Hunting for Omens
My mind is in a state of some contradiction at the moment. I don’t believe in good luck charms, I don’t believe in praying to gods or pleading with the spirits of past legends. No lucky pants, no pre-match rituals no chance of weighing influence on what happens on the pitch, other than a healthy dose of vocal support from the stands.
I don’t believe in any of it. Oh no.
But I can’t cope with this feeling of helplessness. My god, we’ve still got four and a half days of ever increasing nerves to endure. I think I feel tense and jittery now, how am I going to be feeling on Friday when my entire day is bound to be punctuated by electric jolts of pure nerve energy. I can’t cope!
Pic from swindontownfc.co.uk
So, it seems to me that the only sensible thing to do is see how many spurious facts I can come up with that guarantee our success at Wembley on Saturday.
- It’ll be all white. The club have been quick in their attempts to appease supporters chuntering about the choice of kit colour by reminding them that we beat Arsenal in the League Cup final in ’69 wearing white. But, more importantly, white seems to be a lucky colour for Wembley at the moment. Blackpool beat Cardiff at the weekend wearing white, and, as I write this, England are 3-1 to the good in their traditional home colours. White kit on Saturday, we’re going to win!
- We’ve got our lucky end. The fans will be in the same end of the stadium as we were in the 1990 and 1993 play off finals, and we won those, so it stands to reason. I’m not sure which end we had in ’69 as I was only there at a vague cellular level. Actually, that brings me to…
- Me! OK, this is perhaps pushing things a bit, but my mother and father were there in 1969, and I was there in both 1990 and 1993, so my presence, either in person or as mere DNA, is enough to ensure success!
- Results against Millwall. We drew at the County Ground, lost at the Den, so to complete the picture we’ll win at Wembley.
- Play off form. Our play off record, in finals particularly, is excellent, while Millwall’s is wretched.
- The underdog factor. Millwall will be favourites and therefore will be under more pressure. We are not expected to win, so will play with freedom and ease.
I could probably go on, but each list item will become more and more ridiculous and I might just convince myself we’re going to win. I don’t want to think about it any more.
I can’t cope!
** UPDATE ** You know how sometimes you get an idea and that leads to a train of thought and before you know it you’ve completely forgotten how you made it to the end of that particular mental road? That seems to have happened here. There was a point to this post and I only remembered it when I was in bed, panicking about the game. The strongest, most compelling reason why we’re going to win is, like point 3 on the list, thanks to me. It’s OK, you can save your thanks…
I’m currently working at Sky TV, specifically on the never-popular Preview Channel, Channel 999. You needn’t watch, it’s uber-dull. When you press the red button on 999 you are presented with a menu of certain genres that are being promoted. One of my responsibilities is to wade through the schedules and pick out some highlights from each day and then represent these in the form of photographs for this menu. A couple of weeks ago I met some of the staff of the stills department and one chap was kind enough to provide me with a picture of Charlie Austin to use. Had you tuned to 999 on the Monday of our second leg game at Charlton and pressed red, you will have been greeted with a picture of our young hero representing the Sport genre. Of course, we duly won! OK, we didn’t really, but we prevailed, we triumphed on spot kicks, we qualified. And it was all thanks to me!
Of course, the next day I contacted Mr Stills and thanked him for his part in ensuring our success, and asked him for a different picture to use on Saturday for the final. The man leapt into action with all the enthusiasm of someone with little better to do, and the picture below will feature on Saturday, sweeping us to glory.
If you can highlight a more tenuous omen for the weekend then do let me know!
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