BBC article

[Shrenchel]

I hate football. Well, that’s not true. I love it. What I hate is what football is doing to me.

For fans of the Championship teams fighting to avoid the last relegation spot, these last two months have been a gut-churning nightmare.

My Saturdays – and Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays – have become a hellish rollercoaster ride over which I have no control.

You’re up. You’re down. You’re almost safe. You’re doomed. You need someone else to win. They lose.

Precious points are snatched with last-gasp equalisers. Even more precious wins are thrown away with calamitous added-time errors.

Penalties are won. Penalties are missed. Star names get season-ending injuries just when they’re needed most. Loan signings with unspellable names become instant heroes.

There was always a fear that it would go down to the wire, but this is ridiculous. With one round of matches remaining, five teams can still go down. A man could go blind just thinking about the permutations.

Oh, for the comfortable boredom of mid-table obscurity!

The pre-match pattern is always the same. Two days before, the sick feeling starts. Mere rumours of possible injuries are enough to induce stinking black depression.

The day before, the manager comes out with what he thinks are bullish quotes – determination this, no surrender that. You hear only panic.

Hours are wasted dreaming of spectacular winners. Evenings are ruined by thoughts of worst-case scenarios.

Kick-off makes the heart thump like a trapped rabbit.

At the game, solace is sought in songs, but silence soon takes over. At home, with television and radio on, the phrase “…and there’s been a goal at….” brings a bowel-shifting mixture of desperate hope and sick dread.

I could deal with it if we’d looked doomed all season, if we hadn’t beaten teams at the top of the table away from home, if we hadn’t sometimes passed teams off the park and looked as full of play-off potential as any one of the lucky lot at the other end of the table.

I could deal with it if I couldn’t name, off the top of my head, at least 10 shots hitting woodwork which would have seen us safe had they gone an inch the other way.

I could even deal with it if there was any certainty in other results. My boys are at home, against a team with nothing to play for. Others are away at promotion-chasers. But this is division where form makes no sense. No-one can be trusted.

So it’ll be that, at 2pm on Sunday, I’ll be sitting down for 90 minutes that could make or break my year.

And there’s not a thing I can do about it.

[Bernie's Love Child]

I LOVED this article - sums everything up. Especially the "there's been a goal at....." moment!! Jeff Stelling has me off my seat everytime he says that!!

[Number 6]

awesome article, i think if i were resigned to relegation then i wouldn't be as nervous, it's the fact that i think there is a possibility we could stay up, which would just make the disappointment so much greater

[Koke]

It's incredible too how ordinary players on other teams suddenly become superhuman giants when you start panicking about other results. No sane man should ever find himself thinking, "They've got Jason Euell AND Chris Perry?" as I did on Monday night.

I actually thought that - ''**** me, they've got Jhon Viafara, Stern John and Marek Saga"

[DB11]

That is a good article

[Zingari]

there must be fans in southamton trembling at the thought of our mighty bazz

[Guest]

I'm loving the new forum header

[Koke]

The article is actually story of our season.

My Saturdays – and Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays – have become a hellish rollercoaster ride over which I have no control.

You’re up. You’re down. You’re almost safe. You’re doomed. You need someone else to win. They lose.

[NorthernFox]

That sums it up perfectly. Starting to feel sick already and have dreamt three different results so far.

Getting plenty of stick at work from the mackems & geordies. Fook em.

Cmon City. Dont ruin my summer.