Our Notts County columnist Julian McDougall, is back with a report of the last month of action at Notts County FC...
But November… spawned so many questions. More questions than answers. But by the end, they were good questions. Questions that keep the word of promise to our ear. Questions such as:
- What are we now?
- What is the meaning of Kelle Roos?
- and Do we still hate Bristol Rovers?
Let us take these in turn...
What are we now?
The month began at Brackley. And we were “like before”. But then, to Cheltenham, and the reaction. Intensity, aggression and then resilience when the familiar wizardry of Steve Cotterill made the difference in the second half. “Last season, we don’t win that’, was the consensus. Again. Becoming a thing, a motif. County followed this with two home games where we thought six points were coming but we only got the one. But it was not quite like before, because in the last gasp draw with Harrogate, it was Notts who rescued the point with Matthew Dennis’ injury time penalty.
Colchester’s game plan worked but we would have won if we had taken chances. Chances not taken, defensive mistakes, bullied by a well organised pub team – this was like last season, but it felt like a bad day, not a trend. So then, to Bristol Rovers, ‘the Gas’ - there for the taking, seven straight defeats. Packed away end, amazing ‘vibes’, helped by the music playing before the game – Fool’s Gold taking us back to the Warnock era, and that Stant goal (read on).
But there is no Matty Palmer and it doesn’t look good, disjointed play and Rovers throwing everything at it to stop their nightmare run. Then a red card for Tyrese Hall and here we go again, but then something different happened. Again. Has ‘Patto’ changed the culture? Will the owners accept this level of ‘winning ugly’? It has to be said that Rovers missed a lot of chances, hit the woodwork several times and the Kelle Roos paradox was off the scale in its myriad complexities (read on). But Notts dug in, battled, and then nicked it with a crazy deflection from Dennis’ 86th minute strike. Limbs and absolute scenes in the away end, players and subs jumping in. Then Patterson’s post-match which he took to another level. Along with the usual interrupting of his own train of thought with another, he performed a postmodern reworking of Warnock’s “die for 3 points” meme, combined with a hyper-reflexive homage to.. well, Martin Patterson. Deconstructing the conditions of his own possibility – “That win was nothing to do with me, that was all the players. But maybe I deserve that as well. But I’m not coming off anything, I need to work harder”. And talking of Warnock and Bristol Rovers - read on. And talking of the postmodern hyper-real, consider our goalkeeper..
What is the meaning of Kelle Roos?
At Wembley, Archie Mair earned, in my opinion, a statue, with that penalty shoot out cameo. A brief contribution to our history, with disproportionate significance of which I am not sure there are many to compete in the annals of football history. Jimmy Glass, maybe, but he had played the whole game. Kelle Roos is the polar opposite. A man who has many games in one.
In Bristol, Roos made several superb saves and even caught a few crosses during the assault on Notts’ goal as the extra player advantage manifested. But he also squandered our possession when we most needed calm by booting the ball into empty space (very empty space) over and over again, in the manner of a bitter divorced neighbour being asked for ‘our ball back ‘ one time too many and losing his temper with the life stage contrast. “Sorry, it’s been hard recently, I was in a bad place.”
There was also the curious spectacle of Roos repeatedly diving across his goal seconds after a missed shot, this strange behaviour made into a vaudeville act by his luminous costume. Roos was probably man of the match, but also the worst player on the pitch. How is this possible? Only Kelle Roos knows. Or does he? Can he? When he came towards us for the fist-pumps, his expression was curious, as though to convey “I don’t know either, how my achievements mock me.”
Do we still hate Bristol Rovers?
Ah, and this is the question. There was something ‘very Warnock’ about our afternoon in Bristol. It was, of course, Warnock’s incredible double promotion side who lost out to Rovers for both automatic promotion and a Wembley cup final (we got there for the play offs, in any case). And here is ‘Poppy’, posting a comment on the BBC Sport match report – “For those old enough to remember the 1990 Freight Rover second leg and Stant’s perfectly good goal disallowed and then Gerry Francis dancing on the pitch it makes the result so much sweeter.” And it did. So, are we now at peace? According to Buddha, “Never does hatred cease by hating in return; only through love can hatred come to an end." I think Poppy and the Buddha are saying the same thing, in their different ways.
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