08/01 Bolton 2nd Half

By 75 mins poor Buckley junior was getting booed every time he got the ball, and booed when he went to take freekicks or corners. I don't know why especially as he was not so much worse than the rest, but his confidence must have been rock bottom for most of the second half and that sort of pathetic display by the crowd is hardly a help. Sometimes we deserve what we get. The biggest cheer was indeed when Buckley came off as part of a double substitution. I felt sorry for him as I'm sure it was 70% the crowd getting at his old man through him. I know how they felt, but there is a time and place. These gobby morons in the crowd actually helped town to lose this one, and pissed a fair few players off too.

Having said that, the last 15 minutes were quite exciting as Livvo was pushed up and created a lot more time for our diminutive strikers to try and do something. We had more attempts in the last 10 mins than the previous 80. This was a simple tactical thing. Livvo is tall and can jump, Ashcroft and Allen aren't and can't. I shall always think of AB as a man who built teams in his own image. Lilliputians. Diddy Gilbert and Childs through to Ashcroft and Allen now. All in all a disappointing day with a crap crowd, many shouting 'Buckley out' at the end. To echo though what Stu Morton said earlier I didn't think town individually were so bad, but just as a unit they were tactically naive and never trusted to each others strengths. They were clearly totally lacking in confidence. Bolton weren't so hot and had we played as a team we would have won. Individually my MOM was Coldicott who got stuck in well and tried to marshal the midfield around. Lever had a good game too. Overall though I could have been at home doing something enjoyable.

I left the ground feeling like I'd completely wasted twelve quid, been cheated by a manager who is so childishly stubborn he won't play towns best available players for 'personal vendetta type reasons, who has allowed the players heads to drop so low that they start off a goal down, and who has probably instilled sufficient fear in them to obey his exacting orders that they have forgotten the inherent skill and initiative that first attracted us to buy them. Anyway, if you want to watch a chess like game of football where all players are kings and can move just one square in either direction at a time, then watch GTFC as they try and walk/pass the ball one square at a time into the opposition goal. It is really exciting and has grabbed the public imagination so much that we now have crowd figures that would be the envy of Scottish div 2 clubs.

I can't help thinking that the same team as I saw on Saturday under the more enlightened and easy going management of say John Cockerel, would have won, but as AB is still there I will probably keep my wallet closed now for a while. I love GTFC but I just don't need to watch crap football served up by that sad aggressive little man with his small minded methods anymore.