Saturday just gone saw this column reach its 10th anniversary. It had me digging out the very first column that I penned on Monday September 24, 2012.
It was just after a 2-1 home defeat to Charlton Athletic and boy, we were not a happy bunch. The headline was of us fans running out of patience, linked to the old days of the Cobbolds, when things were only deemed to be bad when the wine had run out in the board room.
This was in the back end of the Paul Jewell era and, after that defeat, we sat in 23rd place in the Football League.
It had me thinking about a sorry decade really of covering the Town in this column. But it also had me feeling a warm satisfaction at how different the club is now.
Bizarrely, we were only two further places adrift as the 25th best club in the Football League, but of course, in an entirely different division.
The whole club is now geared towards being a much better proposition than the one it was when I first started to put pen to paper.
Then Sunday saw my own birthday and for the first time in my 51 young years, we were also live on television on my big day too.
My first thoughts were how it made my just-released book ‘Town on the Telly’ already out of date. But that was always going to happen at some point this season.
And the mere mention of being live puts the frighteners up us all. We had lost our previous four live games.
But it was a good opportunity to lay down a marker, finally beat a top six side, and build on the draw at Sheffield Wednesday. To put it simply, my birthday celebrations were going to either be richly enhanced with a victory or crushed with a defeat.
As I settled down to watch the game, I soon had problems identify who was who. As I was watching away from a TV screen, I had to make do with my mobile phone.
And two teams, both wearing dark coloured shirts and socks, with white shorts, made it extremely difficult to decipher the two sides on such a small screen.
I was pleased to see Freddie Ladapo score. He deserved a bit of fortune for his goal with the deflection. He is a scapegoat for some at present.
From then on until Plymouth’s equaliser, we were left to rue some missed opportunities when on top. Just like at Home Park in 2021/22, Town had gone ahead, and Argyle equalised exactly an hour after we had scored. And just like in 2021/22, they found a winner six minutes after drawing level.
Had Christian Walton’s header at the death been a couple of inches lower, we would have been talking about snatching a draw, the rarity of a goalkeeper scoring, and remaining unbeaten and still top of the league. Such fine margins determine our moods.
I was gutted to see us lose and quite frankly have my birthday ruined. The same old scars remain open. We still cannot beat a top six team and for these last two games, we seem to have panicked when dealing with moments of pressure and not coped well under the cosh. We have gone from keeping clean sheets with ease to conceding four goals.
But this is not me panicking or lamenting the team at all. I mean, if we beat Portsmouth on Saturday and Plymouth fail to win, we will be back on top talking about how we are there on the back of of three difficult games.
As I say, such fine margins. I tell you what is frustrating, the injuries that we are now starting to pick up. It is a good job that we made sure we had two capable players in each position. We cannot afford to lose too many more so early in the season.
Finally, I look forward to appearing on BBC Radio Suffolk’s Life’s a Pitch this coming Saturday. To be amongst those on the show that I listen to each week will be a real honour. Please do tune in.
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