Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2019 16:44:18 GMT
I have nothing but sympathy for the fans of Bolton and Bury this evening. We’ve been there. It is truly heartbreaking to watch your club disintegrate while you stand helplessly by; to lose your Saturday afternoon football fix; and for many, a large part of your social life. Suddenly, you’re bereft. “What to do on a Saturday afternoon?” you wonder. Do you go and watch the team over the hill (whoever that might be)? Of course not. You’ve been bleeding your team’s colours for too long to suddenly switch allegiances to… them…
The same fate befell us in 1992. Unceremoniously dumped out of the football league after just three seasons’ competition (in actuality, one and a half season’s competition, half a season of participation, and a season of joyless embarrassment), we started again. So can you. Seriously, if we did it given our then levels of ineptitude and lack of finances, so can you. We started playing Sunday under 18’s football in the D&J Tyres Kent Youth League. I have no idea if such a league still exists, or even if the sponsors are still a going concern. I am aware of how dispiriting that sounds. We made it through that season, though (a notable highlight being the 6-3 defeat of West Ham’s under 18’s team in West Ham’s first fixture following the death of Sir Bobby Moore), and the next season were playing in the Kent County Western Region Division 4. We thought things couldn’t get worse. We were in the fourth regionalised level of football in the left bit of the county. Our first game back in Saturday football was a 7-0 victory against Scott Sports Reserves. Read that again. Scott Sports Reserves. I have no idea if Scott Sports still exists, far less their reserve team. We romped home in first place that season with a team made up of local non-league football journeymen who fancied one last challenge, and the remnants of the League team’s youth squad. The following season we were in the Kent County Western Region Division 2. Division 4 had been scrapped, so we went up an extra division. That’s right, we’d been placed in such a low division that it’s being scrapped meant we couldn’t go any lower.
Over the next few seasons, we carried on, winning the odd promotion, the Weald of Kent and Tunbridge Wells Charity Cups, and a variety of trophies that would have meant nothing to us a few seasons before. But do you know what? I’m certain that I had far more fun schlepping around the backside of Kent trying to find teams I’d never heard of before than I would have done schlepping around the backside of the football league, and constantly wondering if the axe would fall. Some of our supporters walked to Oxford to raise money. I’ve seen us play two cup semi-finals in one day. I’ve watched an entire season of football, with us obtaining more points than anybody else, only for us to still somehow manage to finish second (it’s a long story). I’ve heard our name mentioned on Radio 1 because our captain ill-advisedly mooned a Mormon wedding couple. I’ve witnessed a supporter stop a game with an inhuman belch. I’ve seen us play in 10 different divisions, and call 5 grounds home (3 of which belonged to other teams, and 1 of which belonged to the aforementioned Mormon church, which must have made for an awkward phone call the next day).
It won’t be easy. It’ll be hard to accept at first. But the sense of camaraderie you might get with your fellow supporters will outstrip anything else you’ve achieved thus far. Seriously. As much as this hurts right now, in ten years’ time, you just might look back on this and feel a bit better about it. You’ll still wish it hadn’t happened, of course you will; but you might have replaced a dull away day at Chesterfield with some trophies, belches and memories of your own.
I’m sure I speak of behalf of all Stones fans when I say we wish you well, and hope to be playing you in a few years’ time.
The same fate befell us in 1992. Unceremoniously dumped out of the football league after just three seasons’ competition (in actuality, one and a half season’s competition, half a season of participation, and a season of joyless embarrassment), we started again. So can you. Seriously, if we did it given our then levels of ineptitude and lack of finances, so can you. We started playing Sunday under 18’s football in the D&J Tyres Kent Youth League. I have no idea if such a league still exists, or even if the sponsors are still a going concern. I am aware of how dispiriting that sounds. We made it through that season, though (a notable highlight being the 6-3 defeat of West Ham’s under 18’s team in West Ham’s first fixture following the death of Sir Bobby Moore), and the next season were playing in the Kent County Western Region Division 4. We thought things couldn’t get worse. We were in the fourth regionalised level of football in the left bit of the county. Our first game back in Saturday football was a 7-0 victory against Scott Sports Reserves. Read that again. Scott Sports Reserves. I have no idea if Scott Sports still exists, far less their reserve team. We romped home in first place that season with a team made up of local non-league football journeymen who fancied one last challenge, and the remnants of the League team’s youth squad. The following season we were in the Kent County Western Region Division 2. Division 4 had been scrapped, so we went up an extra division. That’s right, we’d been placed in such a low division that it’s being scrapped meant we couldn’t go any lower.
Over the next few seasons, we carried on, winning the odd promotion, the Weald of Kent and Tunbridge Wells Charity Cups, and a variety of trophies that would have meant nothing to us a few seasons before. But do you know what? I’m certain that I had far more fun schlepping around the backside of Kent trying to find teams I’d never heard of before than I would have done schlepping around the backside of the football league, and constantly wondering if the axe would fall. Some of our supporters walked to Oxford to raise money. I’ve seen us play two cup semi-finals in one day. I’ve watched an entire season of football, with us obtaining more points than anybody else, only for us to still somehow manage to finish second (it’s a long story). I’ve heard our name mentioned on Radio 1 because our captain ill-advisedly mooned a Mormon wedding couple. I’ve witnessed a supporter stop a game with an inhuman belch. I’ve seen us play in 10 different divisions, and call 5 grounds home (3 of which belonged to other teams, and 1 of which belonged to the aforementioned Mormon church, which must have made for an awkward phone call the next day).
It won’t be easy. It’ll be hard to accept at first. But the sense of camaraderie you might get with your fellow supporters will outstrip anything else you’ve achieved thus far. Seriously. As much as this hurts right now, in ten years’ time, you just might look back on this and feel a bit better about it. You’ll still wish it hadn’t happened, of course you will; but you might have replaced a dull away day at Chesterfield with some trophies, belches and memories of your own.
I’m sure I speak of behalf of all Stones fans when I say we wish you well, and hope to be playing you in a few years’ time.
