May 11 2006

Iain Dowie

Another season over for CPFC although it ended with a whimper rather than a bang, says Jamesey.

I suppose a 0-0 draw at Vicarage Road wouldn't have been a bad result for a league game. But when you already have a three-goal home play-off deficit to make up you might as well have a go.

Patently, we didn't and the miracle that many hoped for was not forthcoming as we didn't look remotely like turning it round. Why we didn't just go for it, all guns blazing, is beyond me. Wouldn't it have been better to lose 3-0 again and at least lose gloriously?

I watched part of the game on the big screen from the Upper Holmesdale. I couldn't really fathom why a steward insisted on searching my shoulder bag on a totally no-risk occasion. Did he think I was a renegade Hornet senior hooligan, come to throw missiles at the screen 150 yards away?

Writing this column over the years, I have always endeavoured to be honest, even when honesty hurts.

When I predicted early in our recent Premiership season (quite correctly as it turned out) that we would probably be relegated, I was greeted with howls of outrage. Come on, the newly promoted clubs are always favourites for the drop and the smaller ones even more so.

But it was a most enjoyable season for me. You don't have to win the Galactic Cup every year to relish football.

I was amused to see that my prediction in the last column that our 3-0 defeat at home to Watford almost certainly ended our promotion dreams drew a stern reaction in Palace Talk from a 17-year-old female student.

I was upbraided for not being positive and that a lot of people thought we could win the away leg 4-1 or 3-0. On the evidence of Tuesday (May 9) more fool them.

The originator of the thread expressed one of her interests as journalism. I would gently suggest that a lot more work on grammar, syntax and sentence construction is needed, rather than wasting time criticising fellow members who only write what is palpably true.

I rarely bother with Palace Talk these days and the level of debate and reason which the above thread attracted reinforces my attitude, apart from the majority of sensible postings disagreeing with the theme.

Apart from being quoted as saying things I didn't say and not saying things which I did say, I was even accused of the ultimate sin to the infantile mind of being old — "probably a grumpy old man of 50".

Guilty, young accuser, and add a decade or so, too!

Email Jamesey with any comments to Jevans3704@aol.com

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