100% disappointment

Almost 24 hours after the event, I am still struggling to find any positives from yesterday’s play-off final defeat to Millwall.  Losing a game like this is always a massively disappointing, but something in an event like that should bring some kind of silver lining.  For me, right now, there is nothing.

Pic from the Adver

Let’s start with the performance.  Be honest, we just didn’t turn up, did we?  Our first half performance was pretty poor with only a few half chances to our name.  Disappointingly from our perspective, we suffered in the same way we did at the Den a few weeks ago.  Millwall were the hungrier side and they didn’t give us a second on the ball.  We didn’t know how to cope with it then, and we couldn’t cope with it yesterday either.  The second half was infinitely better  and we played some excellent football at times.  But the fact that we can lament just one clear chance in the game says an awful lot. Fair play to Millwall, they were the better side and deserved to win, and I congratulate them for that.

I mentioned our one chance – the bobble.  No-one in the stadium could have seen the ball dink up just as Charlie went to shoot, so to us all it looked as if he’d fluffed his lines.  I kind of wish that was the case.  I don’t want to blame the pitch.  Charlie Austin has been superb for us this season and his time will come, hopefully by firing us the Championship in a year’s time.  So in no way would I hold that miss against him, and I feel desperately sorry for the guy.  But as I say, I don’t want to think what if.  I don’t want a lump of soil to have been the difference between us losing or not.  In the end, it really wasn’t the difference.

What, then, about the atmosphere?  Well, there wasn’t one at our end, and this is another disappointment.  It’s difficult in an arena like that to get things going, to orchestrate a good sing song.  It did happen once or twice, but the whole thing almost felt like a bit of a non-event.  The play-off finals in the old Wembley didn’t suffer the same dead feel.  You can put it down to the fact that we had fewer fans and more space this time around.  You could, justifiably, blame the poor first half performance.  I also think that the effect of the Millwall fans can’t be ignored.

Let’s come on to the Millwall fans, shall we?  I was disappointed when they beat Huddersfield in their semi-final simply because of their fans.  Now, I’m not scared of Millwall fans.  I have been to the Den a few times, I know what they’re like and what they’re all about as a club.  Their strategy is one of intimidation and they’re very good at it.  I believe that, even with fans like Millwall’s, you’re only likely to find trouble with them if you go looking for it.  If you don’t want it, by and large you can avoid it.  But my problem was that their presence was going to create an intense air of intimidation, and that’s what happened.  For most fans a play-off final at Wembley is in itself a day of celebration and excitement.  I remember mingling with Sunderland and Leicester fans before and after the games in the 1990s and it was brilliant.  The atmosphere between both sets of fans added to the whole occasion.  Had Huddersfield been at Wembley yesterday instead of Millwall I am sure the experience would have been just as cordial.  Partisan, certainly, and with the intensity of two sets of fans desperate for success, but without it needing to become unpleasant.  I’m not suggesting that all of Millwall’s fans are thugs.  I am sure at least a dozen of them are decent people.  But they deliberately create an unpleasant atmosphere of intimidation and fear, and I for one felt it was a shame that an all too rare trip to Wembley could be spoiled by that.

I chatted to a few Millwall lads on the tube before the game and while they were loud and boisterous, one particular guy was very nice and wished us luck, shook hands and all the rest of it.  But outside the stadium there was a lot of aggression and it was a relief to get into the ground.  And against any other team I would have stayed at the end of the game to applaud our players off the pitch, but I felt the wise course of action was to get away from the place before their fans spilled out and put their attention towards people wearing red.

So, all in all I found the whole experience a real let down.  I’m sure it wasn’t the same for everyone, and I hope you had a good day despite the result.  As I look out of my of my window right now and see beautiful sunshine I can’t help wondering if things might have been different had it not pissed down all day!