The more observant amongst you have probably spotted that I’ve not said anything about the Spurs result, and barely anything about the Hartlepool game that preceded it.  That’s 50% down to me being busy, 20% down to that “I’ve got ages, there’s a fortnight before we play again” feeling that comes with every international break and 30% one swallow not making a summer.  It would be way too easy for me to jump up and down, pointing fingers and telling people I told you so, but (apart from it not being the sort of thing I’d do to start off with) following a victory over a third division side with a nicking of points for our first top flight in the capital could mean just as much as the initial two defeats did when it comes to the final reckoning.

The Hartlepool game was neither here nor there when it came to it.  You’d have expected Latics to win it and they did.  Well, you’d have expected them to win in unless you were a journalist, a Sky pundit, the man on the street or a Latics fan for that matter.  About the only people who weren’t expecting a “giant killing” were probably the Pools fans, and even they must have had a sneaky feeling they could pull something off.  The hounds were baying for blood whether it be in our cheeks or from the sacrifice of the manager.

In the end everyone went home happy, a professional turn out from a changed, but still strong team meant those Latics fans who wanted to could breathe a sigh of relief and those who didn’t could rely on the fact that we didn’t dominate throughout.  The media had free reign on whether to congratulate, commiserate or just point to the fact that Hartlepool had their chances and *could* have equalised before the final two goals put things out of their reach. 

If they could manage that then Spurs were surely in for a bagful on the Saturday, right?  Well, I wouldn't go all that far, but it's true to say that the only real cause for confidence from the league cup game was the sort that comes from seeing your keeper make a couple of saves.

That's not to be critical of Chris Kirkland but his recent form (this season and last) could best be described as wretched and being one of the good guys of the game can't excuse poor performances.  The question of whether Bobby would have the guts to drop the man that had worn his captain's armband for the previous two league games was made irrelevant with captain Kirk picking up a niggle during the week (insert your own Repetitive Strain Injury joke here).

How much significance did that change have?  Would it be lazy to point to the clean sheet iced with a couple of top class saves?  Can you ever put everything in the performance of the man between the sticks? 

Every game has it's key moments that decide the outcome.  The early goal that Latics never recovered from against Blackpool, N'Zogbia's slip to let Cole in against Chelsea and Diame's lazy control that turned a run of the mill defeat into a rout in the same game.  At Spurs the game changer came in the first half when Defoe managed to get between our centre halves and get plenty behind his shot on the turn.  It's impossible to run a mental replay without seeing the ball hit the back of the net and Latics respond with yet another collapse. 

But Sky+ still shows al Habsi's save (I've checked) and although there was more to the overall performance, that was the difference between losing or not, right there.

As important as that one moment might have been, it was nothing without the 93 minutes either side of it.  Latics deliberately set out to nullify Spurs' threat down the wings with Boyce and Stam doubling up on the right and Diame spending a good deal of time helping Figueroa out down the left.  It worked as Lennon and Bale were largely anonymous. 

Certainly Latics looked more solid than they have thus far this season but surely they'd suffer going forward?  It's a tough comparison, as Latics struggle to create chances for so many reasons, but they didn't look particularly better or worse in attack than you'd expect in a game against a champions league side.  It was a bit of a grind at times and for the third game on the bounce, Boselli had the thankless task of turning his fox in the box skills to leading the line, but, thanks to some forced errors, Latics had their chances and could have been in front early on, Boselli in particular spurning a gifted chance that you'd be expecting a £6m man to tuck away.

Still this performance was more about containment and through a mixture of keeping possession and absorbing pressure Latics kept Spurs at arms length until it all went off in a fairly crazy period with about 15 minutes to go.  As Spurs got desperate they left themselves open at the back and let Latics in for a series of breaks. 

Alcarez's chance will go down as miss of the season, once we've recovered from seeing a centrehalf running 80 yards up field in the closing stages of a game where we're supposed to be keeping things tight, Gomez was unlucky to be asked to get on the end of a cross that was a little too high (he doesn't strike you as the diving header type, does he?) and then Rodallega put away the least likely of the three chances.  Goalkeeper should have got it?  We're not in the business of worrying about such things, it was deserved and you'd have to be really blinkered to say otherwise.

The catalyst for this spell was arguably the replacement of Gomez, the Spaniard did ok, but the change freed Rodallega from his role on the left and allowed him to cause trouble where he saw fit.  Plenty will jump on this as the answer to our attacking woes but the most key aspect of the change was the timing, just as Spurs were pushing forward and leaving their central defence isolated.  I'm fairly sure that Hugo would have been left as equally frustrated had he started in the centre and maybe without the energy to make the most of the space afforded to him later on.

Whilst this game may show the way to a tighter, more resilient Latics, the situation with Rodallega shows that it’s not as cut and dried as playing two right backs and sticking him up front.  The tactics, as much as the personnel were key in getting the right result.  The Boyce/Stam partnership was important but essentially there’s no reason that N’Zogbia couldn’t provide the same level of cover.  I wouldn’t expect to see the same team against Sunderland, but who knows maybe it would be better to keep a more defensive approach until things have settled down a bit more.

The weirdest thing about the Spurs result was watching the headlines roll in like this was the biggest victory of Latics time in the Premier League.  My initial reaction was “Spurs away, surely not?” until, on about my fourth match review.  It occurred to me that Tottenham landed themselves in the top four last season and that effectively this was the same as beating Liverpool at Anfield in other recent seasons.  So reasons to celebrate then?  Nah, let’s wait until we’ve a couple of wins under our belt before we start telling people that we told them so.

Do I need to remind you of my feelings towards Paul Scharner?  Things will be so much easier if we can leave that at my never having rated him, he was my favourite left back, provided that he was left back in whichever suburb of Washington is reserved for c-list footballers.  He might have played like Cryuff in his head but on the pitch it was a different matter.  When it comes down to it, he was pretty much a pillock off the pitch as well.

His farewell to Latics was typical 'trying to too hard to be wacky' Scharner.  Just as he arrived with blue and white hair he departed like a seven year old who has been given free reign on the coloured hair spray stall at the school summer fair, with the added bonus of the word "thanx" shaved round the back.  Still, untypically for the Austrian, he left his other (chosen?) personality trait at home and we didn't get a pointlessly outspoken goodbye interview.

It was going to come sooner or later though and in the same week that we get Lee Cattermole thanking the club for his time here, Mr Scharner pops along to tell us that i) the chairman has given up the ghost, ii) he was let go as a cost cutting measure and for good measure, iii) Latics ate going down because they've not got enough experience (read, because he does play for us any more).  As a first press statement it certainly knocks "I'd like to thank every one at Wigan for their support but I'm delighted to be joining such a massive club as West Brom" into a cocked hat.

I've not got a clue what Paul Scharner actually thinks of the club that gave him his introduction to the Premier League other than, perhaps, us never quite matching his desire for a club small enough to be bullied by his constant threats of buggering off and regular side swipes about positions and tactics.  Who knows whether there was ever any truth in the links with Fulham, Everton and Villa, but the tale that he scuppered a move to the latter, last season, with an insistence that he be played in midfield is very believable, and carries a delicious amount of irony.

The truth about Paul Scharner is held in the fact that pretty much no-one wanted him this summer.  His 'dream' move to Fulham scuppered by Hodgson tripping off to Liverpool and the then expected interest from the scousers never materialised on account of him not being good enough.  He's no 30 and comes with pretty much no resale value to any club that signs him.  After two years of pissing and moaning about successive managers, being a bad influence within the squad and generally not playing very well, he's pretty much a risk for any club, let alone one in such a fragile state of development as Latics.

I suspect that is more like why he was deemed surplus to Bobby's requirements, of course the not insubstantial reduction in  the wage bill will have been more than welcome, but there's no way the decision to bin him was purely an economic one.  Mr Whelan may have decided that economic stability trumps half cocked stabs at a Europa Cup place but throwing the towel in?  Hardly.

I'm not even sure that accusations of inexperience are properly levelled.  Of course it's a concern for the club and we're at a difficult stage of development but this isn't a side completely of 19 year olds and it's more a question of how the likes of Alcarez translate their experience to this league.

Of course the bigger questions are not in what he said, but why Paul Scharner has chosen to ignore the traditional 'polite nod back, let's move forward' line usually reserved for these situations.  I reckon it's all about ego.  it could be the obvious lash out at people who've rejected him, but I reckon that it's a bit more deep seated than that.

My view of Scharner is of someone who has taken a great deal of care in cultivating a 'cult' hero status.  The last few months of his Latics career took the edge off that and he's seen an opportunity to grab back some credibility in Latics start to the season.  He strikes me as a man who likes to read his own press and I'm guessing is plugged in and not beyond the odd trawl of the internet.  His comments reflect the mass panic prevalent before the Spurs game and I reckon that they're carefully aimed at sounding like he’s on the side of the fans, that he’s been chucked by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, backed care about the club anymore.

Hopefully he’s misjudged the mood, mostly because I want to get last month’s panic out of the way and move onward and upward, but also because I can’t stand the thought of the Austrian staying any longer in the Latics consciousness than is absolutely necessary.  If I baulked at the idea of Stuart Barlow having anything like cult status, then I’m not going to stand for Paul Scharner getting it.

If I'd been given a pound to go with every snide remark I've read or heard about attendances at Latics then I'd probably have enough money to buy up all the spare tickets at the DW ensuring a home sell out for the rest of the season.  I'm also guessing that I'd be too minted to care about such insignificant matters.  Of course all those jibes are lazy, they ignore facts like the geographic and demographic position of the town and club and push the myth that the Premier League is such a prime product that it's mere existence demands full houses week in. week out and the consensus view that, because those full houses evade Latics, Wigan must be a 'rugby town'.

The biggest fact that they ignore is that by one, wholly reasonable, measure Latics' crowds aren't that bad.  In fact they're pretty damn healthy.

I wish that I could tell. you that I've invented some magic co-efficient, a Duckworth-Lewis Method of measuring football crowds and income so that we can finally decide who the biggest and best clubs are and forget about all that awkward kicking balls about stuff.  My method relies on nothing more than the simple notion that a football club has a natural constituency in the people from the town it represents and measuring how successful it is at pulling those people through the door is a pretty good way  of judging an average attendance.

For the purposes of this exercise, I've relied totally on Wikipedia and this attendances table for last season.  I've taken some liberties by giving all of Manchester to City and Salford to United.  Liverpool, Everton shared the population of their city equally, as did Birmingham and Villa.  The London clubs were all assigned the boroughs in which they are based.  Far from perfect and I’m happy to take any suggestions, but I’ll probably ignore them, mostly because I’ve written this now and as they always say in football, never go back.

So the scores on the doors?  They’re in the table below and Latics fare quite well (I suppose you’d guessed that, or why else would we be here?).  No doubt the Premier League will be quick sharp to pop round offering us a European place for next season, once this gets in the public domain. 

Jokes aside, is there anything to be learnt from all this?  I don’t know, maybe it’s just a timely reminder that like any other “product” football has a limited market.  Unless you’re one of the true global monsters of the game you’re relying on the local populous to turn up and when you need at least a quarter of the town to turn up to fill your home stands then you’ve got a job on.

But, equally, you can flip that on its head because it’s actually quite an achievement that Latics pull in the equivalent of one in five of their townspeople every other week.  It would be nice to see some ‘outsiders’ take this ‘glass half full’ view every once in a while and statements from both the manager and chairman in recent weeks indicate that they are starting to shove it in people’s faces.

Overall though this is just a simple “don’t believe everything you read” post.  I’m not going to sit here and tell you that our crowds are great, there’s scope for improvement and there’ve been plenty of marketing mistakes been made along the way (dare I suggest that if the JJB had started life as a 18,000 seater stadium then we’d now be talking about how we’re missing out on revenue because we’re turning people away?), but neither am I going to spend too much time worrying about “only” having 12,000 home fans on.

It’s been a fair old week.  Battered by Chelsea, professional at Hartlepool fingers pointing and backs being whispered behind; no fear though because we’re only going to visit the fourth best team in the country last season.  Still, instead of throwing yourself off the nearest “reply to thread” button maybe you should watch some cricket and listen to some music?  That should get you all calm in time for three o’clock.

And to get you started on the music front here’s this week’s perfect hat-trick.

Arctic Monkeys – Mardy Bum

It’s here more for the band, than the title, and a minor celebration of our Carling Cup win in midweek.  Remember, we always get to the Carling cup final when we win our games in all the other ties, so this is a good start.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcI5-nOEsYM

Then again you can take the title an run with it as well if you want to, but why bother when you can have the beautiful chaos of.

The Fall – Bingo Master’s Breakout

You don’t need an excuse to listen to genius like this, but thanks to Charlie boy, I’ve been able to fit this one in.  He’s the Bingo Master, get it?  Not that I’m wishing him a lonely death on him, I fully expect an hat-trick as an apology.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFWuHNYflo

Finally, I don’t particularly like the song, but it neatly describes what we don’t want to happen again down the lane.

Panic! At the Disco – Nine in the Afternoon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoQYdVAlZ5A

I reckon that just about now the rats will be considering their next move, do they jump back onto the sinking ship and wait for their next chance to stamp their feet and tell us that they’re not coming again, again or do they stay where they are, prodding us with pointed sticks, telling us they told us so until things look a bit brighter, there’s a few points in the bag and they’re able to walk into work without someone taking the mick?  Honestly, I’m leaving them to it.  We’ve got better things to talk about, and here’s the five that we reckon you should be gabbing about before today’s game.

Working 9 to 5
It’s going to be a slog isn’t it?  Spurs haven’t had the best start but a confidence boosting win in Europe followed by a game against a side that they did a most comprehensive double over last season is probably just what the doctor ordered.  Latics’ confidence boosting win at Hartlepool isn’t quite the same as they prepare to return to the site of their ritual humiliation.

I guess you don’t ever recover from a 9-1 defeat but it will go a long way to help if Latics can turn up and put a shift in for the full 90 minutes today.  After the first two league games what I, and the rest of us that are left, want to see is a performance where our team make the opposition work for every goal, no matter how many they score.  Another 9-1 might leave a few suicidal, but one without the ubiquitous collapse and I’ll probably be happier.

Bin lids
Has there ever been such a puntastic football club as Spurs’ midweek opponents.  Try to talk about them for five minutes without one of your mates coming out with a “careful” or “ooo-er” like he’s a modern day Kenneth Williams it’s impossible.  My favourite was Mark Bright’s tweet that read “At the Lane, anyone fancy Young Boys?”.  I’ve still not decided whether that was a slip of the keyboard or part of an elaborate police sting operation.

Still, let’s hope that Spurs are knackered after their midweek exertions against Young Boys, eh?  Oh, doh!

Kit cat
Unless your name is Cryuff, van Basten or Bergkamp orange isn’t a particularly becoming colour for anyone but when you’ve played so woefully over 20-odd games in it then it’s bound to get you down about it.  We jokingly called last year’s away kit unlucky, but it appears that the players actually believed the hype.  Footballers are notoriously superstitious and it appears our bunch got it in their heads that they couldn’t win whilst they were wearing it.

I assume that the quotes being attributed to Roberto Martinez this morning are about the psychological effects of the mindset that the players got themselves into rather than any real belief that the kit was unlucky (we managed to play just as badly without it to be honest).  I do like the idea of a ritual burning though, “get thee behind me eight goal defeats”.

A wing and a prayer

After yesterday’s “will he, won’t he” even be at the club, we start today with a “will he, won’t he” be in the squad.  I’ve no idea whether N’Zogbia is mentally prepared to play an away game at White Hart Lane, but it’s damn sure he’ll get a less vociferous reaction there than he will do if he’s still here when Sunderland arrive in town in a couple of weeks.  If he’s staying then it’s probably a place on the bench for me, assuming that he’s missed some training and been a little distracted.

A no show could mean a whole host of things, but my guess would be that Latics have seen the money and are hoping that someone who’s daft enough to pay £10m for the player and then meet his wage demands is sat around the corner.

I got soooo angry…
The fabled message board post from the fan who turned his internet stream off because of some abject Latics performance or other will go down in Latics history, but for the record I did similar when the sixth Spurs goal went in last year.  Not because I was so angry, but because I just had better things to be doing that watch my side get battered through what looked like a dirty fish tank.

This year though, those of us who live within the borough have the more traditional option of sitting back and tuning in a tranny, erm I mean the radio.  WISH FM is back on the Latics trail, regrettably without the Holy Pipes of Matt McCann but still less stressful than focus on a 2” blur in the middle of your screen.

Just saying, that’s all.

In all my years watching Wigan Athletic, and they’re not insubstantial, I’ve never been so cross, I’ve never been so frustrated and I’ve never been so close to chucking it all in and starting all over again.  This business with Charles N’Zogbia has just gone too far, it’s pushed me over the edge, I’m sick of all the lies, all the chaos and having to put up with people who just simply don’t deserve to be anywhere near my club.  That’s it, I’ve decided…

…I’m keeping away from Latics messageboards until they’ve bloody well sorted it out.

There always has to be one doesn't there?  As much I try to keep out of the yearly summer merry-go-round, there's generally one rumour, deal or otherwise significant story that gets me sufficiently riled and forces me into commenting before I get to the end of window round up.  I've done really well this season as well, but with four days to go on the Sky Sports New countdown, I've got just about as far as I can with the Charles N'Zogbia to-ing and fro-ing and with an offer finally being accepted, it seems as good a time as any to open my gob.  There doesn't seem much point waiting for the round up anyway, this one would only take up all the words.

Charley boy was quite a coup when signed for Newcastle as a 17 year old.  The young French starlet with his mixture if pace and ability was tipped for the very top and yet now, some six years later, you'd be totally justified in wondering where it all went wrong.  I’m sure that’s what he was thinking when some cockney geezer he’d never heard of chased him out of the toon and he trolled up at Latics as prince and heir to Louis Antonio Valencia.

And yet he looked like the penny had dropped, that he would knuckle down, show the right attitude and within twelve months his career would be back on track and he’d be dribbling right back into the Champions League.

And so he might have done had he not caught a glimpse of the bright lights, just around about the same time he thought it was a good idea to get a mate to sit his driving theory test for him (“zeze inglish pipple theenk that all uzz Frenchmen look ze same”).  Except it wasn’t the bright lights of old Trafford that were calling him, nor the rumoured interest from Arsenal.  Birmingham were knocking and maybe even Sunderland.  Thus began a transfer saga that highlighted the worst of the modern game.

Sulking fits, agents trying to move people around to make a quick buck, clubs talking out of turn about other clubs’ players, strategically placed press briefings, clubs forced to sell to survive the mess of the Premier League, rumours, lies and the odd grain of truth; you could see it all in this one if you looked hard enough and you were enough of a conspiracy theorist. 

All or none of it could have been lies, but the saddest thing is that it’s all too easy to see the story of an agent wanting a move for his player tapping up an old manager who used his contacts in the press to put pressure on the player and his club only to find he didn’t have the cash and couldn’t have made the move anyway because everyone had sussed what was going on, all with a backdrop of another club trying to negotiate the players price down whilst keeping onside with their fans incase it didn’t come off. 

As I said it’s probably 90% nonsense, but there’s so much of it about these days anyway.  Like the idea that this was somehow an avoidable transfer for Wigan Athletic.

Let’s get things straight from the start.  Accounts don’t lie, Latics don’t turn a profit and are currently going on for £50m in debt.  Yes most of this is owed to the chairman but it’s debt all the same, it’s not come about because we’ve been throwing money about, it’s because since, oooh, lets say 1995 we’ve been paying significantly more out in wages than we can afford.  In fact, let’s not say 1995, you might be tempted to blame that on Roberto Martinez, the truth is that, from at least the mid-eighties Latics have had to sell players to survive.

N’Zogbia leaving the DW is no different than when Joe Parkinson departed the sunny shores of Springfield to travel to a dull dismal Bournemouth only to turf up at Goodison a matter of weeks later as Harry Redknapp showed his early flair for wheeling and dealing.  It’s no different from when Peter Atherton was shipped out to Coventry, Paul Cook to Norwich and so on and so forth.  Scan the history of the club and you’ll see players sold for a little less than you suspect they were worth to clubs a little lower down the ladder than you think they deserved and all for the sake of keeping the club ticking over.

But there is a difference this time.  Because, even without further signings, the fee we receive for N’Zogbia has been invested elsewhere.  We’ve a striker, a right back and a central midfielder all of whom cost money and none of whom have joined because they couldn’t get in Everton’s reserves (I’m looking at you Gary Powell). 

So the worse case here is we lose one player and gain three.  In reality I suppose we’ve lost two and funded a whole summer’s shopping.  With other targets allegedly lined up to come in it was fairly inevitable that one of our saleable players would go if we could get value for them.  Without knowing how those transfers pan out (and as much as you might like to believe you’re Jose Mourinho you can’t judge a player after 2 or 3 games) it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t strengthened the squad.

In fact, the biggest loser out of this situation might turn out to be the player himself.  He came in under a cloud, he’s spent the last six months under one and he’s just about had to made it chuck it down to get what he wants (or so the Daily Sky would have you believe).  I’ll stand here and tell anyone that I believe he’s got the ability to play in the Champions’ League, but which English top four manager would touch him based on his perceived attitude? 

You want to debate whether Charles is worth the same as Valencia, well consider whether how much Antonio’s value was enhanced because Real and United were considering signing him.  N’Zogbia now seems to have backed himself in a corner, and with no big club waiting around the corner it seems his only option is to step up one rung at a time and try to grab as much money whilst he does, which hardly enhances his reputation when you think about it.

But then he wouldn’t be the first player to regret jumping the good ship Wigan Athletic.
 
As I’ve gone to publish the above, I’ve just found out that (reportedly) Charles has knocked back Birmingham’s offer, and to think I could have been writing a Spurs Preview Whilst that contains no amount of hilarity, it does very little to suggest that he won’t be out the door to somewhere come Tuesday.  Hopefully in time for Latics to reinvest what can be reinvested of his fee.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFWuHNYflo

aka, Blackpool seafront

So what with all the clichéd stereotypical nonsense that will be floating around under the guise of match previews and predictions this weekend, notapatchon decided to make a good use of NRP’s dinner break and send him down to see Gypsy Sammy Lee down on Blackpool prom to see if she’d get her ball’s (of the crystal variety) out and come up with something a little more interesting.

NRP – Good afternoon can I ask…

GSL – Oooooh, the spirits are cloudy, you must cross my palm with silver and they may clear.

NRP  - [takes money out of pocket] I’ve only got tenners, have you…

GSL -  [snatches tenner and stuffs it under her crystal ball] thank you young man, how may Gypsy Sammy Lee assist you this fine day?  Are you looking for love?  Want a curse removing?  Or do you wish to know your future?

NRP – Well Latics are playing Spurs this Sat…

GSL – Ahhh, Spurs.   Danny Blanchflower, Glen Hoddle, Ossie Ardilles wonderful team, wonderful club.  Proper football, the beautiful game.  What do you wish to learn about them.

NRP – Well we lost heavily to them, and there’s going to be loads of bad press in the lead up to this one, I was looking for something a little bit different than what we’ll be getting from the ‘Arry Redknapp loving journos will be pushing about.

GSL - Aaaaaahhhhhh, ‘appy ‘arry, Gypsy Sammy Lee had him in her booth on more than one occasion when she was based in Bournemouth, I can tell you.  Lovely fellow, always got a brown envelope when you need one.  Loves wheeling and dealing that one does, oooh and the lovely Sandra.  Their Jamie’s a bit of alright as well in the?

NRP – And the football? 

GSL – Sorry, the spirits distracted me there, maybe they’ll stay focussed if you crossed my palm with silver?

NRP – I’ve only got, oh, sod it [hands over a tenner], so the football?

GSL – Aaaaah, Spurs, proper football team, I see a tricky encounter with some children in their recent past, they may be tired from their exertions.  I see a tall, gangly stranger who’s exertions have taken him away from the football pitch, but I see strength in depth and ‘arry’s ability to keep them fighting on more than one front.  The number 1 is significant and I see a cup of silver waiting for them in the near future.

NRP – There are two teams in the game though

GSL – I see a tree and a crown, I see a swarthy foreigner, in fact several, but I can’t understand anything they are saying.  They can’t understand each other.  I can sense that they’re being watched but I can’t see the crowd.  I feel great anguish and pain, confusion and anger.  There is a small man trying to escape this but the doors are barred.

NRP – That’s Latics, what about the game?

GSL – The spirits are fading, maybe they’ll be stronger if…

NRP – I crossed your palm?  [hands over a tenner]

GSL – Urrrggh the spirits are in turmoil, quick, what do you want to know

NRP - Saturday’s game, what chances have Latics got?

GSL – Why didn't you ask? I don’t need the spirits to tell you that love, they’ve no bloody chance!

And with that, our faithful hero leaves the darkened booth, hands in pockets and £30 lighter, off to search for some fish and chips and five donuts for £3 and safe in the knowledge that, where football is concerned, even the spirits can only come up with hackneyed rubbish.

aka, Blackpool seafront

So what with all the clichéd stereotypical nonsense that will be floating around under the guise of match previews and predictions this weekend, notapatchon decided to make a good use of NRP’s dinner break and send him down to see Gypsy Sammy Lee down on Blackpool prom to see if she’d get her ball’s (of the crystal variety) out and come up with something a little more interesting.

NRP – Good afternoon can I ask…

GSL – Oooooh, the spirits are cloudy, you must cross my palm with silver and they may clear.

NRP  - [takes money out of pocket] I’ve only got tenners, have you…

GSL -  [snatches tenner and stuffs it under her crystal ball] thank you young man, how may Gypsy Sammy Lee assist you this fine day?  Are you looking for love?  Want a curse removing?  Or do you wish to know your future?

NRP – Well Latics are playing Spurs this Sat…

GSL – Ahhh, Spurs.   Danny Blanchflower, Glen Hoddle, Ossie Ardilles wonderful team, wonderful club.  Proper football, the beautiful game.  What do you wish to learn about them.

NRP – Well we lost heavily to them, and there’s going to be loads of bad press in the lead up to this one, I was looking for something a little bit different than what we’ll be getting from the ‘Arry Redknapp loving journos will be pushing about.

GSL - Aaaaaahhhhhh, ‘appy ‘arry, Gypsy Sammy Lee had him in her booth on more than one occasion when she was based in Bournemouth, I can tell you.  Lovely fellow, always got a brown envelope when you need one.  Loves wheeling and dealing that one does, oooh and the lovely Sandra.  Their Jamie’s a bit of alright as well in the?

NRP – And the football? 

GSL – Sorry, the spirits distracted me there, maybe they’ll stay focussed if you crossed my palm with silver?

NRP – I’ve only got, oh, sod it [hands over a tenner], so the football?

GSL – Aaaaah, Spurs, proper football team, I see a tricky encounter with some children in their recent past, they may be tired from their exertions.  I see a tall, gangly stranger who’s exertions have taken him away from the football pitch, but I see strength in depth and ‘arry’s ability to keep them fighting on more than one front.  The number 1 is significant and I see a cup of silver waiting for them in the near future.

NRP – There are two teams in the game though

GSL – I see a tree and a crown, I see a swarthy foreigner, in fact several, but I can’t understand anything they are saying.  They can’t understand each other.  I can sense that they’re being watched but I can’t see the crowd.  I feel great anguish and pain, confusion and anger.  There is a small man trying to escape this but the doors are barred.

NRP – That’s Latics, what about the game?

GSL – The spirits are fading, maybe they’ll be stronger if…

NRP – I crossed your palm?  [hands over a tenner]

GSL – Urrrggh the spirits are in turmoil, quick, what do you want to know

NRP - Saturday’s game, what chances have Latics got?

GSL – Why didn't you ask? I don’t need the spirits to tell you that love, they’ve no bloody chance!

And with that, our faithful hero leaves the darkened booth, hands in pockets and £30 lighter, off to search for some fish and chips and five donuts for £3 and safe in the knowledge that, where football is concerned, even the spirits can only come up with hackneyed rubbish.

Around this time of year I would normally write a piece bemoaning the death of the League Cup maybe suggesting some ways in which it could be improved, how we could get away from the position where the competition simply doesn’t matter any more.  It’s all nonsense of course because all you need to do to make people give a toss about England’s second cup competition is lose your first two games to an aggregate score of 10-0.

Sky sit up and take notice, the fans get all in a tizz about it and the players… well I didn’t go so I can’t say but hey, they won, they scored three goals and Jordi Gomez is now ready to lead us to the promised land.  Oh, and Al-Habsi is the new Dino Zoff.

To continue this season’s media paranoia, I found it interesting that Sky had dispatched a Journo to our game rather than a pundit.  I’m assuming that this was to ensure that their reports were on message and none of that pesky knowing about football got in the way.  The message?  Just the usual, Latics are shit, Bobby should be sacked, then deported and all our players should be allowed to join ‘bigger clubs’ for no fee as of tomorrow.  Oh and we have no fans.

Or at least that Harlepool were all over us and Latics were lucky to be hanging on to their one goal lead.  Even as the game closed to a 3-0 win that Five Live and WISH were happy to describe as ‘professional’ Sky were happy to make out that we’d been lucky.  All this and Jeff Stelling wasn’t even on duty.

Someone who wasn’t on message was Paul Jewell, who had the nerve to actually defend Latics in the pre-match build up, pointing out that we’re in a difficult position and that crowds have grown 3 times over les that 10 years.  He almost looked embarrassed in that “I want to tell you to bugger off but I can’t” way that he used to have when his muckers were sticking the knife in.

… and we wake up this morning and nothing has changed too much.  The media are still circulating, only a little disappointing that they didn’t get their blood, the fans are still revolting and there’s every chance that we’ll get hammered come Saturday.

Monkey hanging
When it comes to thinking up nicknames for rival townsfolk you just can't beat a bit of popular myth mixed with an ounce of negative stereotyping.  My favourite used to be the kai'ed (cow head) reserved for the good people of Westhoughton whose ancestors allegedly freed their prize bovine from the town gates by cutting off its head rather than doing for the metalwork.

As I've got older I've come to realise that this is such a simple and believable tale that it's probably repeated umpteen times across the country and beyond.  More significantly, it doesn't quite paint the veritable kai'eds in quite the stupid light that you first think.

Blacksmith "Oi, farmer Giles, your cow's got its head stuck in my gate again"

Farmer "Go and get the saw, it'll take a while to get through that metal"

BS "bugger off, it took me two years to make that bloody gate.  Why don't we just take the cow's head off?  We can all have steak for tea, your missus can have those leather keks she's been after and I can get on with those horseshoes and new plough that you wanted"

Farmer "you've got a point there, Mrs Giles, get my axe"

And thus a possibly unjustified nickname is born.

There's no such get out clause for Hartlepudlians though, if they'd just hung a monkey then maybe, but they tried him as a French spy first.  It's one of those great British stories, not only does it allows us to poke fun at ourselves and our neighbours, but it gets a dig in with the French and is dusted with a healthy sprinkling of casual racism.

Giant Killing
Mostly my memories of Hartlepool are FA Cup ones, vague inklings of an early eighties replay are overshadowed by our visit up there in 1988 and the associated banter with a monkey hanger (chemistry?) teacher.  We were third division then, just about clinging to the coat tails of the quarter final appearance a couple of years before and getting by on what was left of the team that Harry built (and Bran dismantled).  I assume they were in the fourth and not doing that well, certainly doing not well enough for the teacher to be crowing about a giant killing the week after.

How little we knew, eh?  Wind on too many years and here are 'mighty' Wigan Athletic making the journey to the North East to catch up with old acquaintances.  We still know the score enough to know that they'd have probably preferred 'boro, but still they should be sending blood given our start to proceedings.  Likely or not Pools fans and media alike will be buzzing around the possibility of them pulling off a victory.  Let them, it's not like we've not been there before.

And whilst we're talking about the media...
If I was buying a newspaper for anything other than filling ten minutes then chances are that it would be the Guardian.  So it makes it a little disappointing that they're usually one of the first to get a boot in (behind the Mail, which I wouldn't spend money on if it rebranded itself as the Daily Latic).  Not that the thoughts of some junior hack is going to affect how I feel about anything, let alone my football club.

That said, I do get cross when I see someone getting paid for an inexplicable hatchet job that would be best placed in a low rent Wiggin rugby fanzine. 

Time to roll up the shutters and circle the wagons methinks.  It's all downhill from here.

Brakes on
Which is pretty much what we all need to do.  In the face of adversity, most clubs will come together, develop a siege mentality and sod everyone else.  On both past and current evidence, there's no chance of Latics' fans managing that but it's probably important that the team close ranks right now.  Ignore the press, ignore any fans that aren't fully behind them, gather round the manager and get ready to fight.

Caldwell, the Steven variety, spoke on signing about Latics needing to fight to earn the right to play the football they want to, this is something different.  What's needed now is a show of strength and unity, a backing for their manager and their colleagues.  There might be some of the team who'd be happy if the never saw another football pitch again, but if I were the first team I'd have been knocking on Bobby's  door yesterday telling him that I wanted to play tonight, that I've got something to prove and I want to do it sooner rather than later.

Yeah, I know.

Identity-kit
The best football kits are simple, and it's a good job because that's what we're getting with the new away shirt which is plain black with the trimmest of gold trims.  I gave up moaning about our shirts a while back but it looks too polo shirty to be a hit with the fans for forty quid, but it looks like it might be alright on the players' backs, which obviously is the real test, and it has to be better than last year's effort, hasn't it.