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LILLIBET M'S MONTHLY OUTLOOK MAR. 05
So, Spring is at our doorstep! Along with the daffodils and Easter Eggs we can look forward to a return to form for Boro. The sun will come out and warm up weary bones - mine included I hope - and the bad memories of the last three months will be consigned to memory along with the winter coats and de-icer. I hope.
It feels so strange to get treated so badly by something that you love so much - kind of like a dysfunctional marriage - but there is no option of divorce here, not least because the ties that bind are too strong. As football has a strange way of warping time I suppose it's only natural that instead of a seven year itch we have a seven month itch and there is no doubt that we are going through some strained times.
As Boro's form entered a kind of no man's land of blandness, ineffectiveness, can't be arsed-ness and sometimes downright god-awful playing, I flirted with the notion of putting my energies into other forms of leisure and entertainment. Problem is, everywhere you look there are reminders.
This week's Jamie's School Dinners - where Jamie Oliver works wonders in the London Borough of Greenwich, and is an otherwise excellent expose of how the government only pays lip service to the growing obesity and health problems of the nation by not giving a shit about poor kids or other groups with no power - contained the words "I'm gonna spend all summer holidays worrying about The Boro." I know how he feels.
Fame Academy was quite a good distraction, but even then the colour red was all around as it was connected with Comic Relief. Come the big night itself, although Edith won, and we saw the genius Peter Kay video for "Show me the way to Amarillo", ultimately it wasn't enough to remain a distraction for long.
I am ashamed to say that my attention wandered from focusing on the very real desperate plight of others to wandering thoughts of "There's the midgets from Phoenix Nights. And look, they're wearing Bolton shirts! Was it really a year ago since we won the Carling Cup? God, what a day that was, still gets me all quivery, wonder our next big landmark moment will be. You know we really could beat Sporting next season - COME ON BORO!". I am a shallow person.
So then I tried to watch the rugby but gave up as it is a very silly game, which I do not understand. Let's face it, it just doesn't cut the mustard.
So, this brought me back to Boro and the focus on the Euro campaign. Well, after the home match against Sporting it seemed that we really were still in with a chance, and all Boro fans were still daring to believe that the final eight was the next step.
It was so tense that for the first half I could hardly see and hardly concentrate, so was grateful for the top quality match report that this site provides. I just remembered that, comfortingly, there were a lot of red shirts all over the TV screen. By the time the second half came, I realised that our defending was much better than it had been in recent games, and the spirit of New Boro was very much in evidence.
Until the ninetieth minute I still believed that we were in with a chance of going through and when Barbosa scored, the shock and disappointment was pretty breathtaking. However there was also a hell of a lot of respect mixed in for the way we had conducted ourselves on our first Euro campaign.
We bowed out knowing that we left with dignity, our outrageous injury record so beyond belief that it is almost funny and our ravaged squad still didn't give up. Yes, we lost, and that is bottom line stuff, but I have no doubt whatsoever that if we were playing with a full squad then we would be in the quarters.
With the return of the New Boro spirit there was no reason to believe that we would not be back next year. The disappointme0nt also brought hope.
Until the Southampton game. I am at a loss to find an explanation as to how we were humiliated at The Riverside by a team that had not won away from home for so long. It seems almost cruel to have had our hopes raised seventy-two hours earlier and then have to deal with another shocking blow.
OK Boro, cards on the table. Easter is traditionally the time of new beginnings and renewed energy. I'm prepared - as always - to start afresh and look to the future. So I'm looking to the rest of the season with renewed confidence that we can turn things around.
Motivation should also come from the fact that we will not be able to attract and keep a first class squad should the worse case scenario happen. Although and thankfully, Mark Schwarzer is staying I don't even want to contemplate the immediate future without Man of the Year Bolo Zenden, for example.
But all the respect and devotion in the world is not going to keep players in a club that cannot offer regular sojourns into Europe. And it's not too late to achieve this. It's time to start getting things back on track.
Until next month.
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