ONE SLOUGH BEYOND

Printed in the National League South game v St.Albans City Easter Monday 1st April 2024  We drew 2-2 in front of  1162

Photo Scott McNeish 

Who doesn’t like the Easter weekend. The clocks go forward, the sun shines (well, maybe) it’s the first Bank Holiday of the year and we can gorge ourselves on Easter eggs, hot cross buns and football. The Wheatsheaf Pub holds its annual Bobstock music festival and long lost sons and daughters come back to their town of birth like mating salmon.

But let’s rewind to the last home game against Eastbourne Borough, who despite going full time are staring relegation in the face. It was Non League Day a genius idea now in its 14th year that encourages those who support a league team to go and watch their local non league sides when there’s an international break (I really don’t like the term Non League, like we all play in some fluid jazz quartet).

To be honest with crowds of a thousand plus since the new year, every home game feels like Non League Day at Arbour Park and we’ve got more pay-less deals than a supermarket. And in any case, post covid people are flocking to lower league football with crowds up across the pyramid.

The National League is in reality Division Three and Oxford City have already found out to their cost that its impossible to compete without serious financial resources. This isn’t helped with just two going up to the Football League. Surely it’s time for three up, three down which will reduce the bottle neck that then ripples down to our level and makes clubs spend money they haven’t got (something I will no doubt do over this weekend). With the Football Governance Bill finally going to become law let’s hope footballs disaster capitalism model is going to change and no more clubs go bust.

Anyhow, I digress. After a bit of a slow burner in the first half – well apart from two disallowed Slough goals – the second half was a cross between a basket ball match and an FA Cup tie; end to end with Slough nearly finding a winner with a power shot from Trae Cook-Appiah which smashed into the right post and bounced just wide.

The officials were in the spotlight with their first half display – the worst ones ever apparently and they looked like they got at least one of our chalked off goals wrong. After tasting a season or three of VAR with Brighton that’s not the route I want to go down and another reason to ditch that Premier League season ticket as VAR sucks the joy out of the moment. Maybe that’s why I prefer the lower league jazz ensemble vibes.

Officials will make mistakes, just like players and managers do. Years ago I would have been fuming but we had no social media then to vent our spleens. Which was probably a good thing and we still managed to do that with our fanzine. I’ve always said there should be a breathalyser that stops your words being published if the computer smells alcohol on your breath. And after checking Eastbourne's social media – guess what? Borough supporters complaining about the worst officials ever.

So onto Good Fridays football which was proving to to be a logistical nightmare but at least I hadn’t booked myself into hotel rooms in Plymouth like a few keen Slough fans where Truro had originally settled for the season. They were of course now playing 4 counties away from home at Gloucester City which has got to be some sort of you-must-be-lost-playing-here record. Oh and the fact they still have to play 25 games in a matter of minutes.

Going 20 games unbeaten at home is some feat – the 6th best run in the clubs entire history – and we all want it to continue till the end of the season. (*Just for the record Gary the Stat pointed out that the best is a staggering 54 in the 1973/74 season).

Slough used to have a massive musical scene but now the Wheatsheafs BobStock promoter Buzz struggles to find non covers bands to play. Infact he was getting so desperate he was going to book the Slough Town Behind The Goal Orchestra but our instruments were all being polished for today and he couldn’t fit the bin into the pub. Or afford our bar bill. So lets get Nick the Trumpet to serenade everyone a few more times with One Slough Beyond for the penultimate home game of the season.