Aaah, all these rich memories! All part of the complex tapestry of being a blue for years.
Actually, all irony apart, I've been thinking hard yesterday and this morning about how people who have never known anything other than success, who follow a team where success is simply guaranteed, year after year, decade after decade, actually lack a psychological dimension as supporters.
I'm thinking specifically of someone I know who's a Bayern supporter. He's a genuine one, I think, he didn't just turn up yesterday, far from it. He's an ok guy, too. I wouldn't exactly describe him as a friend. I'm more friends with his lady, who I get on very well with. I also fancy her something rotten, despite being about a thousand years older than her. Anyhow, I digress…(How my thoughts run away with me!).
Yes, I really think he lacks a dimension of understanding about what football is, genuine supporter though he is. (Not sure how often he actually goes to matches, to be honest. That said, he doesn't live in Germany any more). He has literally never known what it's like to drop into another division of the Bundesliga. In fact, he probably doesn't have any memory of dropping lower than the top three or four of the top division. Year in, year out, his team wins their domestic league. Honestly, if you've never known the lows, how exhilarating do the highs look? Barca fans and Real fans are in the same boat. They simply expect, as of right, to come second or first, first or second, in their league. Ending up third is absolute disaster. I don't suppose either has ever known the ignominy of relegation, or anything even close to it.
Rag fans are slowly learning to chew humble pie. And they don't like it. Although let's face it, it's not very humble. The older ones among them will remember going down in 74. For a mere season. They never end up in the bottom half of the table. We came up in the mid sixties, then, from the eighties, we were up and down like a yo-yo. And there was of course the dire, dire experience of the third division — otherwise renamed as League 1 — (which some look back on with weird nostalgia!) But it's toughened us up, I think, and I like to think it keeps us grounded, and helps us to understand that on this ocean of football that we sail on there will be hurricanes and tempests. I'm still hurting from that defeat the other night — it burns — but actually, winning a cup and ending up second in the league is not exactly what looks like abject failure for a season, from my perspective as a fan. We're getting a new fanbase now, inevitably, who perhaps do expect to win the league as of right every year.
I'm presuming we'll never lose to Stockport ever again, and I'm sure we'll never lose to Bury again. But shit will happen…you clean yourself off. You start over.
