A New Start.

*Deep Breath*

So here we are then - as of season 2011/2012, I shall be a season ticket holder for the mighty Boreham Wood FC. I have spent a good while looking for a team to follow this season, and decided that my hometown club should be the ones to benefit from my unequivocal support (ahem). But why, I hear none of you ask, have I decided to look for a different team to follow this season? Well, let me explain...

I can actually track back my decision to April 18th, 2010. My team, Arsenal, were 2-0 up and coasting against a Wigan side battling relegation....and they just stopped trying. They flat out stopped trying. Wigan came back to win 3-2 in the last minute and the camel's back had finally been broken. You see, I had, up until this point, been sharing a season ticket at The Emirates which was costing me over £600. That's six hundred pounds. For half a season's football. They say you do mad things out of love but I had had enough. No longer would I line the pockets of Abou Diaby, Denilson et al for no returns. I have no problems with being beaten by a better team, but for God's sake just put some effort in.

I attended a few games the following season, none of which I hasten to add, I paid for. But to be honest, it was the first season where I wasn't bothered too much by the exploits of the team as it had become so crushingly predictable. I mean - is there any other team in England, let alone Europe, that could let a four goal slip at Newcastle? Players like Almunia, Diaby, Denilson, Squillaci etc littered our team and contributed nothing, costing us in fact. Emmanuel Eboue had come to embody everything I had grown to resent at our support - the 'Eboue is my Homeboy' crap still continued after the clown had given a penalty away in the ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH MINUTE against Liverpool. Again - what other team apart from Arsenal could squander a lead taken in the 108th minute of a regulation game? It came to the point where I just had to stop talking about Arsenal because it was the same conversation literally every single week. I wasn't even as crushed as I should have been over the Carling Cup Final catastrophe, as again - nothing this team did could surprise me. There were brief flashes where the old passion still burned, most notably Barcelona at home in the CL, but by the end of the season, summed up by the home defeat to Villa and the growing voices of discontent in the stands, I decided it was time to take a step back and watch a different kind of football. I didn't want to start resenting Arsenal, and I still love them dearly, so the only course of action would be some different scenery.

So, I started looking for a team. My criteria were:

a) Easily commutable
b) Reasonably priced
c) I have/could see myself having an affinity with them.

My first two thoughts were Charlton and Brentford. I had spent almost 2 years going to Charlton games when I wasn't at The Emirates due to a friend's support of them, and I grew to have a real fondness for them. The only problem was - Charlton were absolutely awful. In the 20 + games I had seen them play in (including an arduous trip to Plymouth in the soaking rain), I had only seen them win precisely one time (albeit against Crystal Palace). Besides, my friend hadn't shown as much enthusiasm as I had in suggesting we return to The Valley for a whole season. Finally, it's a complete pain in the arse to get to and home from.

Brentford were purely thought about due to their location - I could get a bus (a bus!) to their home games at Griffin park, and of course, they have the whole a pub on each corner thing going for them. But when I went to look at their prices, I was appalled. £300 + for a season at that level?! Not a chance, mate. Even them appointing Uwe Rosler as their new manager couldn't tempt me.

So with the feasible league options being nixed (and no, Millwall was never an option), I decided to move down the footballing pyramid to Non League. Now, I know the football is often eye gougingly dreadful, as I spent a large part of my formative years watching it, as well as going on an FA Cup run starting from the preliminary rounds (that is a whole different story), but it has that certain charm to it that you just don't find at top flight football. Standing , decent bars and food, no real prima donnas etc. It was then that I realised I could only really choose one team: Boreham Wood FC.

Growing up, we (mostly) lived about a 3 minute walk from Meadow Park, the home of Boreham Wood FC. My parents still continue to run their Off Licence there, and have been custodians now for over 31 years. As a small child supporting a big club, you never really notice that there is any form of local football bar your own Sunday league teams, and so Boreham Wood FC largely went unnoticed in my footballing world until my early teens, when I started attending on a fairly regular basis.

There are 3 memories of Boreham Wood matches that stick out for me. The first, sadly, was a match which had to be abandoned due to a fan having a heart attack in the stands. I still remember the fans running onto the pitch to try and get the referee's attention, all flailing arms and screams. It's something that I haven't forgotten, and still makes me sad to think about to this day. The supporter in question died later that day. We found out via The Boreham Wood Times.

The second was of a 2nd round FA Cup tie against Luton Town, in which it seemed every single person from the town had crammed into Meadow Park. It was heaving. The game ended up being broadcast live on Sky Sports, and yours truly appeared a few times on screen in a deeply unflattering fleece. Luton won 3-2 to send Boreham Wood out of the cup for the 2nd consecutive year.

Last, and by no means least, was the game I still consider to be the best 90 (+8 mins stoppage time) minutes of football I have ever seen: Boreham Wood 4 Carshalton Athletic 4. This had everything you wanted, end to end football, a 22 man brawl, a sub defender having to go in goal for the wood (Dave 'The Cat' Hatchett as the PA announced him, to the laughs/groans of the crowd) and a 98th minute equaliser for the home team. And it only cost me £1 to get in on the 'Quid a Kid' scheme that was running at the time. Halcyon days.

There are other faded memories, of beating Tring 10-0 in a FA Cup qulaifying round, and consequently getting sworn at by both the opposition manager and a 3 counties radio reporter, of the pre season friendlies against Arsenal, where it was even more chaotic than the Luton games and Dennis Bergkamp, Nicolas Anelka and Francis Jeffers strutted their stuff. I even managed to play a game there myself, for my then Sunday league team Hertsmere against Borehamwood Youth 2000 (I think), but had little impact on the game, as was usually the case.

Onto the logistics - firstly, the price. This is where I was most satisfied, as £160 for a season was great value, especially as how ludicrously priced the Blue Square South and even lower leagues than that have become, but that is another story for another day. Secondly, the commute is fairly manageable, an hour and a quarter tops from my flat to Meadow Park (that is not allowing for delays, which I imagine will plague my trips), as well as being able to see the folks (and get fed) after the games. It's a no lose situation for me really.

So, the journey begins. I've tried to keep this introduction as tight as possible as to not send you off to sleep, so apologies to those who already have. This will also be the last time I'll mention Arsenal and Emmanuel Eboue in this blog. Probably.