I haven’t posted anything for about a year and a half. It is possibly the time to rectify that.

Our trip to Crewe Alexandria on Good Friday (15/04/2022) was designated the Volunteers’ Awayday for this season.

I have been volunteering on and off at the club for a few years now. I hadn’t actually intended volunteering this season. However, we had a major problem with our ticketing arrangements at the start of the season. One of the consequences was that the season tickets were not sent out on time. Season ticket holders were asked to pick them up in person from the stadium. Not having anything better to do on that particular day, also because I hadn’t actually been to our new stadium I decided to wander along.

I collected my ticket and had a look round the club shop (I ended up spending about £100). It may have been a ploy by the club to get us all into the shop. As I was leaving I bumped into an old friend, who I used to volunteer with back at Kingsmeadow and who I hadn’t seen since COVID-19 curtailed the 2019-20 season. We said hello, and got chatting. Then he said “Are you doing anything for the next couple of hours? Could you give us a hand with some advertising hoardings?”. I wasn’t, so I said yes, and ended up as part of the work party volunteers team.

My reward was a trip to Crewe, with lunch and a match ticket thrown in.

The trip up to Crewe was fine, the lunch was fine, things started to go wrong, as so often this season when the football started.

Actually the first half went quite well. Our on loan striker, previously known as a waste of space, scored a decent goal on about the twenty minute mark. We went in at half time, one nil up and on top without ever looking dominant.

It started to go wrong fifteen minutes into the second half. Our striker who we were thinking might just be OK, made a suicidal back pass to our ‘keeper. It was intercepted by their centre forward and we were back on level terms again. Every one was silenced, even the Crewe fans, a collective “WTF”. The heads dropped, two minutes later we were two one down.

That was probably the moment we were relegated, at least in my mind. We tried to get it back, but the belief had gone. Deep into added time, while pressing ineffectively for on equaliser, we gave the ball away and they scored a third. And that was it.

The full horror show highlights? Are shown above.

It was a long depressing trip back to SW19, only brightened by the landlord of the Alex inviting us volunteers back for a pint.