Wednesday get the backlash of Forests defeat to Derby?

Not quite...

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   Forest                       Wednesday

I enjoyed today…right from the start everything seemed to go well.

Well OK anyway…no bad vibes, no bad luck omens and me ablutions were textbook…enjoyed me shower and used as much of the good luck stuff as I could muster...by the time I’d picked the young un up and we were on our way the mood was really positive.

It didn’t really matter to me that we were a team barely above the drop doze playing a team high on confidence and looking towards promotion….in fact, having suffered a rare defeat at the hands of their local rivals, they should be well fired up to give us a spanking…but even that didn’t matter…I was confident we could get something from this game.

Not based on any kind of logic BTW…no form books, unnoticed form lines or hidden secrets of footy that everyone else has missed…I just had a feeling.

We get into Nottingham just after two and park up at the Notts County ground…Only £4.
Can’t remember the last time I found parking at footy that cheap and the bloke at the gate was possibly the most polite bloke I’ve met in ages.

We make the short walk to the ground and meet Baldy to get our tickets and we’re in…

Bloody hell…we’re right in the corner and our seats have a little wall in front of them…with a 20 foot drop down to the stairs on the other side…that’s all I chuffing need…if we score I’m gonna end up in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs….I’m sure that very thing was going through the Young Uns evil mind….turf me over to get me back for giving her a dead leg against Plymouth last week. She knows that once you get this carcass moving it’s an unstoppable force and the wall was well below my centre of gravity so the leverage was to her advantage as well…
Just before kick off a couple of young lads, I guess family members, paraded a flag held a flag with a Wednesday shirt on it and the name of Corporal Liam Riley, the young soldier killed recently in Afghanistan. Liam was one of two soldiers from 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment killed by two roadside bombs in Afghanistan on February 1, 2010. The men were serving as part of the 1 Coldstream Guards Battle Group.

The Forest announcer made a lovely comment about it and there was genuine heartfelt applause from Wednesday fans AND Forest alike.

The young lad stood there in the corner with the flag as proud as fook and rightly so, whilst the music played and the applause rang out… You can check the lasting tribute to the brave lad here...(Click picture to open)

            

            

THE MATCH
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When the teams came out the noise lifted from both sets of fans but once the ref blew for the start the noise went up another level and was incredible. Those first 10 minutes or so it was electric….so fookin loud and the taunts came thick and fast from both sets of supporters…great stuff.

The football on display was good to watch too, especially those opening minutes, it seemed to be end to end stuff with good passing moves to get forward but the defence for both teams holding fast and protecting their keepers.

Watching Forest here, on their own patch where they’ve been virtually invincible this season is like watching a different beast to the one that played us at Hillsborough earlier in the season. Despite losing to Derby last week they still look full of confidence and every player WANTS to be on the ball. They work hard for each other and they have a bit of a ‘look’ about them…despite what Billy Davies would have us believe about them not being ready, they look intent, hell bent even, on promotion.

They move forward with purpose and with menace and they do it at speed and their back line is very impressive and so solid.

It’s to our credit then that we can compete with a team like this, especially considering the path we’ve taken since that game at ours. When they did come at us, we held them out and protected Lee Grant very well. When we moved forward we did so quickly too and it looked for a long time that it would be a mistake that led to a goal rather than a piece of individual skill, because for all the good play from both sides the keepers weren’t really being tested.

Just after the 20 minute mark that mistake DID come…and it was from us…and Darren Purse.

The ball came in flicked on from a throw in, almost hopeful rather than any real craft at working a way through and it dropped for Blackstock to leather it, as he did Purse came towards him and turned his back to him.

Now don’t get me wrong, we can argue all day about whether Purse was shit or not…maybe he WAS slow in reacting and YES he DID turn his back to Blackstock but I think the decision by the ref was very harsh even more so when compared to some of those we’ve seen this season (and others) that have been so fookin blatant…. Ipswich for starters…and even in this game there were better shouts and more genuine claims for handball than this.

No matter how pissed off we were and no matter how much Purse complained, the ref wasn’t changing his mind and up stepped Blackstock to take it…

Baldy was getting a bit irate now and to accompany his attack eyebrows he was yelling at Grant ‘DON’T guess a side Granty, just stand ya ground!’…it fell on deaf ears, unfortunately, as Blackstock stepped up and twatted it straight down the middle. He was right was Baldy…he knows…Big Ron used to say the same, stand ya ground at least one will come down the middle and as Baldy said, you’re not expected to save it so see how it goes…He still wouldn’t have saved this IMO….in fact Blackstock hit it so hard that if Grant had got in the way it’d have broken his back.

The Forest fans obviously loved this and set about making sure we knew just how much…mindst you, the ‘Stand up if you’re 1-0 up’ chant is amongst the lamest chants I’ve heard for a while…having said that….it’s nowhere near as bad as singing ‘Mull of Kintyre’….WHAT THE BLUE BLAZIN FOOK IS THAT ALL ABOUT?

Listen…I love it when fans adopt a song and make it theirs…Stoke with ‘Delilah’….Man City with ‘Blue Moon’ and even Forest themselves with ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin Feelin’ but MULL OF KINFOOKINTYRE?
You have got to be having a fookin laugh, and it’s the campest laugh ever!

Even Paul McCartney is embarrassed by that song…rumour has it that’s why Heather Mills left him, once she realised he was THAT Paul McCartney she couldn’t take the embarrassment and it’s a huge part of why she got so much cash from the break up, to ease her suffering… Every single one of us that lived through the 70’s is STILL embarrassed and more than a little scarred by it…I’d rather sing ‘Oona Polooma fookin blanca’ than that fooker…

...and it was the same for Wednesday fans as all around us, once we heard it the imaginary scarves were up and we were all swaying…it was like being back in a Working Mens club in the 70's and 80's…I could smell the pale ale and piss and almost hear the club compare on the microphone...

‘Ya flyer’s on sale in the foyer and we’ll be playing for a line followed by a full house, ya snowball jackpot stands at £85.10p…later we’ll be listening to Jason on his organ…eyes down…eight oh, Cilla Black, Blind Datey…’

Life on Mars is now a reality show at Forest!

Anyway…Baldy recovered from his rant over the penalty, most of us will never recover from THAT song…and the game went on…

Despite us going a goal down our players didn’t let their heads drop and they continued to try to play footy and get back into the game. We won a few corners and free kicks in dangerous positions, especially late on in the half as we put Forest under a bit of pressure.

The problem for us was that when we DID put the ball into the box from corner or free kick we were putting it in too high, with no pace at all and Lee Camp kept striding forward uncontested to gobble it up. We really were making him look like he warranted the Forest chants of ‘England’s Number 1’ We needed to fizz the ball in and stop making it easy for him.

The half came to an end with us maybe shading it but that ref decision to nil down.

            

            

When the teams came back out we noticed the scoreboard…I know it’s not the done thing to discriminate these days but it’s probably best not to let someone with dyslexia operate the board…first we had Sheffiled, then realising the mistake they changed it to… Sheffeild…and that’s how it stayed for the whole game.

The game picked up where it left off with plenty of quick play and decent defending and Wednesday definitely having the better of it, in fact we dominated the game from here and did go close to scoring. Darren Potter takes a free kick just outside the box and it cannons off someones heed onto the bar with Lee Camp rooted to the spot… It would have been no less than we’d deserved TBF

With around 20 minutes to go Irvine made a couple fo subs, the board went up first with number 24 on it and the announcer told us that number 24 was being replaced…

Now that was quite puzzling as we didn’t have a number 24 on the pitch and everyone was looking around…Soares obviously expected it to be him but looked very confused when he saw the number, so walked back to his position…Baldy let out another of his patented rants ‘WE HAVEN’T FOOKIN GOT ONE YOU TIT!’

Eventually the mistake was realised and Soares went off with Gray to be replaced by Leon and Esajas…very good substitution IMHO.
Neither had really got to grips with the game, certainly not how normally do and Gray’s touch was deserting him, including one pass where we were in a great position, just needing the ball putting BACK into the box quickly and with Potter out wide ready to do just that…Gray gave him a pass that was as bad as you’ll see as long as you watch football….straight out into touch and the moment gone.

Varney, after loads of stick from the Derby hating home support, slots home from the angle of 6yd box after a miss hit shot from Esajas bobbles about the 6 yard box and lands at his feet… BANG! GET IN! He runs right in front of us to celebrate and we go mental…with me resisting all the young uns attempts to chuck me over the wall and down the steps…as Varney’s running up the line he eyeballs the Forest fans all the way up…he loved it…I think he got booked for that…of course we gave the Forest fans some right fookin stick.

They’d been hammering us since their goal…payback…it’s fookin lovely intit?

The Wednesday fans had gone a little quiet just before the goal…we were back!
Really turning up the volume now and the faces on the Forest fans looked well pissed off.

We continued to play well and we probably still had the best of the play when 10 minutes from time Tommy lunged in and gave away a free kick just outside the box…it looked ominous….

It was!

A really well delivered ball towards the back post was headed downwards and it somehow found it’s way to Blackstock a foot off the line who puts it away for his second of the match and Forests winner…BOLLOX!

Of course the Forest fans were only too eager to return the taunts…

SHIT!

They’d hardly been in the game since the restart and had scored easily against run of play…in fact we looked more likely to score again than they did and we definitely didn’t deserve this.

It was a stunner for the Wednesday fans but the players kept their composure and stuck to their task and even though they were in front late on in the game the Forest fans were still unsure how this game would end and the tension increased as the game wore on, even more for the home fans as we pressed and tried to get the equaliser we really deserved….we continued that pressure right up to the whistle and the agony for Wednesday fans was matched by the relief of the Forest fans as the ref blew…

Harsh…We’d deserved something from the game…

            

            
As mentioned, this is a different Forest animal than the one we played earlier in the season…this is one obviously full of self belief, playing decent football and looking comfortable on the ball, both going forward and at the back with the impressive Morgan holding the rear line well…I’m not convinced by the Forest claims that Lee Camp is the best keeper in the division but we didn’t really pressure him enough to put those claims to any real test.

For all their confidence though we matched them…we took the game to them and we didn’t lay down, there certainly wasn’t the length of the division between the two teams…This was probably about the best performances we’ve seen under Irvine. We battled, we worked hard as individuals and as a team. Our heads didn’t go down when going a goal down TWICE; the team just rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in.

I didn’t enjoy the result, obviously but I enjoyed the game, from start to finish.
I enjoyed the football on the pitch, from both sides and I enjoyed the craic between the fans.
We were never really expecting to get anything from this game, the fact we came close and played well is a bonus, but we’ll have easier chances to pick up points over the coming weeks and if we play as we did here we WILL do just that, especially if we utilise that incredible pace of Varneys.

Good luck to Forest, I’m sure they’ll be there or thereabouts at the end and if they DO go up, they’re gonna need a lot of luck in that top flight.

            

            

Mull of Kintyre though….
MULL OF FOOKIN KINTYRE!?!

Just saying it makes me arms go up and I start swayin and wavin....

I need a wesh after that!

Cheers

Steve:Beastie
Owls Alive


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