Feeling a flop...

In 1968 a man was ridiculed for his attempt to do something different. It wasn't an unqualified success and needed constant tweaking as he strove to literally & metaphorically "Raise the bar." That man was Bill Fosbury. The winner of the High Jump at the Mexico 1968 Olympics dared to be different. 34 of the subsequent 36 medallists in the discipline copied the lanky American's technique and his name is forever associated with the sport.

Now I would suggest that there is little new in the world of football, just forgotten formations coming back into fashion... Pep is merely a student of Cryuff, who in turn learned from Michels' Total Football, which was brought to Ajax by an Englishman Jack Reynolds who failed to make the grade at Manchester City. Klopp's Gegenpressing could be seen in Bob Paisley's Liverpool with Ian Rush being the first line of defence in attack.

Each progression requires a breaking of old habits, learning new (old) skills and a refocus of what success means. So last weekend was the epitome of Mexico half a century ago - both a success but a flop. We won a semi-final, but the post-match atmosphere has been somewhat flat. Flat because not everyone got the game time they wanted on Saturday. Flat because the team did not play as well as it could or should. Let me just repeat... we won a semi-final. We are now in a winner-takes-all game against our Ed Carruthers (aka Springfield) on 18th March. Time to write our names in the history of White Roding. We also still have 7 league games to go and a very real chance of a Top 3 finish.. perhaps more. We finished rock-bottom last season. Progression this year has been remarkable, but there is so much more to come, with more old habits that need to be broken and new skills to be perfected. Be proud of how far you've come and look forward to journey ahead.

We have a minimum of 720 minutes left to play and everyone will be critical in achieving our aims. Time to be disappointed has passed, now we need to dust ourselves down and look to raise the bar once again by remembering what we did in the games where we were great. Fosbury did not break the world record at the Olympics, but he changed the sport forever.