How many Wycombe Wanderers supporters, like myself, have over the last few weeks and even months, meandered their way up Hillbottom Road towards Adams Park asking why they were doing so? Like a latter day John-Paul Sartre, contemplating the futility of life as Chairboy (and girl). Would they be entertained? Excited? Even be treated to a goal?
It almost becomes a sense of duty, loyalty, routine, some with nothing better to do, others still clinging to hope that this was the day that might even be spoiled with two goals! After all, what is the role of a Wycombe Wanderers supporter if it isn`t to go to games? With a season ticket in your pocket desperate to be wrung of all its value for money which becomes a ticket to a kind of a masochist torture.
There is one more trip up Hillbottom Road to come this season, with promotion chasers Accrington Stanley the visitors, and with them they will bring over 500 supporters hoping that the unlikely dream of promotion can be sealed with a win. The contrast between those following the Reds this weekend and the Chairboys for the last three months is they still have hope that their dreams will come true.
Our dreams were all-but over once we were knocked out of the F.A. Cup in the third round replay by Aston Villa on a freezing cold January evening. Such was the hope and dreams of a famous giant-killing against a faltering Premier League giant that 4,000 people travelled to Birmingham that night. Only 2,812 people endured the goal-less draw with Yeovil Town last week.
One of the greatest things about being a football supporter is that one day your dreams could come true. Having that hope swell in your heart is a great feeling, and imagine how it must feel to be a Leicester City fan right now, or one of the 500 or so Accrington Stanley fans heading down the M6 and M40, knowing a win could mean they are promoted to League One.
That dream was our dream last season. Not at the beginning of course, if anyone had dared claim we would record our best ever points tally in the Football League, and win a record number of away matches in the league, they would have been laughed out of town. Yet, with every successive week, we began to believe, we could see the players believed, and we came so close.
The fact that those record breaking achievements were achieved in year one of a five-year plan shows the absurdity of it even existing in the first place. It is fine when dealing with off-field issues, but you can`t plan for players missing decisive penalties, or picking up serious injuries. You also create a problem for yourself when year three is achieved in year one. What next?
61 points. That`s what came next. Another utterly absurd and arbitrary target which has backfired spectacularly. A whole nine points more than the total reached in the nadir that was the 2013/14 season. Yet 23 points less than last season. Why? Why was the 2014/15 campaign the aberration and not the previous season? Why not both?
What kind of message does reaching 61 points send out? Should we have all gone home and not bothered with the season anymore once the target was achieved? Is it a lack of ambition? Do we need to set the bar low because we have no belief we can achieve any better? Does it betray fear of failure? It certainly suggests a lack of understanding of what it means to be a supporter.
Having achieved the aforementioned target we have failed to win a single game. Since losing to Aston Villa we have scored 13 goals in 19 league matches. In the ten league games played at Adams Park in 2016, we have scored just six goals. Of course football is about more than just statistics, but they are just one illustration of the paucity of the fare at Adams Park this year.
Some will argue that football is just about results, and they are of course how every team is ultimately judged, but if you’re watching your team, you want something more. You want to be excited, you want to be jumping off your seat at a spectacular piece of skill, an incredible save, or a wonder goal. When was the last time you jumped off your seat at Adams Park?
The style of football has slowly evolved under the present regime, with the influence of former boss John Beck, who managed him at three different clubs, plain for all to see. Our reputation has fallen so far that we are compared with Graham Westley`s Stevenage. Whilst we are winning, it`s easier to cast our critics as sourpusses, but now that we aren`t winning we find we’re still hated.
Some supporters wear our new status as a perverse badge of honour, others cringe at our antics and they have now become so counter productive that we have been played at our own game recently by AFC Wimbledon, and come off second best. It has become a depressing sight to see some of our best players launching the ball into the stratosphere before coming back down with Felix Baumgartner.
One of the most impressive feats of last season was the recruitment over the summer. It was almost perfect and the results were immediately seen on the pitch. Better players bring better performances and better results. It`s hardly rocket science, and that recruitment was done on the back of Wycombe Wanderers being the worse team left in the Football League (having finished 22nd in League Two).
Compare that recruitment with last summer. With the obvious exception of one player, it has been a failure. One or two have another year to impress but one of the biggest indictments of this season has been that not one player has improved on their performance of last season, or been better than the player they came in to the side to replace.
By almost all meaningful measures we have gone backwards (with the exception of clean sheets). That`s hardly surprising given the record breaking achievements of the previous season but no one was expecting a repeat. No one expected the world or even the South Pacific, but they did want to see a team they could believe in, that believed in itself and wasn’t scared to challenge for the play-offs, just like last year.
Only once did the team record back-to-back victories in 2016. Inconsistent results, combined with the style of play and the gamesmanship sapped enjoyment and pleasure from matches, and with it hopes of a convincing play-off challenge were left only with the wildly optimistic. As if that wasn`t enough we were told, again and again and again, that we couldn`t and shouldn`t expect any more.
Not explicitly of course but in a more subtle way, if you ignore the repetition. We have been told again and again and again that we have no money, we have no budget, the finances are tight, we have a small squad, and we can`t afford injuries. As if we are the only club in League Two with a small squad, no money or budget, where finances are tight and players suffer injuries.
We are a small club, “little Wycombe” and apparently we should be proud of what we have achieved this season. It`s almost as if we are being told we cannot achieve success under the current set-up, which would be bizarre given the achievements of 2014/15. A cynic might suggest this constant drip-drip is laying the ground for a takeover of the club in the near future, but that`s probably a subject best left for another time. Watch this space.
Is it any wonder less than 2,700 home fans bothered to turn out for the Yeovil game? It is to the credit of those that did turn up, having been left with just dark humour? And what hopes and dreams are they being sold for next season? How will you justify forking out all that money for a season ticket again in the next couple of months? Loyalty?
It is sensible to keep expectations realistic and not over-optimistic but there also needs to be something more. Supporters need to be able to dream and hope that one day those dreams could come true. We might be watching Accrington Stanley celebrate promotion at Adams Park this weekend, and / or Leicester City celebrating something beyond even their wildest dreams. I will be so pleased for both of them, and just a little bit jealous.
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