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Well the manager being sacked before I could get the ramble out was a bit of a blow….and now I’ve got to change a few things, but never mind…let’s start at the beginning.

Following the Owls Alive Christmas party, come Saturday morning I find meself sat on the toilet in the hotel room, coffee in one hand, glass of water in the other nursing the mother of all hangovers and wincing at the effect the chilli burger was having on my other end…this was NOT a good start to any day let alone a footy match that had ‘Managers last chance’ stamped all ower it.

I finished what I was doing, downed the coffee, drank more water and the fist in me head showed no sign of letting up…Time for the shower…I get in and just stand there with the water running on me head…for around 30 minutes…
The problem was, to save energy and water the shower restarts every 4 minutes…it turns off and back on, so when it does it starts VERY hot followed by VERY cold then lovely and warm….god knows what the neighbours thought as they heard me every 4 minutes shouting…

AAARGH!
OOOOOOH!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah

The shower didn’t really help TBH and I trudged out to get dressed and get on our way, we had to pick Chris up at the train station before getting off to Leicester and we were the last ones out of the hotel…Fook me I felt like shit….but I wasn’t alone…Hollie looked like death warmed up…hehehe…good! 

We get down the M1 and I start to feel hungry so call in the services…I could murder a big Brekkie, but they’d JUST stopped serving. I went over to Burger King and got a burger…BIG MISTAKE!

After last nights ‘burger incident’ I got halfway through this one and that was it…I don’t think I’ll be able to look at another burger in the same loving way again. It’s like when I was a youth and I got shitfaced on Pernod, I’ve never drunk it since, can’t stand the smell of it, Burgers looked to be heading the same way now.

I settled on a coffee and a few fries, it was all I could manage…

We get down to Leicester, the good thing about the place is everything is easy to find…doddle to get to the ground, parking up’s easy and the pub is easy to get to too…We walk in and there’s a few more ginger looks from the assembled crowd…I was really pleased I wasn’t the only rough bastard there, though one or two of em were far too fookin perky for my liking, scarily perky and that just aint right!

I could only manage a shandy…anything else was just too much.

I was tired, head still pounding, hungry and rough as fook…let’s get to the game…



What a load of old cobblers this was.
I can’t remember when I last saw ANY team, let alone a Wednesday team, this disjointed, this lacking in spark, creativity, confidence and a total lack of belief in themselves.
Where did that go?
We had it, we DEFINITELY had it but it's vanished. It's probably under the coffee table, that's where everything is in our house anyway.

We started quite bright though…for a whole 8 minutes we looked like we were gonna have something to cheer. 8 minutes was the time it took Leicester to score their first and that was the time when the curtain came down on another Wednesday chapter...it was also the time that most Wednesday fans KNEW we wouldn't, COULDN'T get back into this game.

From that moment we weren’t even second best. We couldn’t pass, we couldn’t shoot and for some reason our defence had totally forgotten that their job was to STOP those in different coloured shirts from WALKING past them with the ball.

It was horrible…I won’t go into it all too much but at 2-0 down on the half hour mark Laws decided to make a couple of substitutions; on come Gray and Soares and off go Potter and JJ. JJ goes off! The one player who had shown any kind of spark or ambition was JJ, at least he’d tried to get at the Leicester defence and he was off. The Wednesday fans had seen enough...

The noise was incredible...the song? ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ and it was aimed squarely at Law. It was followed by some very loud booing....He'd been saved from this treatment so many times during his three years in charge, especially recently, but no more, the Wednesday fans were having none of it...

As Potter walked off arms out stretched he was clearly questioning the subs with Laws…
I hope to fook he was asking why JJ was replaced and not himself….JJ was the best player on the pitch up to that moment, Potter was not.
Potter was at best insignificant and at worst a liability.
He is the most naturally talented player at this club and when we got him for the full season I was made up, but the last half a dozen games or so he’s been borderline criminal.
Today he had absolutely no impact on the game at all and for someone with his talent that it is not on.

Stick your arms out and shrug all you like matey but you owe us more than this, YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS.
When we needed a big performance from one of our most skillful players, he let us down….HE could have no complaints about being taken off.

As for JJ, well…We all know his shortcomings but at least he wanted the ball, he attacked the Leicester defence, and he WAS A THREAT…No fooker else showed any of that…ESPECIALLY Potter.

To take JJ off though and put Gray on in his place was fookin daft.
Especially when Sean Mac went out to the wing then…why take off a winger, bring on a winger and move a player out to the wing that ISN’T a winger?

Crazy O Riley!
CRAZY O FOOKIN RILEY!



The worst thing about this game was it dragged like fook…it was like we were being tortured…a slow lingering death…it was horrible, painful to watch.

I don’t want to disrespect Leicester in any way but they are not a good team and I’ll be surprised if they finish top half let alone this talk of top 6, they just aren’t good enough IMO but we made them look VERY good here.
They don’t have better players than us, not in any department but what they do have, is players that can play as a team, and THAT is something we desperately need. At the moment we have a mismatched, uncoordinated bunch of youth, misfits and cast offs with no direction or drive.
If Leicester do finish in the top 6 then good luck to em, but it will say more about the standard of this division than it does about them.

By the time halftime came round everyone was well fooked off…

Baldy went down to get us a pie, I really was hungry now…when he came back clutching a bag I feared the worst..
‘No pies’ he says…’So I got you a burger’

WTF!

A FOOKIN BURGER!?!

You havin a laugh?

Someone up there didn’t like me today!
CLEARLY BALDY DIDN'T!



When the players came out very early for the second half there was still no buzz amongst the Wednesday fans, no expectation that we could lift ourselves out of this and if anyone ever doubted  that this was NEVER going to be our day, it was underlined for us all when the Leicester keeper comes hurtling off his line and the ball falls to Sean McAllister on the edge of the box, the young lad did everything right, kept cool, picked his spot and lobbed it goalward, bang on target....the Wednesday fans held their breath...we couldn't believe it....THIS WAS IT! THIS WAS THE GOAL WE'D WAITED FOR!....AT LONG FOOKING LAST!
The ball went towards goal, it floated majestically, smack on target...only for the Leicester defence to block it.

That was it…it was party time from now of for the Wednesday fans....Never mind that we hadn't scored and looked as though we never would...Let's have some fun of our own.

We’d been singing loud and proud from the start of the game and it was the best of the season. Some of it was outstanding but from this moment on it surpassed all that, it was like them Bible fillums ya see on telly…the sky glowed and the light shined on us...and we raised our voices as one, we got louder and it was possibly the best it’s ever been, or best for a very long time…it wasn’t a massive turnout but fook me did we sing and boy did we enjoy ourselves.

As Baldy said ‘If THEY can’t be the best ON the pitch, WE will be the best OFF it!

The gallows humour was out in force…We were determined to make sure everyone and anyone listening could not only hear us, but feel us…feel the fookin angst and pain and understand the downright shite that we’ve had to put up with… We sang ’ Always look On The Bright Side of Life…’Shoulda Gone Christmas Shopping’…’We’re shit and we know we are’….. and a cracking rendition of Careless whisper from the singing Santas…..

When our players got the ball we’d all shout ‘SHOOOOOOT!’ from anywhere….any fookin where! Even when Granty had the ball.
When we actually strung passes together…we sang ’It’s just like watching Brazil’
And when we DID actually shoot, no matter that it went miles high, no matter it was miles wide and was extremely UNhandsome every single Wednesday fan celebrated like we’d scored!
We jumped up and down, there was piling on, I kid you not, it was like the play off final….the Leicester fans couldn’t believe it…I looked across at them, they were stunned. What the fook were we doing?

I hate it when folk say this but the Wednesday fans DO deserve better.
It was an absolute fookin privilege to be amongst the Wednesday fans today, at least WE got some of our pride back...we've been quiet all season though TBF, we’ve not had a lot to cheer us up...NOT TODAY….NOTHING could keep us quiet and it was a wonderful moment.

By the time the third goal went in the Wednesday fans were well into the party spirit and totally fooked the football off.

Bollocks!
Bollocks to the lot of em!



We couldn’t wait for the whistle to go and the boos were there again…followed by chants of ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ I can understand that…I understand exactly why it was sung and where it was aimed but it was very unfortunate that the youngsters were the ones who took it all on their youthful shoulders.

As Tommy came over, as he ALWAYS does, to take the flak as well as the plaudits when he’s played well, the song was at it’s most venomous and as he turned around his shoulders slumped…he was absolutely crushed was the lad.
Tommy, Beevers and Sean Mac, all showed character at the end…Sean head in hands gutted, Beevers and Tommy coming right over to take the spleen venting….but they should NOT take this personally…it was not aimed at those youngsters…there are older, 'wiser' heads there that couldn’t even come over and face us…the younger players have been let down as much as we have.

As we looked over we saw Brian Laws on the touchline, he waved…it seemed strange that and we made the connection straight away…this was a wave farewell, no doubts about that…he waved and he hugged Pearson, this HAD to be the final farewell.

TBF it was right too…WE KNEW AND HE KNEW, this was the final straw…there was absolutely no way back from this.
IF he’d been in charge against Swansea I truly dread to think what would have happened, the fans would have been outraged.

Thanks for your efforts over the last 3 years Bri', you're a nice bloke, I like you a lot, and it’s not just about the pigs double, though that record was wonderful…

At times this team has been a well oiled machine, capable of high performance, but of late it’s been like every fookin component part is now totally fooked.

Every nut and bolt fooked….it wants decoking and a rebore

Laws shouldn’t take all the responsibility for how this team plays now BTW.

His staff must shoulder some blame and development coach John Dungworth must take a huge responsibility here IMO.
His job is right there in the title and he's done exactly the opposite with our young players, we've actually seen the poor little fookers unravel before our eyes, they've UNdeveloped and our senior players have got worse.

Tudders who normally jumps like a salmon...not now...he jumps like a brick…second best to every header! When was the last time you saw that? He may not be the tallest but he can out jump any bastard.
Tommy WAS growing like a young lion, prowling, stalking, learning all the time, learning from his mistakes...we’ve somehow managed to knock that out of him….
Granty used be like a racing snake, quick off his line, decisive...now, he stays put for fear of making a mistake.
Beevers, where is that young England captain of the future? What the fook have we done to the lad?
I have no idea what’s gone on but it’s criminal how these players have gone backwards and become so lacking in confidence….almost like we’re draining their talents from them.

Whoever comes in now…PLEASE SORT THIS OUT!

As the great Yorkshireman Bill Nelson said, BRING BACK THE SPARK!

(Oh and preferably a plan B please)



As we left the ground I overheard a Leicester fan saying we didn’t look dangerous up front…I told him…if all your players had gone off second half we STILL wouldn’t have scored….we could be there another week and not score.
He was just happy to see his team win and him and his mates seemed under no illusion about their chances in this division and that they weren’t suddenly world beaters just because they’d towelled us.
It was nice to talk to him and his mates, he was enjoying himself…he was shitfaced and he’d seen his team score three goals, kudos to the lad…we’d all settle for just one goal…to be beaten 3-1 even…at least we’d have seen a goal from our players…I love going to Leicester…loads of reasons…but the fans always seem a really good sort to me and I enjoyed chatting to this particularly happily drunk fan.

I hope to god we saw our team bottom out today, I BELIEVE we did…

Once again…for Wednesday fans everywhere, it’s time to move on.

Cheers

Steve:Beastie
Owls Alive


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