The moment we realize were all heading in the same direction.
The way our numbers swelled with every street we passed.
We heard the distant singing. The smell of hotdogs hanging heavy in the autumn air.
All around us the talk was of former glories of opportunities missed, the hope that this season it might be different, better, higher.
Passed the police horses bigger than anything that Ive ever seen. And into the line, the press of the crowd, turn stiles cold and loud and heavy up the steps. Tingling with anticipation and suddenly there it was, the vast expanse of a pitch.
At either and the empty goals, portals to our soles.
Our minds conjured images of bulging nets, their nets, not ours, because if not, it would be a long, long time till next Saturday.
We were part of something, part of something that others less lucky than us would never understand.
There was a bond, a bond between us and the boys on the pitch, and between each and everyone who paid to see them play.
We sang our songs and cursed the refs. We shared the ecstasy and we shared the pain. We kicked each ball, we won or lost.
We won, we lost, you should have been there, it was simpler then. We knew the players and they knew us. Come rain or shine up or down home or away at three o clock at a Saturday afternoon.
We were as one, we loved it, unconditionally.
It was our temple, our place of worship, our escape. It was the one place where any of us really mattered.
But somewhere along the line, it changed and it changed the way it treated us.
As the stadiums grew and the stands crept closer to the touchline, somehow the players we worshiped seemed to get smaller, further away.
He kissed the badge, than left for more money. He moved from the sport pages to the front pages. Okay, so maybe thats none of our business.
But it is our business when he walks right passed the kid who wants an autograph all the time talking to his agent on a mobile phone.
It is our business when he tries to hurt another professional.
Its our business because hes just plain wrong.
We would like to shout out: hey, we pay your wages, but of course, these days we dont. Theyre paid by the TV revenues and there premium packages. The guys in suits, whose seats stand empty when they finish of the half-time deserts.
And the Russian and American billionaires absentee landlords who d rather watch their stock quest than a good game of football. What the hell do those people really know about football? And whats the point.
Do they really care?
We dont matter, we dont matter, we dont matter anymore, we dont matter anymore.
Because, as the stakes in the premier league become higher. As the salary bill climbes, many clubs have seem to forgotten that the initials FC stand for Football club.
But there is one that remembers Its a club where every player, every member of staff and every fan still matters. A club whos ground might not the smartest, or the biggest or the newest.
But it is surely is the most intimate.
Playing or watching football on that ground is timeless. And those who do even today still feel theyre part of something, something special.
Everyone loves to win, but for the fans of this club, its less about winning titles than confounding the critics.
Exceeding our own expectations and having a good time. Could thereve been a better time in the end. In the last few weeks of the 2007-08 season.
The great escape, when a win on the last day at Portsmouth clinched another season in the top flight. Because football at this club has always been a little bit different.
Sometimes charming, occasionallyeccentric, but always, and this has never changed, closer, more personal.
Its said that the spirits of the founding fathers still lurk in the ancient wooden stand. If so, their values, their sense of what is right and what is wrong? Of what is still to be encouraged amongst ones own. And what is to be resisted at all costs, are clearly contagious.
Here a player was once made man of the match, having spend the entire game on the bench, because the eleven on the field had played so poorly.
Here a women who has worked in the ticket office for 35 years will rise at 5 am on a Saturday, so she could be there when the fans leaving for an away match board their coaches.
Sometimes she makes them cups of tea.
And earlier this season, the club wrote a letter to a group of fans whod travelled to every away game. Not to say the prices will have to rise, but simply to say thank you.
At this club people regularly do things that others in the premiership would never even consider. Let alone sanction. And they do it not because they want to create good pr.
But because they still remember how it felt that very first time.
And most of all the do it because its the right thing to do.
