The Blog

Relegation (with Apologies to Edgar A Poe)

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:09:15 +0000

Once upon a Tuesday dreary, while I tweeted week and weary
Over many a quaint update of a boring nil nil draw
Against Bradford, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at the bedroom door.
‘Relegation’s here’, I muttered, ‘tapping at my bedroom door
From the old division four.’

So distinctly I remember, optimism last September
Each defeat marking an ember that this can’t go on for sure.
Eagerly, I hoped for Fleetwood – grab three points they can’t be that good?
Three up front, it’s certain I would just to win at home once more.
Better go down while still fighting than another goalless draw,
This is old division four.

With the twitter crowd confirming, that we don’t seem to be learning
That it’s goals we need to get us back to safety, then I saw
Lack of strikers our undoing. And our board will soon be ruing
Chadwick’s one yard miss construing that we can’t hit a barn door.
Possession gets you nowhere; it’s the goals that matter more
In the old division four.

But then my heart grew stronger, can’t be sinking any longer
Deep into a deep depression. We have been here once before.
With a worse squad, full of kids we managed to avert the skids
And, by a point, last year we managed to escape by a trap door.
How hard is it to secure a few home wins and a score draw?
In the old division four.

Relegation, though we fear you, we’re the Argyle always near you
And although right now we hear you baying for our blood once more.
We will fight until the end away to Rochdale. And we’ll mend
This drought, this devastating trend where we’ve forgotten how to score.
Can feel a hat trick coming, first time since 2004.
In the old division four.

And the moral of the season, and what’s always been the reason
That we follow you the Greens on twitter whatever the score.
Is that even if we slide and have to play away to Hyde
We will soon reverse the tide, it cannot get much worse for sure.
It won’t be long until we are promoted back once more.
To the old division four.

Pavlov’s Dog

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 11:43:32 +0100

It has been a very interesting week in football. A disappointing home defeat, victory in a pointless cup and, by all accounts, one of the away performances of the past few years. Add to that a predictable, almost unwatchable, England home victory and here at uptheline, we are pretty content with our lot.

Monday also saw a brush with fame. In a quiet departure lounge for a knob o’ clock flight to Germany and there was that strange feeling of semi-recognition. The first clue was perhaps the worst hair cut ever to make it through customs (think Side Show Bob with a hangover) which was quickly followed by the most extravagant white hand luggage and Gucci trainers. This could mean one of two things: it is either Pride week in Dusseldorf or I am about to share a flight with Grade A international footballers.

There was a time that uptheline could easily pick out most of the world's most talented players in a police line-up. A combination of blind hero worship, Panini sticker albums and a nine-year old’s sponge-like brain used to mean that only the rarest of players would have escaped from notice. Now, the opposite is true. A growing antipathy towards Premier and Champions League football and imperial squad sizes meant that it took a good ten minutes of google image searching to identify the Brazilian trio of David Luiz, Oscar and Ramires sat quite literally within touching distance. Further on-line investigations explained their flight to be for a midweek friendly against Iraq.

The feeling this brought about was mixed. There was at once a Pavlov's Dog instinctive urge to be excited: sitting next to £400,000 per week of footballer is not something that happens every day. But this was balanced with an equally, if not more powerful, disinterest. After all, fame should slap you in the face not require access to free wifi, a phone and frustration and continually dropped connection. This complex emotional tug of war was summed up in the tweet at the time: “wish it was Neil Illman #pafc”.

No one else seemed to have paid the least attention. So uptheline asked for a photo, boarded the flight and was asleep before take-off. Job done.

But there is a but. The predictably punctual Lufthansa flight taxied to its gate in Germany and uptheline was again up close and personal. As the three players split, two breezed through passport control but Oscar was due a more thorough check. As he ran through the usual details for entering a country, uptheline remembered what it was like collecting silver badges for Mexico 86 and, for a split second, was nine-years old again. He gave his full name, followed by:

Occupation? 'Professional footballer'.

Visiting a large German chemical company now made me feel like a life had been wasted.

Team? 'Brazil. National team'.

There was a pause for a quick check of the immigration screen (or a message to Bayern Munich fans in customs to prepare the rubber gloves?) and the day returned to normal. But for 20 seconds, it was life affirming to remember what it felt like when footballers were, to a nine-year old at least, untouchable Gods.

Next stop, a trip to Home Park for @uptheline v @upthedale. Hoping this time, that feeling can be resurrected for a full ninety minutes.

Green Swan

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 09:22:22 +0100

In 2007, the statistician Nassim Taleb wrote the Black Swan. Part economic treatise, part humanist philosophy, its main legacy was the concept of narrative fallacy. To oversimplify his message, he claimed that as human beings, we do not cope well with uncertainty and so often piece together unrelated past events into a coherent story to convince ourselves that an outcome was inevitable. He claims that this hindsight is dangerous enough but that, worse, we have a habit of then projecting these fallacies forwards to help shape future projections. Sounds to me that Taleb was an Argyle fan.
Throughout last season, uptheline maintained the view that in the impossibly unpredictable world of near closure, all bets were off. That there was no precedent for our predicament and that arm-chair punditry was at best pointless and at worst downright unhelpful. Best to let the chaos unfold, hope for the best and enjoy the ride. Somehow it worked.
But should this awareness of our tendency to create order from the unrelated not justify a more lasting legacy? It is a commonly held view that if we had kept Holloway, spent just a fraction more and retained three or four flair players back when we were in the Championship, life would now be different. That a series of events (change of manager, selling of players, world cup bid, new owners and lack of investment) have together placed our club in an impossible position.
The Taleb view would be that this is pure narrative fallacy. As an Argyle fan, he would argue that from standpoint of the present it is easy to manufacture a coherent history in which one event impacted the next creating an inevitable spiral because it is more difficult to conceive the reality – sometimes, shit happens. And he would maintain that this narrative should never, at all costs, form part of planning or predicting a future. Learn lessons from events, of course, and control the variables that you can to minimise the risk of repeating mistakes but never think that a fallible reconstitution of the past is a reliable guide for the future.
And yet. ‘Spend more’. ‘Sack the manager’. ‘Sack the board’. So many fans (and not just at Argyle) seem so certain of a path’s past and future direction, they are blind to the chaos that can alter its course. Go from 1-0 up and playing well to 3-1 down and we – that is all of us with no exceptions – will adapt our view to show a pattern that this was bound to happen. This reinforced when we surrender another slim lead to end up with a point.
The outcome? Our natural temptation to piece together unrelated facts and factors is one we should fight hard to resist. Whether as fans, coaches or players, we should instead remain focussed on the outcomes that can be affected in isolation – such as a need for a more robust midfield, improved fitness and defending from set pieces, better ability to chase a second goal instead of protecting the first – rather than creating patterns with no meaning. If instead we hold onto the narrative fallacy that trends are endemic or that outcomes are inevitable, we will play our own small part in making untruths truths. Poor analysis can only help create poor outcomes; you need only watch or read Moneyball for a lesson in how objectivity and confidence can alter fortunes for the better when it would be easier to make the wrong decisions.
If there is a narrative worth following and comparisons to be made, it is that we are 6 times better off than we were a year ago and with defeats and goals conceded considerably down. Same old Argyle, maybe, but moving in the right direction.
Next week: a Nietzschean critique of Paul William’s far poster header against Colchester.

An Open Letter To PAFC Fans

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:35:45 +0100

This is a call for perspective.
In September 2011, we set up www.uptheline.org in the club’s darkest hour. With a crisis unfolding off and on the pitch, we genuinely believed that the site would become an obituary to a club we love, albeit from afar. But as the 2011/12 season unfolded, the club rose from its lowest ever point to financial and footballing survival and, more importantly, a sense of unity developed which left even the most cynical supporter with bright hopes for the future.
After four games of the new season, we have beaten a weakened Portsmouth side to reach the League Cup second round, drawn one and lost two of our League Two games. To those of us with memories of unpaid players threatening to strike, of the fire-sale of all but a skeleton squad and of what felt like certain relegation at Christmas last year, this feels like an adequate return. The squad seems settled, blends youth with experience and will benefit from loan signings when the transfer window formally closes making players on the fringes of Championship squads more readily available. One thing is for certain: this is no time to panic.
And yet comments on social media and via the toxic cauldron of ‘fan’ forums make evident that those with long memories are in a minority. There seems already to be a growing consensus that this is a squad doomed to be relegated: that a change of management is needed; that money we don’t have must be spent to improve midfield creativity and to sharpen our strike force. It is not yet September but for many the writing is on the wall.
This has to stop. Quite apart from the fact that it is too early for any fan to make a meaningful judgement as to what the season may hold, ungrounded pessimism and unrealistic expectations are the greatest threat to our present and to our future. We are rebuilding with a solid foundation, both commercially and on the pitch, a process that takes time and which must be encouraged and not reproached. We do not call for blind optimism or for fans to lose their voice - rather it is in hope that we may all temper the urge to fear the worst, to keep instead a sense of perspective and to remember at all costs that every game, even every defeat, is precious and to be savoured.
If we are to battle relegation again – and who says we will? – it should be with the spirit of community and togetherness that was forged by last season. Our fan base, home and away, is the envy of the division and last season proved that, channelled positively, this support can make the difference between survival and unthinkable collapse. Now is the time to remember what we have, what we almost lost and to rekindle the positivity which made last season one of the greatest in our history.
Keep the faith – and keep it green.
uptheline

Why Shankly Was Wrong...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:54:11 +0100

uptheline has always disagreed with Bill Shankly; football should never be a matter of life or death. But sometimes life can remind you how embedded football is in your everyday, and a new life more than any other.

Yesterday saw the birth of uptheline junior number two. He has a sister who has just turned two and he is currently asleep in his Dad's arms on a maternity ward as his Dad types this on the notepad of his iPhone. So this is not the first time we have been here but, without sounding too 1975, already there is a resonant self-imposed responsibility to get his football induction just right.

36 hours or so ago, this little man was still waiting to be born and, in pauses between pain relief, this same phone was being checked for football scores. Less than 2 miles away, Reading were being promoted so I guess you could say we have a 'local' team for him to support. I'll do my best but I know I will feel childishly traitorous in the process. Football on Tuesday night was by no means bigger than life, it couldn't have been less consequential, but it was there like Marley's ghost rattling its nets in the background.

In fact, it had been there pre-labour. With mother and baby bags packed, I gave thought - genuine, meaningful, thought - to which home shirt I should have with me for the birth. Part superstition - it worked for baby number 1 - and part performing for an audience of none, this seemed to to sum up support (faith????) in so many ways. It was at once pointless but important to me, in no way bigger than life but there all the same.

Football has been there in the naming process (Mauge will never get through), in the local fixtures that were just too close to the due date (sounds like we did okay at Swindon) and in second guessing what his 'first' game will be (turns out it could be the one that guarantees our safety). With a kind of announced absence, it has always been there.

So what's the point of having a website if you can't do your own Oscar speech every now and then?

To Mrs uptheline: although for 9 months of the year, 4:30 to 5pm on Saturdays may make you doubt it but you'll always be the love of my life. Always.

To uptheline Junior Number 1: you are free to choose your own path with a father's blessing. Given the chance, I'd probably run the other way.

And to Tynan Littlejohn Dalton Lyndhurst Francis Drake Smeaton Dockyard and the Warships Cap'n Jaspers Jesters Number 12 that's right you the Green Army (Sam for short) - welcome to the world. For you I am afraid there is no choice: we shall stand together in Green knowing that whatever the Argyle Gods throw at is, it won't matter. Not really.

That said, three points on Saturday would be the perfect start.

Resurgam.