A week to enjoy ourselves again

The Man In The Stands We can all slag off why we're playing in the FA Cup so soon after the clocks went back - but The Man has loved this week.Standing behind a brick wall as Michael Nelson tried to see how many balls Paulton Rovers owned by kicking them out of the ground was a real 'we were there' experience.

The Man In The Stands

We can all slag off why we're playing in the FA Cup so soon after the clocks went back - but The Man has loved this week.

Standing behind a brick wall as Michael Nelson tried to see how many balls Paulton Rovers owned by kicking them out of the ground was a real 'we were there' experience.

And I almost felt sorry for the village side as Chrissy Martin relentlessly went about trying to overtake The Horse in our scoring charts in one match.

But Tuesday was the peak - the reason why maybe, just maybe, there has been a silver lining to our Championship demise.

There was a surreal pride in watching our second string side bust a gut in a fourth-rate competition, solely to please the man in charge and the 800-odd of us who brought some semblance of an atmosphere to Swindon on a Tuesday night.

The turgid 90 minutes of football was a necessary evil to see our lads look almost German in their penalty taking and give us the chance to celebrate with Jamie-lad, who made a special effort to actual run for the first time that evening to get to us.

It's cathartic, supporting your team in these situations.

It gives you a moment to forget the money worries, the stupid decisions.

You just enjoy going to watch your team play - however much it niggles that it took relegation to get there.

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Somehow the Premier League has turned down Mr Self-interested Phil Gartside - for now.

This is the Bolton chairman who's so scared Meggo is going to screw up his poor excuse for a top flight club, he wants to set up a two-tier Premier League.

It would have meant no promotion from League One - or whatever it would be called - and a closed shop to those teams in the top flight and Championship.

So effectively the end of competitive English football - although The Man could probably argue that happened a while ago.

Glasgow becoming part of England was also part of Gartside's 'idea' - and that was rejected out of hand. Why would Spurs, Villa and the like want more competition for a place in the European Super League?

But the two tier league could still happen - and is another reason why promotion back to the Championship this season is essential. We can't afford to miss any more boats.

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How long can a player survive on painkilling injections? Looks like we're going to find out.

The League One City legend that is The Horse is going under the needle before every game to help him get through it - a problem not sorted by his ankle surgery in the summer.

Obviously, us without The Horse is not going to do Lambo any favours. If Holt gets to Easter, he'll be doing well.

That said, we should probably keep it to ourselves.

We don't want to shoot ourselves in the ankle.

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So, all our injuries are down to Gunny and co according to Lambo.

That's probably not very surprising to most of us - there are all kinds of stories around about what happened during the previous 'regime'.

It's also no surprise Gunny is back in commercial activities with a mobile phone company - and not football.

But, as The Man has said before, he should never ever ever ever have been given the job in the summer - so be it fitness, results or Michael Flapalot-klitos, it's far from his fault.