I had an ususual football experience yesterday.  City lost, but sadly there’s nothing unusual about that these days.  What was strange was listening to the defeat on the wireless while watching Brighton and Hove Albion play on the other side of town.  My friend Pete, you see, is a Brighton fan, and we went to watch the Seagulls take on a little-known outfit called Bristol Rovers, who play at the ramshackle Memorial ”Stadium”, a strange collection of sheds and tents that makes Ashton Gate seem a veritable Wembley in comparison.  It was interesting, I must say, and the football was of such a poor standard that it made me realise that City, despite recent setbacks, have come a very long way indeed.  The first half was dire, with few chances on either side, and as the half time whistle blew, the announcer felt the need to remind the few thousand people present that “You are watching Bristol Rovers versus Brighton”, as if he thought that they may have nodded off, only to be awoken from their slumbers, all confused, by the whistle.   I probably would have nodded off myself, had I not a) been listening to the commentary from Sheffield, and b) been obliged to stand, visiting supporters not being afforded the luxury of seating.

The second half was significantly better, and Brighton scored a couple of scrappy goals (it must be hard to score decent goals on a ploughed field), much to the delight of my new chums who had travelled up from Sussex.  They were a cheerful, chirpy lot actually, and I enjoyed their sense of self-effacing irony.  At one point they started chanting ”We’ve got tiny cocks, we’ve got tiny cocks…”, which bemused me rather until Pete explained that they were singing about their diminutive mid-fielder, Dean Cox (against whom, incidentally, our own mid-field midget, Lee Johnson, would appear gigantic, were they to meet.  Which seems unlikely in the near future, given that Brighton, despite their victory yesterday, can’t get to the playoffs, and willl therefore be in League One for another season.)  Later, they revised the chant to “We’ve got 5-foot Cox” – less self-effacing, but also funny.  

Anyway, back to the main event, and City’s game at Sheffield.  Apparently we played well, and even took the lead, but lost out to a stronger side, themselves still in the hunt for a playoff place.  As it turns out, it didn’t really matter a great deal that we lost - Stoke won, thereby removing our outside chance of getting back into second place.  The good news from yesterday is that, despite yet another defeat, we are finally guaranteed a playoff place, as Wolves and Ipswich failed to win.  The final challenge, apart from the agony of the playoffs themselves, is to win our last game of the season, thereby ensuring that we finish in 4th place, thereby getting the advantage of playing our home leg second.

 

To say that our end-of-season collapse has been disappointing would be an understatement.  But it’s not difficult to find the postives in the situation (which City fans generally are not so good at).  How about this for starters?  If somebody had promised during the final stages of last season that not only would we be promoted to the Championship, but that we would finish this season in the top six with a chance of another promotion, we’d have been overjoyed.  So let’s be overjoyed, and let’s look forward to the playoff lottery with gusto – goodness knows, with our recent form, there’s no better chance for us than a lottery.