SMBU end of season review 2008-09
Here be a review of the season 2008-2009 and what happened within it. We are Wycombe Wanderers and this was our campaign. And let it be known, that it ended in success and festivals. And God was glad.
August
The season began in a gloom matrix as playoff failure lingered in the heads of supporters like the Bicester & Vietnam wars, flashback images of black pudding and napalm at Edgeley Park and futile 46-game campaigns locked in the basement with no chance of escape. New signing Lewwis Spence chumped in an opening day rangefinder against Morecambe but when the unfancied seaside icons equalised in the second half the usual rage surfaced, submarine style. A monumental pinging by Birmingham in the League Cup a few days later led sane-brained people to conclude that 2008-09 was going to stink like a nylon sheath and that they were free to book up any bank holiday weekend they liked in 2009.
But lo, out of the ashes rose a new Wycombe, an old Wycombe, a binary Wycombe. Consecutive 1-0 wins against usually tough Lincoln and Chesterfield brought back memories of Hotel Lambert’s famous DOWNLEY DEFENSE, with Micky Williamson and LJ strolling like war veterans in some memorial gardens. Could Wycombe be on the verge of something massive?
Image of the month: Lee Hagger not ending a sentence with the word ‘out’.
September
As the Large Hadron Collider was cranked up, Wycombe benefited from a few deflections of their own, conceding only one goal in four games and cementing themselves as autumn promotion contenders
as they had done so many times before. Leading SMBU executives were forced to miss much of the Brentford home game as the Adams Park ticket collection system required a two hour vetting process. Fortunately, they were inside in time to see Scott McGleish have a johnny eppo after being substituted by the manager now known to aficionados as Petey T. Flinging his kit at the bench like a mooing scumbag, former Colchester striker McGleish sealed his fate with the majority of Wycombe fans, who instantly saw through his fantastic 2007-08 season of badly hit penalties and scuffed shots and realised he was a buzzcut coward who dressed like a soldier.
Car-park exit of the month: “Grow up”
October
October saw hideous levels of global debt vomit chunky spanners into the financial system but WWFC are famously unhindered by the laws of economics and cruised calmly onwards as the woodlands turned brown and the Vere Suite turned brown and everything turned brown. A sexually alluring home performance against Bournemouth ended 3-1 like a result from back in the 1990s, before fanzine collectors and red wine enthusiasts were cheered by three consecutive 1-1 draws. In the midst of this was a bizarre 7-0 Gash Cup reversal against Shrewsbury who were so excited they pumped out a 10 hour DVD of the match that was Shropshire’s biggest selling video since that one of a farmer doing a sudoku.
Geography of the month: Paul ‘Hotel’ Lambert made a surprise move to Essex minnows Colchester United after previously saying he had to return to Scotland to put his children through prison.
November
November saw the highs and lows of the FA Cup as Wycombe waltzed past non-league franchise side AFC ‘Wimbledon’ 4-1 in Kingston but then were done up against a willow tree in DH Lawrence’s home town of Eastwood. On a sloping pitch underneath floodlights made from scented candles Wycombe lost 2-0, and though they had not yet lost a league game, people in the Chilterns wept openly (from sores) in rank fear. No-one had seen this coming as in recent weeks Wycombe had romped past Port Vale at home 4-2 and then got a traditional away win at Meadow Lane. No-one of note had any real problem beating Vale or Notts County as demonstrated time and again in League Two in 2008-09.
Snake of the month: Hotel Lambert made a pathetic attempt to lure Mike Willamson to Col U. Get back in your Travelodge and polish your Champions League medal, you look well older than 39.
December
Wycombe feasted on goals at the start of advent with Magno Vieira’s career reaching a definitive high as he laughed two goals past Macclesfield in a re-arranged 4-0 disco dance at Adams Park. Such confidence soon evaporated as the Chairboys finally lost a game, 3-2 away at Aldershot. Half-time saw dismal booing from certain sections of the ubiquitous Drone Army, and sporadic fighting broke out amongst the travelling supporters, solid cracks to the face being mixed with glancing blows and sly pinches. If this was the result of one defeat then just what would happen if the team suffered their traditional winter collapse, mouth-breathing in the dirt by the verge of the A40.
A win at Shrewsbury just before Christmas was a brief recovery, the Shrews being pre-season favourites for League Two glory, based in their fairly new non Gay ground. The year ended with a brace of 1-1 draws as Wanderers fans steadied themselves for 2009.
Coup of the month: Karen Adams, granddaughter of Frank, became honorary president of the WWFC Supporter Trust. “I hope the club will sell off something named after me in future years” she joked, “You can’t put a price on progress.”
January
As Britain was covered in a piss-blanket of snow and slush, Wycombe slumped to two grimy defeats that gave the chasing pack a mainline shot of glucose, morphine and merlot. First the proud home record fell as likeable strugglers Grimsby won 1-0, then Bournemouth jerked to a 3-1 win on the south coast in front of a lacklustre Wanderers away following. Like the set-list at a Peter Kay gig, the sensations were depressingly familiar. Phrases such as “hey, the playoffs can be decent fun” and “I’m going to get an AK-47, walk into the Eden Centre and spray bullets until my fingers are stumps” were being banded around. One thing was for sure, the next few months were going to have more grind than an amphetamine-fuelled sheet metal worker.
Resignation of the month: Barack Obama came in but Keith Blagbrough made bigger headlines as he went the other way and quit as director of club after eating three consecutive sandwiches that fell beneath his rigourous standards. Sadly missed.
February
You want the story of February? Four games, two goals. One of them in a predictable reverse at Valley Parade enlivened by a kung-fu attack by Chris Zebroski (how frightening was it? A little bit), the other a Wycombe goal from juicy new signing Jon-Paul Pittman, a man sold to the supporters as being as glamourously American as Quantum Leap or David Koresh but actually as American as Slash is English, ie not very. But that didn’t matter as he guffawed through the Dagenham defence to give Wycombe a completely undeserved win five hours down the district line. Two successive goalless draws closed out the second month of the year in dismal style but even the biggest lover of dream football/The Project had by this point sacrificed his principles and was ready to slaughter new-born animals to get out of the division. The sight of Histon at the top end of the Blue Square Premier was proof that if Wycombe did not escape the bottom flight this time round then there was literally no point carrying on.
Document of the month: Wycombe helped produce a document called ‘Imagine The Future’ for the local council, which was mainly based on the plot of Terminator II and ended with Desborough Road being engulfed in a nuclear holocaust and the Half Moon being run by cruel robots. Plus ca change.
March
Fixture congestion and religious holidays for Beeks Construction workers meant that Wycombe had to play seven games in March and like a rocket fired directly into your very brain, they brought pain. One solitary win saw the chance of the title evaporate and even promotion now looked like a smear on the back of a goods train disappearing into the distance. Anger and blame was everywhere, as people muscled up and launched vile attacks on the players that they deemed responsible. Poor Chris Casement, on loan from Ipswich, looked like a dog on an oil rig most of the time and he wasn’t helped by tuneless barracking from the sidelines. Wycombe games now had so much jeering that players crouched on all fours in fear and tore out the few remaining blades of grass from the pitch with their bleeding teeth. A live TV home draw against Shrewsbury snapped the space-time continuum so much that Gary Holt was briefly happy, a fairly unpleasant sight, it must be said. Perhaps the one bright spot of the month was a pulsating 3-3 draw at Brentford. As the match report said, “we can still finish third”. Bravado at best.
Comeback of the month: Numerous Wanderers heroes from the past came on the pitch before the game against Chesterfield and everyone went “fuck, that’s actually pretty good”.
April
April was Kevin Big Potatoes time, six more games including plump clashes with direct rivals Gillingham and Exeter over the Christian festival of Easter. Loan signings John Akinde, Frank Sinclair and Lee Sawyer had added something to the team, even if it was just more variety for moaning fans. But, no, something was up, the move into spring had allowed Wycombe to shake off their winter hairshirt and on a quiet Tuesday evening in Darlington the team secured a last minute winner (from Zebroski) that seemed, like in a spleen-shattering Jerry Bruckheimer film, to signal an implausible turn of fate with our heroes back in the groove. After Darlington, Gillingham were turned over. A subsequent defeat to Exeter didn’t really shake anyone’s ballbag, instead Wycombe welcomed Aldershot to Adams Park and fired a salvo down their meek soldier necks. Thanks for taking our unbeaten run, here’s a Monkman ratatouille. WYCOMBE WERE BACK.
The drive and ambition continued on a balmy Tuesday in Luton, where a zeal-fuelled Wanderers away support roared their team onto a nervy 1-0 win at non-league Kenilworth Road. Now just inches from the chequered flag, the Chairboys needed just a win from their final two games to be sure, and they were scheduled to face bottom-half bandits Port Vale and Notts County.
Departure of the month: Former manager and local commerce king Mike Keen died aged 69. Sadly there was no opportunity for Wycombe fans to pay respects to him at a home game. RIP.
Vale & County
No Wycombe fan in their right mind thought that the league would be decided at Vale Park and it was a blessed relief to see that less than a thousand made the vile and worthless trip north to a place so horrible it doesn’t actually exist. Tuning into the game on a 2003 wap phone at quarter past four it was no surprise to see that Wanderers were 1-0 down and heading for gloom valley. Thankfully, loan signing Lee Sawyer, derided by the Drone Army for a lack of walnuts in his opening few games, struck powerfully to hand the Chairboys a draw and one foot in League One.
The permutations for the final day of the season were numerous but it boiled down to this: promotion could only be avoided if Wanderers shat it down their legs like eggs benedict. Just a draw was enough to undo the work done by Timber Tony Adams and Lulu Sanchez in 2004. Even defeat could be acceptable as long as Bury didn’t manage to swing the goal difference in our meaty faces. But it wouldn’t come to that, Wycombe had sold out Adams Park and people were crawling out of the woodwork at some pace. It was all set for a memorable day.
Sadly, the Wycombe team stuttered nervously and phlegmed up their lines like Romanian actors as a Notts County team officially described as “gash” on the Football League website strolled around Sands like the Hitler Youth. Fans cowered behind their facepaint and chagrin as County cruised into half-time 1-0 up thanks to a 60 yard shot that Jamie Young ushered into his goalnet with sickening hospitality. A second half equaliser by captain Dave McCracken seemed to be enough but a last minute winner from the world’s oldest league club left Wycombe fans young and old defecating into bins as those with wireless access to Gigg Lane relayed a sickening train of events that seemed all too likely to end in woe.
But after five years in this wretched basement they call League Two, Jesus smiled on Wycombe Wanderers and Bury could only ease past Accrington 1-0. The pride of Bucks were up, back at the level they have been so keen to return to, and the fans celebrated by turning on each other in faction-based hatred. This is what makes our club special and they can never take it away.
Image of the month: Different species dancing together in a car park like a sci-fi Darwin disco. These were the salad days.
Conclusion
A season that began in nervous agitation ended in exactly the same way and much of the middle portion was nothing to write home about either. But after seasons of trying to play our way out of this division, thank the Lord that Petey T came along and taught every single one of us that League Two is a bitchy prison that you can only escape with dockyard grit and every excuse in the book. 1-0 wins, 1-1 draws and throwing cup games like Hans Segers at a birthday party is the only way to crawl out of this pit and we’ve done it. Where WWFC can finish in League One in 2009-10 is almost irrelevant at this point. We’ve come out of soccer Strangeways blinking eagerly in the winter sunshine and maybe this time we can go straight. Maybe we really can.
Viva Wycombe, Viva the Blues.
oily sailor – May 2009
