29-05-2016, 22:13
Apart from the atmosphere created by the Wednesday fans the rest of the day was a bit rubbish. The day started poorly when our Inter City Owl coach from Meadowhall hadn't even arrived when 14 others had all left. Apparently the driver was late back from France the night before and wasn't allowed to drive in time for the 10 a.m. Departure time! The journey after that on a Bank Holiday Saturday was horrendous. I don't think we went more than 10 minutes at a time at full speed before hitting the back of another queue! Was supposed to be meeting various people before the match to dish out tickets and catch up with friends but that all went out of the window as we only got in the coach park at 4 p.m.
Finally got in the ground just before kick off and quickly was extorted for a slice of pizza and a drink and a programme. The atmosphere was buzzing round the ground and inside it was electric. In the Wednesday end at least! I'd heard that Hull had sent tickets back but I was astonished at how few fans they'd brought and all the empty seats. An absolute scandal for a Championship Playoff Final! After all the hoops we had to jump through to get tickets it was really annoying to see all the empty blocks of seats. Even then, you might have thought those Hull fans that did turn up would have looked like they were there to enjoy themselves. For most of the game I really forgot they were even there. The noise and energy from the whole of the Wednesday end was fantastic even though we didn't have much to cheer about on the pitch.
I'm not sure what happened to our team but Hull did a good professional job and deserved to win the game. Thanks to Westwood we stayed in the game for more than an hour and as someone has already pointed out he got fingertips to the goal and on another day might have got enough on it to divert it up enough to complete the save. Definitely our best player on the day. None of our other big players showed up and Huddlestone, Livermore and Diame completely overran our midfield. I think a bit more physicality in midfield is probably our biggest requirement for next season, despite the fact that I love watching Lee and Bannan most of the time. Against teams with big physical midfields we have a tendency to struggle, especially away from home, and look shaky from set pieces. Having said that, if we could have put some decent balls into the box instead of feeding their keeper or front defender we might have been able to force something to drop for the front two. Although, the way Hooper played for most of the game I'm not confident he would have put anything away if it had fallen to him.
The Wednesday fans were still going strong after the match and tried their best to lift the players who were clearly gutted at the end. Again, forgot all about the Hull fans and even the presentation as we sang and cheered the whole squad as they came over to acknowledge us. Some of the Hull fans outside were a bit graceless, revelling in victory right in the vicinity of the Wednesday fans which caused a few choice words to be given back to them! Got back on the coach and got the benefit of being one of the last ones there by being one of the first ones out of the coach park. Took nearly an hour to get back to the M1 but after that flew back up to Meadowhall to arrive by 11.30. In bed, exhausted, just after midnight.
Don't feel too down about losing yesterday as I know we can play better and too many players just had a real off day. It's been the most enjoyable season for so long and some of the football has been great to watch. Clearly we are not the finished article yet but if we can buy well in the summer I'm hopeful for next season.
Onwards and upwards.
Finally got in the ground just before kick off and quickly was extorted for a slice of pizza and a drink and a programme. The atmosphere was buzzing round the ground and inside it was electric. In the Wednesday end at least! I'd heard that Hull had sent tickets back but I was astonished at how few fans they'd brought and all the empty seats. An absolute scandal for a Championship Playoff Final! After all the hoops we had to jump through to get tickets it was really annoying to see all the empty blocks of seats. Even then, you might have thought those Hull fans that did turn up would have looked like they were there to enjoy themselves. For most of the game I really forgot they were even there. The noise and energy from the whole of the Wednesday end was fantastic even though we didn't have much to cheer about on the pitch.
I'm not sure what happened to our team but Hull did a good professional job and deserved to win the game. Thanks to Westwood we stayed in the game for more than an hour and as someone has already pointed out he got fingertips to the goal and on another day might have got enough on it to divert it up enough to complete the save. Definitely our best player on the day. None of our other big players showed up and Huddlestone, Livermore and Diame completely overran our midfield. I think a bit more physicality in midfield is probably our biggest requirement for next season, despite the fact that I love watching Lee and Bannan most of the time. Against teams with big physical midfields we have a tendency to struggle, especially away from home, and look shaky from set pieces. Having said that, if we could have put some decent balls into the box instead of feeding their keeper or front defender we might have been able to force something to drop for the front two. Although, the way Hooper played for most of the game I'm not confident he would have put anything away if it had fallen to him.
The Wednesday fans were still going strong after the match and tried their best to lift the players who were clearly gutted at the end. Again, forgot all about the Hull fans and even the presentation as we sang and cheered the whole squad as they came over to acknowledge us. Some of the Hull fans outside were a bit graceless, revelling in victory right in the vicinity of the Wednesday fans which caused a few choice words to be given back to them! Got back on the coach and got the benefit of being one of the last ones there by being one of the first ones out of the coach park. Took nearly an hour to get back to the M1 but after that flew back up to Meadowhall to arrive by 11.30. In bed, exhausted, just after midnight.
Don't feel too down about losing yesterday as I know we can play better and too many players just had a real off day. It's been the most enjoyable season for so long and some of the football has been great to watch. Clearly we are not the finished article yet but if we can buy well in the summer I'm hopeful for next season.
Onwards and upwards.
You know nothing, Jacko