By Jake Walton.
Please bare in mind that this is merely my opinion on the season that has just passed, you may disagree with it as you are entitled to.
BEST HOME GAME
For a team that broke a world record for the longest unbeaten run at the start of a managers tenure we haven’t played well at all. The football has been dire for most parts and we’ve been scraping wins and drawing a hell of a lot, however there has been some very good home wins throughout the season. The 2 that spring straight to mind is Rochdale and Portsmouth where we won 3-0 and 5-1 respectively. I’m going to say that the home win against Portsmouth was the best however as for 70 minutes of that game we dominated a former Premier League to an extent I’ve not seen Scunny do for a very very long time, we could have won the game by 6/7 as was our dominance.
BEST AWAY GAME
As a 17 year old with not much money I haven’t been able to attend many away games. I have been to Barnsley in the Capital One Cup, Grimsby in the FA Cup and Northampton, York, Bury, Mansfield and Morecambe in the league so the amount of away games I can choose the best from is pretty meagre. There can only be one winner though. Mansfield away. Why? It’s the only away game i’ve seen us win this season, that’s it. Oh, plus a Paul Hayes 35 yard screamer on his third debut for the club that sparked mental scenes amongst us 1,800 travelling fans. The other away games have been pretty dire to say the least, apart from Barnsley where we put up a good fight against a team from the Championship only to bow out on penalties.
Paul Hayes scores his wonder goal vs Mansfield.
BEST HOME FANS
There can only be one winner for this category. Grimsby. Local derby in the FA Cup at their ground, the first time we’ve played each other for about 5/6 years. Cracking support from both set of fans that wasn’t matched on the pitch in an extremely poor game that finished 0-0 with no real quality on show. Other good home fans were York and Mansfield. York was a midweek game and they had a relatively good support from their tightly packed home end and Mansfield who despite losing 2-0 sang almost continuously throughout the entire game. Would have been nice for them to have been nearer the away fans as I could have heard how loud they actually were.
BEST AWAY FANS
There can also only be one winner in this category. Yes, Pompey of course. Can’t put into words how good their fans were 5-0 down and still chanting like mad for the team and celebrated their goal to make it 5-1 like it had just won them the league. Brilliant fans who deserve a lot better. Good luck to them in the future. Other mentions go to AFC Wimbledon who didn’t bring very many but made a lot of noise for the numbers. Another team I wish well, and hope they overtake the franchise scum that is MK Dons.
Now it’s time for the worst.
WORST HOME GAME
All of these came under the stewardship of Mr Brian Laws. A manager lacking a footballing brain almost as much as Alan Knill. The 2-1 defeat to Grimsby at home in the replay of our FA Cup game at Blundell Park wins this category. A lackluster performance in which we deserved to lose. Couldn’t have picked a worse game. I have never seen such angry scenes at a football match before, as the final whistle blew there was silence in the home terrace for a few seconds as the away end erupted in glee then a few boos and as the players walked over to the fans the whole stand erupted in anger, every player was in no uncertain terms to fuck off along with a load of other obscenities. Gladly Mr Laws got the sack and hopefully that’s the last we ever see of him anywhere near Glanford Park. Other bad losses include a 2-0 defeat at home to Accrington Stanley and a 4-0 defeat to Exeter.
WORST AWAY GAME
Not many contenders for this one as this season I’ve only seen us lose once away from home in normal time, however that was a god awful performance away to York. We lost 4-1, being 4-0 down at halftime and getting torn to pieces, one of the worst performances I’ve seen from any football side. Grimsby gets close to the title of worst away game as there was no quality within the game whatsoever but we didn’t lose, fortunately.
WORST HOME FANS
Bury. No doubt. The tiny pocket of ‘ultras’ next to the away fans were comically bad. Couldn’t make out a single chant and could only recognise the songs thanks to the drumbeat. I’m all for ultras in England as I think we need them to improve atmosphere at the game however these were just awful, no other words to describe them. Morecambe were relatively bad but i’m not sure if that’s because they were very quiet or because the away end was incredibly loud.
WORST AWAY FANS
There’s a lot of small teams in this league so I don’t want to be too critical of them as I really respect fans of small teams who travel the length and breadth of the country to watch dire football and their team regularly lose. The two smallest set of fans at GP this season was Dagenham and Redbridge and Accrington Stanley so for that reason alone they get worst fans of the season. However, like I said, huge respect to the fans that did travel and I tip my hat to you all.
Under The Floodlights 