I found a blog post I did from April 2019 when I’d randomly attended a Crawley game before I was a fan and a season ticket holder. It was a late April game against Notts County, in the season they were relegated from the league, and was just entitled Bank Holiday Football, and I’d forgotten I’d written anything about the game.
How I came to write these CTFC pieces.
It’s strange. There was never any intention to get into doing match reports. I did a pre-season piece the first year we became Crawley Town season ticket holders. That kind of thing was nothing new. I always did pre-season pieces whilst I was a Tottenham fan.
When I turned up at that first home game of the 2021-22 season there was no plan to do a match report. No notepad or pen with me. But somehow I did end up writing a piece on the game afterwards.
But that was meant to be that, a one-off piece. Only it wasn’t. I did another piece for the following home game, and from there it became a habit. Now I find it is a necessary part of the match routine. Any game I go to (and an occasional one that gets postponed), I will do a match report on it.
It isn’t just the match action that gets covered, there is the preamble, what has happened since the last time I wrote, the build-up to the game, the opponents, and any other random tangent I find to go off down. I’ll do most of the preamble bit on a Thursday or Friday for a Saturday game, or on the day of the game if it is an evening kick off. Then I take a small A6 sized notepad and at least two pens with me to the game. I make notes on the game, and any other random observations that catch my attention, even if not directly linked to what is going on on the pitch.
There is more game action included nowadays as I’ve got into a writing habit and style for the games. They are still evolving. But it is a compulsion. It helps me focus. I may not look like there is much spontaneous celebration going on with me. The handwriting in the book may suggest otherwise at those times though.
And season four is now due to start, so more inane ramblings to come.