A Lot Less Hope And A Bunch Of Bananas

It has been a long time since I have been to the Darlington Arena. It's been a REALLY long time now that I come to think of it. For whatever reason (from the fact that there was hardly any football played at the Arena in the back end of the year, or I was too busy) I just haven't managed to catch a game. I can't actually remember the last match that I went to. Not that it matters, I can pretty much tell you the result.
I know. It is a big change of tune from posts of the past. Don't get me wrong, I still live in hope. It's just that the hope seems much more difficult to grab hold of now. I suppose the object of that hope has shifted slightly. It is now much less 'I really hope that Darlo can do the impossible and survive the drop' and has become 'well, here's hoping that we only have to sit out one season in the Conference before returning to League football'.

So seeing as I had a day off and nothing else planned, Dad and I headed to that bog white elephant on the outskirts of town. Torquay were the opposition and football was the game (supposedly). We started with a minutes silence in respect for Keith Alexander (the manager of Macclesfield) who died earlier in the week. Does it sound bad if I say that a minutes silence is my favourite part of any sporting event? I mean, obviously I don't love the reason why we have them but I love how the background chatter of a large crowd (1819 in this case) hushes (hopefully) and stands there altogether for a minute just amazes me. I love, love, love the atmosphere.... and then the roar when the ref blows the whistle to signal the end of the minute just seems so awesome. Having said that, it was somewhat muted today cos there weren't that many of us.

I really don't know what to say about the match in all honesty. It could hardly be called a football match. I will say that Darlo did play the better 'football'. Slightly. All the goals were really soft, except Torquay's third. Did I mention the result was 3-1 to Torquay? Hands up all those who are surprised.

Something grated on me today, apart from the fact that we lost again of course, and that Torquay's goalkeeper was literally twice the size of any other human being that ever existed, oh! and that the Torquay team looked and played like bananas, was the choice of Man of the Match. Curtis Main was the player on whom the award was bestowed. I've got to ask, WHY?! Fine he scored the goal (which was not a good one btw and he didn't do any of the work to 'create' it) but that was about it! The boy can't turn on the ball either so ended up passing the ball in really odd directions. I just don't understand how he was awarded it. Seems to me that not much thought went into the decision. Irritating.

It really isn't looking good for poor ol' Darlo. I'm pretty sure that there is no chance of survival now but I guess there is always hope while it is still mathematically possible.

*Sigh*