No Fangks, Furg Off: We're The One & Only... Away to a pack o'Wolves Sat 25/11/17

[Lost Leopard Spot]

We're going to get slaughtered. Eaten alive.
But we're still the One & Only Wanderers...

[TANGODANCER]

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.”― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Sort of sums up the situation right about now.....but we are and always will be, THE ONE AND ONLY WANDERERS..

[bristol_Wanderer3]

They have a central midfielder who cost £15.8m, an attacking player who cost £7m, and a sub who cost £13m. You could say we are the underdogs. Therefore 0-1

[Jakerbeef]

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.”― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Sort of sums up the situation right about now.....but we are and always will be, THE ONE AND ONLY WANDERERS..

Stirring stuff. Let's hope point(s) turn into prizes, right...about...
...
now!

[TANGODANCER]

Time to move now. We have to forget Wolves top the table and we're hanging in there, balls to daisy by a cobweb, and unfeared by butterflies. Playing at home they'll be howling fit to blow out birthday candles and cocky as they've ever been.
I remember Billy Wright and all since, the Doogans; , the Hobbitts' oh, make that Hibbets', The Bulls' and all the rest of the great pretenders, so it's time to show just who really are the one and only Wanderers. We can do this if we fight. A draw won't even be a good result in our position. Give em some welly and cry out "McGinlay, McGinlay, remember McGinlay" and come home with the points...

[Bijou Bob]

I'll take a point now.........which I suspect is much more than we'll get. I suspect the race may well come down to goal difference so if we can keep them down to 2, I'd actually take that.

[Harry Genshaw]

I can't see beyond a 0-5 gubbing for this one

[Prufrock]

No offenc, but that's a poor thread title. Not for me, no fanks.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

This has got the ring of March 4 1989, when we went there under Phil Neal. The season before (when we were both in Division Four) they'd done us 4-0; it was the Mutch-Bull("-sh*t!") era, they were flying high again, nine points clear at the top with 64pts from 29 games. (They'd end up champions with 92pts and 96 goals.)

Meanwhile we were 19th on 34 points, so they were twice as good as us. More importantly, having only just come up from the Fourth we were just five points above the dots, and we hadn't won away in the league in four months since Tricky Trevor Morgan gave us a 1-0 at Huddersfield. In fact, since that win at Leeds Road (kids, ask your dad), our away form read
L 0-3 Brentford
L 1-3 Preston
L 0-2 Notts County
L 0-1 Cardiff
L 0-2 Bristol Rovers
L 0-4 Sheffield United
L 0-2 Blackpool

...so in most games we weren't even close. It was a toss-up between which was worse: getting beat by laughing local rivals (we'd been done 4-2 at home by Bury), or the long pointless trips to godforsaken holes like Twerton Park and Ninian Park without even a sniff of a goal. Somewhere in between, the trip to Bramall Lane, where the Blades' strikeforce of Brian Deane and Tony Agana were almost laughably superior to our trundling old Trev and trusty but limited John "JT" Thomas and were sending them, too, to automatic promotion; when we went 4-0 down, Phil Neal removed ageing winger Peter Barnes and brought himself on as a fifth defender, in what would now be called damage limitation but at the time felt like the wrong sort of white flag to be flying high.

It was not a good time.

Most fans I knew would have been happy to keep Wolves down to six.

And this is where the Hollywood ending comes in, kids, as the old warhorse JT - born just up the road in Wednesbury – scored a wonderful last-minute winner to...

Nope. That didn't happen. They beat us 1-0, and now we were only three points above the dots.

But what did happen next was that we stopped losing. After Wolves we went WDDDWDWDDWDDWWDW in the league to finish 10th. As we climbed the table, we gained belief: in one of those draws, at home to Notts County, we went in at half-time 3-0 down but came back to draw and I still say Nicky Brookman was sandwiched for a definite pengy in the last minute.

And in among that came another run, to Wembley; even during our barren winter we'd kept winning in what was then the Sherpa Van Trophy. Four days after Brookman's non-penalty Julian Darby scored the only goal of the semi-final (well Northern Final) home leg, and a week later Tomo - Steve, at the time - scored an extra-time spot-kick to take us to Wembley, where brilliantly we'd face not Wolves, but their surprise conquerors Torquay. After finally winning away in the last league game of the season – 3-2 at Northampton's cricket ground - we did the Seagulls 4-1 at Wembley, and the season after that we reached the play-offs, and the season after that we reached the play-off final, and the season after that we got a taste for the big cup games when we matched Southampton home and away for the majority of the 210 minutes, and then came Bruce and everything changed forever.

What that has to do with this weekend's game, I dunno. We might lose. We might get whupped. But we'll always be the Wanderers, the only ones that matter, and every down has an up, and we'll be there for both, and we wouldn't have it any other way. This is my team, my town, my love. Come on you white men. Give us your best, because we give you our lives.

[bristol_Wanderer3]

I remember the stirring comeback in the 3-3 Notts County game well. On the Manny Road terrace north, stoic middle aged gentlemen were moved to previously unheard of displays of emotion when the equalizer went in. To be fair there had been little to shout about for the decade or so before that...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I remember the stirring comeback in the 3-3 Notts County game well. On the Manny Road terrace north, stoic middle aged gentlemen were moved to previously unheard of displays of emotion when the equalizer went in. To be fair there had been little to shout about for the decade or so before that...

I'd been abroad and then living in London and had missed a lot of football. I'd just moved back up north the week before and that was my first home game in over ten years. It was also the first time I'd gone to Burnden Park without my grandfather. It's one of the few games I've got totally seared in my memory.

[Harry Genshaw]

That was a lovely blast from the past DSB. Cheers.

I had a £20 bet with a Bury sympathiser that we'd finish above them that season. He'd been crowing all season long at how the money was in the bag but had started to get worried at our run and the Shakers post xmas collapse.

At half time in the Notts County game we were 3 down and Bury were leading 1-0 at Aldershot. He told me on the Monday it was the moment he thought his money was safe. At full time, we had a point and they'd lost 4-1. I think we overtook them in the penultimate game of the season.

A win today would be one of our most surprising results in years....

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I had a £20 bet with a Bury sympathiser that we'd finish above them that season. He'd been crowing all season long at how the money was in the bag but had started to get worried at our run and the Shakers post xmas collapse.

You can see why. This, per 11v11's league table generator, is what the table looked like after our loss at Wolves - while we were three points above the four-team drop zone, they were third, albeit having played a load more games than Blades.

Screen Shot 2017-11-25 at 11.48.13.png (118.08 KiB) Viewed 6973 times

Funny things, streaks, and I hope that even if we lose today it's not the end of our good one. Some (other) difficult games coming up but also utterly vital homers against Barnsley and Burton which we really can't afford to lose because "something's not quite clicking" or "we're in a bit of a dip".

One other thing - £20 was a lot of money in those days. IIRC a Paddock ticket was £3.50, and Bury were doing kids' STs for a tenner...

[DJBlu]

Gonna do em. 2-1.

[TANGODANCER]

Gonna do em. 2-1.

Make that 2-0. Don't like being just one goal in front, that's asking for trouble. 2-0 up with one minute to go and even Barcelona would realise they lost.

[TonyDomingos]

351AEA5B-CA3C-4E08-BABB-038C3E39AF50.jpeg (167.67 KiB) Viewed 6898 times

[DJBlu]

Gonna do em. 2-1.

Make that 2-0. Don't like being just one goal in front, that's asking for trouble. 2-0 up with one minute to go and even Barcelona would realise they lost.

The one we'll concede shall be 90+3 so you'll have your wish.

They have to lose one soon.

[Jim_McDonuts]

Wow! Pattonesque motivation from DSB - feel somehow better, thank you. Is there a word fir being hopeful and pessemistic at the same time?

[cecil.bob]

Look like we have a stream? Not familiar with the Reddit threads...

[TANGODANCER]

Just come back in from a very cold and wet dog walk and got the kettle on. Don't know what the weather's like down in middle earth, but the Hill would have been fierce today, so can't be any worse..Beevers slots back in at the expense of Burke who is on the bench but the rest is as you were. Britches ass v the designer boys then, but we'll ever be the one and only's so, as ever.......COME ON YOU WHITES........