All Bluebirds Column #11: The Endurance

Men wanted for Football League expedition: Long hours of arduous defence under brutal conditions. Months of continual setbacks and extreme cold. Great risk to life and limb from referees, enormous centre halves and other hazards. Small chance of fame in case of success.

Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton would have been more than at home in League 2 football management. Months of being stuck fast, followed by a slow tramp through all kinds of challenges. Somewhere between survival and history.

We negotiated the ice flow to base camp Holker Street early. The club had given out free tickets to local families, which boosted the crowd and gave it all a cheery, high-pitched pre-match feel. Sutton the visitors; the reverse fixture had opposite and equally extreme conditions. We set up to match them. The same physical encounter expected-so it was little surprise Robbie Gotts started on the bench.

Sutton are the football equivalent of the supporting cast in a prison movie. Big, intimidating and incredibly tough to break down. With danger and a bit of craft down the flanks, they were on a great run. Everyone settled down, pulled on as many layers as possible and settled down for the freezing attrition on a superb pitch.

So it proved. Ben Whitfield produced a lovely piece of skill to wriggle free out wide but the danger snuffed out. Then they battered their way effectively up field after a turnover. Each first contact juddered and thudded- Sutton the more adept at the continual initial push off-balance (isn’t that a foul now? does League 2 have dispensation?) while we steamed into tackles with George Ray and Harrison Neal especially, cleaning house with confidence and authority.

Sixty-one Gandermoaners chanted ‘dirty Northern bastards’ unconvincingly as everyone was at it and battle joined all over the pitch. By this time we were fighting hypothermia so as I drifted off into the abyss there was only the Walney under 10’s high pitched ‘ooo are ya?’ to keep us awake.

A brief flash of football among the ice giants as a Waters drive was parried away then it was time for a half time whisky to try and reach the parts that had long since given up the ghost.

I always enjoyed Paul Doswell and his classless but amusing ranting and threatening, so it was a pleasure to be able to say Matt Gray seems cut from the same cloth. Bellowing gravelly like a Southern Tyson Fury in a fight with Mike Read off Eastenders (Rickaaay!) he howled at the moon with no real grasp of reality. It is working- as Sutton are a decent side, in a similar position to ours.

Football? If we must. Two counterattacking sides cancelled each other out. There was a great moment halfway through the second half where they pressed, then nicked the ball and broke with venom, only for us to pick their pocket and charge right back at them. Or was it the other way round? The game was like that- though it also had two wonderful, dangerous balls from Ben Whitfield. Had anyone been gambling, we could have had the win. One shot on target between two sides says it all.

The wind picked up even more and we crouched together against the prevailing icy blast, the faint sounds of complaining under 5’s and chattering teeth in the 3696 crowd whirled round. Jed Garner came on and threatened with a low curler and a welcome return of Josh Gordon saw an injection of energy late on. 

The game petered out as we checked fingers and toes, then it was back to The Crossbar as knee sliding children cheerfully honed their winter skills while their parents summoned up the circulation to return to full Facebook at a nearby table. A quick whisky and back on the road as a local singer launched into ‘Come up and See Me, Make Me Smile’.

This game will live in the memory not at all. Both sides are having an excellent season. Both sides could make a late play off charge. Both sides probably will miss out. Both sides are higher than their long-suffering fans could ever have imagined. That is the definition of endurance.

We would have lost that game two months ago. Like Ernest Shackleton, Pete Wild is a motivator and positive believer and we look like we really belong, for the first time, in the challenging terrain of this league. As the explorer said, “Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.” Off to Harrogate where we hope for another positive one.