GLF 64: Derek considers Malpas, year 1.
Nothing Gained, Nothing Lost?
What an anti-climax we have had this season.After a terrible start, we gradually picked up and around Christmas we even showed dangerous signs of turning into a football team.In late winter we lost a couple of games but when we had a good run of fixtures we were surprisingly efficient.Morton, Falkirk and Inverness were all dispatched, perhaps not with ease but certainly not with great difficulty either.It was all opening up for us to have a superb season when St Johnstone came to visit Fir Park.
Now,is it fair to assert our season turned on one game?Of course not, as we have been dismal for pretty much the whole year.But our season could have turned the other way had we defeated St Johnstone.Not only would our league form probably not have slumped quite so dramatically, we would have been back at Hampden again.Finishing eighth and reaching a cup semi-final would have been a good year for us and who knows, maybe we would have somehow found our way past Celtic and made it to the final itself.That is unlikely but the basic principle remains -had we defeated St Johnstone,people would have looked back on this year with a certain fondness.Instead it just goes into that huge bucket labelled wasted years where we might have done something but didn't.Most importantly the perception of the club and the manager would have been different.Rather than a pathetic year where we struggled against the drop and did nothing in the cups, finishing respectably mid-table and reaching Hampden would have given us the impression that we were moving in the right direction.It may have been a false impression, we've seen enough of them before, but it is always good to go into the summer with some cause for optimism.
As it is, this year will only be remembered by people who have a special reason to look back on it.Maybe you took your girlfriend along for the first time, maybe it was your first as a season ticket holder or something like that.Certainly for the people that have seen a few dull seasons this one just gets added to the pile; the only thing of note is that we can add 2007 to the 1999 and 2003 debacles when we sagely warn each other about the perils of our next seemingly easy cup quarter final.But even that is also not so bad.Special seasons are special because they are different,if we made it to Hampden every year the thrill would soon wear off-just ask Old Firm fans.
There is a Chinese curse that goes 'may you live in interesting times'.Our time has not been interesting this season but it has to be pointed out that four times out of five interesting for us means battling against relegation.I could have a king-size omelette on my face if we are still in the relegation battle when this is published,but common sense dictates that Malpas cannot be criticised for our league season being boring simply because we've been good enough to avoid the drop with room to spare.There is plenty to worry about going into next season and our manager is just one of them.However, nearly every reasonable football person agrees that a manager needs at least two or possibly even three seasons to get things right.In all likelihood a new manager would not change things for the better overnight because he would be working with the same players and same meagre resources.
We've invested a year in Malpas, let's not waste it just because he didn't deliver right away.A lot of managers need time to find their feet, just as in any job, and fingers crossed Mo will be like that.After all, in the grand scheme of things,this year wasn't so bad, was it?
Derek Wilson
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