“I don’t believe in pressure. Pressure is not being prepared for what you want to do.”
C.Kaepernick.
The streets around the ground were strangely quiet before the game. Barrow needed an unlikely win to give them much chance of staying in the League. We needed a win to give ourselves a decent chance of automatic promotion. What could have been. Wins thrown away or given away by Referees, injuries at bad times and, maybe, nerves leading to defeat at home to Grimsby, another game we had ample chances to win. Pressure is a funny thing. It can bring out the best or worst in anyone. Results have been bizarre for weeks but it looks to me as if MK have benefitted the most from uncertainty elsewhere. We might have been Champions. Then again, if we go back to League One after a mere one season, I will be delighted. Look at the other teams who came down. If we go up this time, we will stay up. We have a very good team, despite missing a genuine centre forward, a role that Appere has been asked to perform at times, although not really designed for it. It annoys me that people get on his back. He has ability and could well be a really valuable player for us in the future.
Walking over the Common, I got talking to some of the 265 Barrow fans who’d left Cumbria at 6.30 that morning. They weren’t optimistic but they were real fans who’d come in the hope of making a real difference. I enjoyed talking football with them. After the game I was angry that some of the Burberry Boys, who mistakenly call themselves our fans, baited the Barrow fans and intimidated a number of elderly supporters. How brave. How impressive. Not only that, they’ve taken to singing IRA songs. What that has to do with football or with supporting your team, I don’t know. I hope that the club disown them. They have no place in a club like ours.
Then to work. In bright sunshine we played towards the South Stand and it was really one way traffic. KaiKai missed a couple of chances before going of injured. He and Knight had obviously been identified as the main threat and were kicked about a bit. As was Mpanzu, who is probably a bit too big to intimidate. Anyway Brophy came on and had a stormer. A couple more chances were headed over. The Abbey was ominously quiet and then Dom Ball floated over an exquisite cross which Bennett headed back across goal for Ben Knight to finish crisply and well. Ben doesn’t yet realise how good he is. He needs to be more ruthless and more selfish and then he will be the complete player. He causes havoc and after his goal he became much more effective. Confidence will come with time. Barrow were being outclassed now. They were hoofing the ball as high and as far as possible. They weren’t ever likely to score. Watts headed just wide. My only worry was that a United player might respond to another poor challenge and be sent off. But everyone stuck to their task in the most professional way.
Kicking towards the NRE in the second half it seemed a question of time before we scored again. I told Simon Lankester that I thought that we would win 3-0. Really it should have been more but when our second goal came it was a beauty. Ball, who oozed class all afternoon, squared the ball to Gibbons who smacked the ball into the top corner of the net from some distance. After the game he told KaiKai that he should have the trophy for Goal Of The Season. I wouldn’t argue. The stadium erupted with joy. The result would be what we needed and we had witnessed a truly special moment. Gibbo has had a sensational season and is twice the player he was.. Barrow looked crestfallen. Class was telling.
Kell Watts went off injured. We must hope he’s back for Saturday’s game but it was great to see Michael Morrison on the pitch. I suspect that was his farewell to the Abbey Stadium. He is a leader through and through and what a great servant he has been to the club. Not so Kachunga. I felt that he has let down the club which has been paying his not inconsiderable wages. A farewell for him on the pitch would not have been popular. Nevitt came on for Appare and played really well. I really would like to see the two of them playing together. I suspect that they would compliment each other. Then Stanway, the Barrow Goalkeeper seemed to punch Mayor’s cross into his own net before being booked for a fairly childish protest to the Referee. He’d also been arguing with fans in the NRE and seemed to me to have lost concentration. He should have known better.
It had been a one sided game and now everything hangs on the game at Crewe on Saturday. 2,200 United fans will be there making some noise. If we want it enough and play with confidence, we will win and the party will last long into the night-and longer I suspect.
Andrew Stephen