GLF 59: Derek tells Martyn to keep his head up.
Dry Your Eyes Martyn
So,another cup chance has slipped us by.This time we performed admirably for the whole game so we have an immediate improvement on last year's final but we still finished on the wrong side of the result.The players gave everything,for so long it seemed we were the only team likely to win and at the end we fell just short.It was a tough break that it was Martyn Corrigan,a long serving player,who made the fatal mistake.
The stories of him being in tears in the dressing room are easily believed but in all honesty it's not worth crying about.
We do not support Motherwell to see us win things.We do it for many reasons but the promise of success is not one of them.You only have to have a quick flick through our history to see that falling short rather than seizing the prize is usually the order of the day.We often hear about our wonderful run in the '30s when we were never out of the top three yet that only yielded one Championship.We lost three Scottish Cup finals including one when we were 2-0 up with a mere ten minutes remaining.
The fifites saw some more trophies but also more final defeats and the wait from 1952 to 1991 would have been agonizing if you are of the generation to have watched it all.Defeats in semi finals to the likes of Clyde and St Johnstone would have been hard to take but incomparable to losing a Scottish semi final replay to Airdrie in 1975 as a result of our goalie taking too many steps whilst holding the ball.Another 2-0 lead was squandered in the 1976 semi final and then there was a trio of semi losses in the mid-80s including one on a penalty shoot out.
There are no doubt other hard luck tales which I've either not heard about or have forgotten but the point is clear.When presented with a great chance more often than not we'll blow it, frequently in a comedy manner.Martyn shouldn't take it personally that fate picked him out.He was just unfortunate enough to be playing for us in a semi final,an event at which every player seems to have an 11/1 shout of being turned into a pantomime villain.And given that despite our better play we had only scored from a goalkeeping error,Martyn's slip at least allowed us to lose the game off our own bat.Had he not knocked the ball back to Smith we would inevitably have been shafted by the referee,lost a goal which took a deflection off a floodlight or missed every penalty in the shoot out.Any one of those would have been even worse !
Yes , the semi final hurt on the road back to Lanarkshire and yes it'll be a glorious,glorious day when we do finally triumph.But until then let's remember not to take life too seriously when it comes to supporting our team.Win or lose we'll still be here and the friends you make through Motherwell will remain even though another cup has slipped away and we're staring at mediocrity in the league.It could be much worse,we could be getting relegated or we could be constantly unhappy supporting the Old Firm.
And besides,losing the semi final saved all of us exiles the time and expense of getting home for another Hampden day out.Perhaps if I tell myself that often enough I'll finally believe it !
Derek Wilson.
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