From Sofa to Seat 114 - losing

Jamie Taylor, Writer.
Twitter: @hellojamie_t

You can’t win everything - or so the refrain goes. It’s a phrase parents have been telling disappointed kids up and down the land since time immemorial. It figures, that you can’t have one without the other - there’s always got to be a loser. I just wish it wasn’t generally Huddersfield Town.

It hasn’t always been this way. My footballing life not so long ago was filled with nothing but wins. The 19/20 season saw Liverpool flatten all comers - nobody could lay a glove on them. When we did lose (the game against Watford really sticks out for me), it didn’t matter. We were so far ahead, so superior, that it ceased to register. I’ve genuinely never felt that level of footballing bliss, before or since.

I’m sure I’m not alone but It’s been a bit of a bump adjusting to this season at the John Smiths Stadium. Of the four games I’ve seen so far, three have been defeats. Even the draw against West Brom, conceding as we did a two goal lead along the way, didn’t feel great. It’s honestly a bit miserable. I knew things would be different, that Town was going through a period of readjustment and that they couldn’t possibly match last season’s feats, but I genuinely didn’t think we’d be in a relegation scrap after nine games. Calling it a scrap might actually be a bit generous - it feels like more of a kicking.

I’ve always tended to be pretty childish about losing. When I was younger, I wasn’t always the most pleasant person to be around after a defeat. I’d mope, I’d sulk and really wasn’t good company for the rest of the day. As I’ve got older, I’ve mostly grown out of this type of behaviour but there’s still the odd hangover in the way that I face defeat these days. I can’t read about football in the paper, I can’t watch the highlights and I definitely can’t listen to the game being picked apart on Football Weekly. It hasn’t really been an option to indulge in this type of immaturity this season - if I buried my head in the sand I wouldn’t have a clue what was going on with the club, the fans and the players. Learning to love a new team certainly can be hard.

I can’t sit here and pretend to have the same depth of feeling as people who have grown up with the club so I appreciate how hard it must be for people with a genuine love for Town to be going through this start to the season. I’ve found this article a tough one to write so I can’t imagine what it must be like for the journalists and podcasters who have been going to the match for years to keep turning up and talking about defeat after defeat. I know it must be difficult for the players and the manager who are good people and don’t want to be in this situation any more than the fans.

So it is that I genuinely feel for Danny Schofield. I never saw him play but I know the high regard he is held in amongst the fans. Going into the Wigan match, I thought he needed 4 points from the next two games, with at least one good performance, to regain a bit of credibility. Losing like we did, with a really soft goal, I left certain that Danny wouldn’t be in the dugout to host Cardiff. From the outside looking in, he seems a nice guy. Not once did he throw any of his players under the bus or hide behind their failings to cover his own. He was relentlessly upbeat about the performances but it was clear the job was just a bit big for him. For a guy billed as the continuity candidate, he never really settled on a style or formation. After both the Coventry and QPR games were cancelled, it felt like there was an opportunity to reset, to get some serious work done fixing things on the training pitch. This never happened. It is with a heavy heart that I see Schofield go, but I think it is the right call.

I can’t see a new manager being in place for the weekend but I hope Chicho and Paul Harsley can give both the fans and the players a bit of a lift. I could really do with a win right about now. I’m taking my mate and his kid to the game on Saturday. For little Joss, it’ll be his first proper football match. If he has to sit through what I’ve had to sit through lately, I think it’ll be his last. I just hope he takes losing better than I do.