, let me know.

Though after the game yesterday, I think I would struggle with writing one even with a ton of notes in front of me.

Enough of the Yosser Hughes act. The most important thing is – we won.

It was a strange three points, it has to be said. It wasn’t a scrape-by victory, and I think we were probably more comfortable looking back on it than it felt at the time.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a convincing win. It wasn’t a 4-0 gubbing against a team who are down the bottom for a reason.

It took us having to yank off both Kelly and Stevens (and did we take off Bugiel too? I can’t be bothered to check), put on Foyo and Piggy, and hope something happened.

Thankfully, it did. It’s unfortunate for Smith that people are going to remember Foyo’s contribution as much as his finish, but we might potentially have a gem on our hands with the latter.

I think he’s one for next season, but he’s already contributed more than many.

Including, sad to say, Piggy. His one-on-one in the end, where he managed to, ahem, not connect cleanly with the ball summed his return to us up.

He’s barely started games, there’s a sense of resignation when he does come on, and he just proves once again why SW19 doesn’t like returning players.

The rumour mill is suggesting he might retire at the end of the season, and while it’ll be a real shame considering his first time around with us – it might be for the best.

Back to yesterday, and I’ve never known why we sit back and let the other team come onto us when we go ahead.

We did it again against Harrogate, and we’re lucky they were pretty shit.

Even their manager hinted there was a lot of tension about (JJ certainly did in his post-game interviews), and after the last few disasters that’s understandable.

A lot of things were wrong at Swindon on Tuesday, and us losing in the manner we did was no surprise, but that game might have done us a favour.

Indeed, I think it’s why we won yesterday – it’s because letting in late goals has almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our defence isn’t significantly worse than it was, but mentally it’s convinced itself it has to let goals in late because that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.

It doesn’t help the collective soiling of undergarments, needless to say, and the cheer of relief when Goodman caught the ball on 92 minutes said it all.

But it was job done, and that’s all that matters now.

I would say the autos are now out of reach, but the way Walsall are freefalling, I’m still not sure they’ll be decided until after Grimsby.

Whoever goes up without needing a semi-final and final will be the ones finding form in these final five fixtures.

And try saying the last seven words of that last sentence without your teeth in.

Could that team be us? Whenever we’ve had good runs of form, they’ve often come off the back of some outright horseshit beforehand.

The first win of such a run is a lot like what we saw yesterday, not particularly awe-inspiring but has just that right amount of confidence injected.

You don’t need me to repeat the notion that the final five games are the time to hit that winning run.

And we’re due one.

We shouldn’t really be talking about the autos, especially after the last few games, but there’s still a chance and a fair bit of football remaining.

We could either end up in the top three or out of the playoffs altogether come the 4th May. And both are quite plausible.

At the very least, it makes it exciting. I’m not going to games full of dread these days, perhaps some natural apprehension but that’s different.

You’ve got to hope the players feel the same way. I don’t doubt they’re kicking themselves after blowing a great opportunity to be top, but they can still do something about it.

Next week wouldn’t be a bad place to do that, anyway.

A couple of other little things. One of the representatives from Harrogate was quite impressed at how we’re getting 8k, although he did make an interesting observation.

Having that size crowd in a 9k stadium is better than that in a 15k ground.

I see what he means, because having a lot of empty seats at a game does make it feel less intimidating for a visiting team.

I expect we’ll need to expand, but we’ll need to have a team on the field worthy of people wanting to see them too.

PL could be bigger, although I fully understand why it was built the way it was, but it might help us big time this campaign.

It’s also worth reminding oneself that we’re now getting double the gates we did at KM. And in a lot, lot, lot nicer environment too.

It’s a bit of a shame I’m not doing a “proper” SW19 report, because I would mention that Phillo played INXS before the game.

Both a radical departure from his usual playlist, but also – when was the last time that band were played in public? They were massive back in the day.

Finally, your editor got to see first hand how good our contracted caterers are. Or not, as the case may be.

You won’t know this, and certainly won’t care, but one of their remits is to look after the basic tea/coffee facilities in the press area.

It’s not a difficult job if it’s planned properly, just make sure there’s enough hot water and tea/coffee/milk/sugar/stirrers.

Needless to say, your editor now has a working knowledge of how to get lids of barely-full water cooler bottles off, and how long hot water urns take to boil when you try filling them up.

Or to put it another way – it would have been quicker to rush over to Lidl at half time and buy a kettle.

It wasn’t a once-off either, it’s been notoriously bad all season and if they can’t get something that only takes 5/10 minutes of planning right – what else do they get wrong?

As said earlier, 99.99% of you won’t give a shit that the media corps have to go to great lengths to get a cup of tea at half time, but it’s a good sign of all-round incompetence.

The food stalls do well, partly because they sell stuff that is actually edible. They had to stop doing the “Gourmet Burgers” (sic) in the concession stands, because they were so bad.

We seem to have had problems with them from day one, and one suspects they were signed up under the previous regime who didn’t really understand what they were doing.

I’ve no idea if we’re changing suppliers at the end of this season, but there’s got to be better ones about than them.

Hell, if we want to go old skool Plough Lane – bring back Beta Catering and the donkey burgers in foil wrapping…