Thoughts of a lifelong fan: Six games at home
We have six games at home against teams currently in 3rd, 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th and 18th whereas away from home we face clubs in 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 20th and 24th left before our fate is decided.
I, on a good day, think we will come good and win the required points to keep us in the EFL, but I really think we need to start collecting four points per two games played to make the two final games, away to Accrington Stanley and home to Salford City meaningless to us as regards our future league status.
Oldham Athletic, not a nice place to go to in my opinion, especially with no windows on your coach for the long journey home, are first up, this coming Saturday. Currently they sit in 15th position on 42 points having scored 34 goals and let in 30. Whereas we sit in 21st place with 28 points, having scored just one less than them but having conceded twenty-four more than they have. We really need to be looking to win this game, which sounds painfully obvious I know, because Swindon Town are the next visitors to the Broadfield Stadium, and they currently have accrued 61 points with 56 goals for, and 40 against.
Before we even travel to Oldham for our Saturday encounter, Shrewsbury are away to Salford City and Harrogate play Cheltenham in Yorkshire on Friday night. The best outcome for us must be a Salford win which will use up the Shrews game in hand on the Red Devils, and just about keeping them in the dogfight, just seven points above us. In the other game, part of the Saturday programme brought forward, a home win would see the Yorkshire side go above us, albeit only for a short while until we beat Oldham on the Saturday and would keep the other CTFC outfit in the basement just within reach of the ground floor entrance. If it went the other way, it would give us a chance to go five points clear of the relegation places and, as we have completed the double over them this season, that only seems fair to me.
Having appeared on television in the highlights package on Saturday evening, when Jay scored the equaliser against Chesterfield, going absolutely crazy with delight, I felt it was about time we had some luck go our way. Don’t get me wrong, there was no luck about the goal; it being set up by the White Pele, Ronan Darcy, for Jay Williams to send a bullet of a header into the Spireites net.The luck came, I think, in the first half when the away side spurned at least four clear chances to go ahead. Having said that, we also had good chances, but ours had to be earned rather than be given away by the opposition. The second half we played much better and with about ten minutes to go we almost drew level, when, unfortunately, Darcy’s shot came back off the outside of the left-hand post away to safety, if you happened to be a Spireite. Happily, though it didn’t matter in the end and we earned a good point against a good side.
Before the game, most of you will know, I was selling issues of RED DEVILS’ DIARY by the home turnstiles and enjoying the great comments, from both home and away fans alike, covering firstly how good it was to see there was a programme and secondly about the quality of the programme in general.
One Cambridge United fan emailed me personally to say; “As a Cambridge United fan, I just wanted to send my appreciation to you guys for continuing to produce a programme when the official club version has been discontinued. As an older supporter I still like to pick one up on a matchday, so I’m very glad to have obtained a copy. The late Ian Hands would very much approve.
"All the best to you and keep up the good work.”
It was also good to meet one of the owners, Ryan Gilbert, who was also complimentary of what we had achieved and bought a couple of programmes. If you haven’t already seen a copy, we do have some back copies available at just £1 each, if collected, or at £5 to £6 if needed to be posted.
So, in closing these thoughts of a lifelong fan, I would like to thank the RDD production team including Steve Hedges, Kev Neylon, Mick Fox, Ivan Noel and Grant Mansfield for their input in words and pictures, Ian Mulcahy of ctfchistory.net for the statistical data and Steve Herbert and Alain Harper for their information of how to get to the away games , but most of all to you, the supporters, for first of all buying the RDD, but also for your enthusiasm and gratitude, even when the old duffer selling them has a technical malfunction with the sum-up