7103/19623
But supporting them is a fool’s errand. They have languished in non-league football for a good while now, briefly escaping a few years back at the expense of Luton Town (whatever happened to them) before being demoted in consecutive seasons for the ignominy of the National League North. They’ve been there for a while. It’s a very difficult division to escape. Just when the team were hitting a run of form that suggested they might get out a couple of years ago, Covid hit and the season was cancelled. They did get a play off place, but failed to progress.
This season, if memory serves me right, York lost their first four matches and were bottom of the league and it looked like relegation might be on the cards again. But somehow over the last few months they managed to turn their fortunes around and reached an incredible 5th place, good enough for a play off place, but twenty one points off of the top play off place and twenty eight points off top of the league. Absolutely pathetic. Just as any of their fans would expect. It was still a chance to escape this terrible division to a slightly less terrible division. Before then immediately returning to this terrible division. But I didn’t think it was going to be possible. The team’s recent form has been good, but they would have to win three matches in a row, including one against Brackley, the team that finished 21 points ahead of them. Even if they managed that it wouldn’t seem very fair.
York won their first match against Chorley on Wednesday and today played Brackley. I couldn’t get the York local radio to work, so listened to the match on Northampton radio, which was prejudiced towards the obviously better side. However York scored first, before typically immediately giving away a penalty, before untypically saving the penalty. York won the match. They’re one game way from promotion.
It’s the hope that kills you.
In less important football news, it was the FA Cup final today. And then the Eurovision song contest straight away after. As a kid these were two events which I could watch with a bowl of sweets and/or crisps and other treats. So to have both of them on the same day would have meant I would have exploded. Phoebe watched a bit of the song contest for the first time and seemed to have grasped that the point of doing so is to make sarcastic comments about each song/performer.
I realised that I was about the same age as her when I’d watched Abba triumph back in 1974. I was severely affected by Agneta’s beauty and from that day (until this) had the ardent wish that she would appear in my bedroom in just her pants. I wondered if there would be any awakening in Phoebe from this year and I guess we’ll find out if she ever brings home a yellow wolf. She flaked out with about 10 songs to go, but so did we.
