Okay, so in the space of a week the season would appear to have come to a premature end. And at the moment, that hurts a bit. It’s still painful, and with hindsight perhaps a little embarrassing, to think that a little over a week back we nurtured dreams of a double triumph. Possibly we all got carried away, and let ourselves imagine unlikely twin glory while ignoring the evidence that never this season have we found any consistency.
Anyway, it’s over now. Our season effectively ended when a Marlon fumble was followed by the mass dropping of heads at Walsall, with much of the damage having been done in Watford and Sheffield in the days before. There’s nothing much left to get excited about now, although of course there’s still honour and the hope of a top half finish to play for, and still the prospect of poor performances to frustrate us.
My contention is that it is not necessarily any bad thing to have an unexciting end to the season for once. Frankly, we’ve all been a bit spoilt in recent years by having seasons that went to the final lap. (I concede that the sickening and apparently annual anti-relegation battles we grew into the habit of enduring a few years back didn’t feel particularly like treats at the time, but looking back it can’t be denied that there was something exhilarating in a successful struggle against the drop.)
To be honest, I don’t mind a season that doesn’t, for once, go down to the wire. An April without sleepless nights and chewed fingernails will be a novelty. There’s a lot to be said for meaningless ends of seasons. We used to get them all the time, of course, but in these days of play-offs they are rather rarer. Since that innovation – something I’ve never particularly been a fan of – you can cock up half a season, lose a load of games and still be in with a shout come May. Heaven knows what things are going to be like if the current, money-driven proposal to extend play-off qualification still further comes to fruition. Are sides going to be going into April simultaneously fighting relegation and trying to make the play-offs? If the play-offs generate revenue and excitement without rewarding attainment over the course of a season in the league, why not just let everyone who doesn’t actually get relegated enter them? In fact, why not just scrap the league altogether and replace it with a season long play-off?
So, let us make the most of that increasingly rare phenomenon: the meaningless end of season. There’s some pleasure to be derived from this. For one thing, matches don’t matter so much, so you can’t be bothered getting worked up so much when we get beat. Let those stress levels fall. It is at these times that the social aspects of attending football matches come to the fore. We really need to get back to terracing – and there’s an article to be written there – for it to work properly, but games become an opportunity to catch up with folk and have a natter in the context of watching a football match. Try to spend the rest of the season sitting in different places and talking to different people. You may enjoy the novelty.
Then, of course, in meaningless seasons we have an opportunity to really concentrate on our drinking. My advice, frankly, for those who fret at this season’s pointless end, is to drink more. When results don’t matter, why leave the Sparrow at a quarter to three when you can have another pint and miss the kick off? One good thing about the defeat at Walsall was the timing of the opposition third goal. There’s only one train every half an hour between Bescot and New Street, and another five minutes would have been crucial. But fortunately the generosity of our defence meant that I was able to catch the 16.32, and thereby enjoy a crucial extra half hour drinking real Irish stouts and porters at an Irish beer festival in Digbeth.
For the remainder of the season, I may look favourably on calls to revise the Three Goal Rule so that we leave after only two goals.
I do admit there is a downside to this petering out of the season. Attendances will fall. I appreciate that this happens, although I don’t claim to understand it. I have found that I attend a remarkably similar number of matches each season. The level at which we’re playing, the opposition we’re facing and the importance of the encounter don’t seem to have been particularly relevant in deciding my attendance over the course of my life. I have concluded that I go because I enjoy going to football matches and watching Burnley, and so will continue to go. If I go because I like going, why should I stop in March when there’s games until May? Will only edge of seat excitement lure people to matches? If so, that's a shame, because people who only show for crucial games are missing out on the gentle pleasures of a saunter towards the end of the season.
The really bad thing, of course, is that it will shortly be the time of the year when the club is trying to sell season tickets. For what it’s worth, we’ve said it before here, and we’ll say it again: this is not the time to desert your club. Financial crisis was narrowly averted; let’s not do our bit to bring it back. A fourth successive season at a good level of football is no good reason to give up your seat. Although personally, I wouldn’t mind if a couple of people with decent seats in the Upper Longside decided not to renew this year. I’m looking for somewhere to buy my first season ticket in years...
The other great thing about not being in the play-offs is that it frees up a whole load of time in May. You can take a holiday. You can even book it with confidence now. And you can afford it, with all the money you saved from not having to go to play-off matches. You can enjoy the break, too. Generally, by the time we get to the end of the football season, I’m ready for a breather. I’m not one of those sad souls who mopes about on summer Saturdays. I regard summer as the opportunity to pursue other interests, such as not getting up at six o’clock on a Saturday morning, sitting in the garden enjoying a glass of wine, and working out how many weeks it is to the start of the football season. By the time it comes round again, I’m ready for it. The problem with play-offs is they truncate the summer. The season is extended by weeks, and suddenly all that crucial lounging around and lazing has to be squeezed into a much shorter space of time. You don’t get a decent break, and before you know it, it’s the football season again. This summer is perfect, without a World Cup or even an Olympics to distract us. We can enjoy a long, football-free summer (particularly if, like all sensible people, we choose not to visit the Isle of Man) and by the time August hoves into view, we’ll be desperate to see the Clarets again.
I was going to add that the early end of the competitive season was good because it would give Stan an opportunity to try a few things out, take a look at some of the fringe and younger players and get the team playing flowing, attacking football again, but I realised that would come across as a bit too tongue in cheek.
Ah well, I suspect I’ll not have convinced many, but that’s the case for, and thinking about it has offered me some comfort in the dim days after Watford. Feel free to disagree, as ever, but try not to take it all too seriously. In this dismal time for the world, following a football team seems increasingly like a harmless bit of fun.
