Not going

Life has conspired against me. It’s mid September and I am yet to see Luton Town Football Club kick a ball in actual real life this season. I can’t speak to anyone about anything. I sit alone, a worthless armchair bore. As empty inside as a Watford trophy cabinet; smelling only slightly less of hollow, synthetic, production-line pizza. So here follows 500 words on what I think is going wrong on the pitch.

Not really, obviously.
  

It’s tempting though you know, in this world of click-bait and cat videos, to just fire out a slurry-load of Townsend into the air based on other people’s rants and tweets about our slow start. I could fill these pages ten times over with third-hand opinions on formations and overheard line-ups, like a smug music scene think-they-are regurgitating a snide two star review of a gig they never saw as if it’s their own.

Until you've felt the punch in the stomach of a last minute goal for a third and fourth time, and seen with your own eyes who of the eleven is really hurt at the sound of the final whistle; who is feeling the defeat like the rest of us; who has given every last drop of sweat to make your journey home bearable. Until you've seen that, you can never really form a proper opinion can you? So as I haven’t been yet, I can’t really write about all that.

If you've ever had a little sabbatical from going whether by choice or by circumstance you might recognise this brief pool of impotence from which I currently write. From here, moaning about the result feels like it’s the private right of those trudging back towards town through the constantly confused Hazelbury Crescent traffic in the cold September rain. And equally, from here, distant internet goal celebrations never fully uncoil the mess of intestines that tangle during a tight game as well as those where you can hear the net ripple with your own ears.

“You ain't missed much so far, Kev” I hear you cry; sweet naive friend I haven’t met. 

The league table screams that this has not been a vintage start to the season, but it doesn't make you miss it or envy the rest of you any less.

For us jealous souls, the agonising post match interviews and occasional outraged internet scoundrels are like the muffled sounds of your parents arguing in the next room. And I'm going to pretend I didn't see the flouncy e-petition (1,000 Arsenal Fan TV Points to that man if he’s reading by the way, please proceed directly to the Emirates).

So like me, at the moment this season is not going. But it’s not because it’s thousands of miles away on the other side of the world like it has been in the past. And it’s not like it’s never going again. It just needs a weekend when Homebase is shut and no one’s getting married and... oh forget it.

In the hopeful words of John Still I'm currently about 2 weeks away, so come Saturday, if you can bring yourself to get behind them should we go a goal behind, please give ‘em a shout from me.

... but not if the final whistle then immediately sounds.

If that happens for a fifth time in eight games, don’t worry, lads... There’s a fairly good chance this will all have just been a ridiculous dream.

Up the Town.