Spotland, sounds like a psychedelic cartoon world inhabited by dots and circles of various colours and sizes or alternatively it could be a new chain of stores specialising in the treatment and elimination of skin blemishes and lesions. I hope it's the first one as i'd much rather park up outside the ground and bump into Mr Blobby than experience the trauma of being enticed into a spot shop run by Dr Christian Jessen. He's a weird looking bloke isn't he but he doesn't help himself with that flat curtain style hairdo, he looks like a carrot.
Whatever Spotland could be, we all know it's where Rochdale play their footy and Knill really needs to have done some work this week getting everybody prepared for this and consigning last week's horror show at Fleetwood to the history books. Nothing less than a gear shift from pedestrian to F1 car from the very off on Saturday will be acceptable. We would like to see a similar attacking menace as displayed in the second half at Northampton please Mr Knill and we would like to see it from the 1st minute and not the 46th. If we get beat then fine but I want to be entertained on Saturday and that means not just the opposition trying to score. Is Knill a reincarnation of Martin Ling? Is Martin so disgruntled by his perceived ill treatment by the club that he has secretly offered Knill a massive bung so that he will get us playing the 'Ling' way to somehow prove that he would have been a success had he been retained?
Is the Alan Knill way fast becoming the Martin Ling way?
Another showing like Fleetwood on Saturday and i'll begin to feel concerned. It's not so much the players being incompetent or making errors, I can largely accept that but it's more the lack of desire, movement and creativity that irks me greatly as it did the Ling years and I've not seen a great deal to suggest that this HAS changed and WILL change. Knill will get it right on Saturday - he has no other option should he wish to quell growing murmurings of discontent.
It emerged this week that AK had dragged his flops in for some extra special team bonding excursions and the first place they visited was a local dogs home to do some volunteer dog walking, only when they got there they were sent packing! Rumour has it that the manager of the home told them they were unsuitable as they didn't know how to take a lead!
Unpeturbed by this rebuff Knill knocked on the door of a nearby confectionary factory to ask if THEY could put some volunteering their way for a few hours and lo and behold they said YES!!
So they all piled inside cavorting and laughing childishly, oh if only they knew what BIG BAD BRASSY had in store for them hehehehehehehe. :~D The factory suddenly opened up into one gigantic shop floor with rows and rows of machines making various kinds of chocolates and confections and one by one the players stopped arsing around and began to take this seriously. A nervous air of tension swept through the group and it kicked in, the realization that the next 2 hours would bring undeterminable suffering and humiliation, feelings that the Gulls faithful are now only too familiar with after witnessing just a handful of shocking games.Knill let out an almighty scream, "Arghhhh, Manse, Harding - you pair over there! Your on Polo duty".
"FFS gaffer! We were hoping to be put on Skittles, they're our favourite" replied the pair, bewildered.
"Don't I f*cking well know it?! The amount of time you pair get pushed aside and knocked down I can see why!" Knill replied in sardonic fashion.
Ben chose to test the resolve of the boss by asking, "Why Polo's though boss?".
"Because they've got great big f*ck off holes in the middle like our midfield. I thought you'd enjoy it, think yourself lucky!!" screamed Knill.
"When you're a fine one to talk gaffer, maybe you should take a wander over there to knock out a few Aero bars! I read a sign in the foyer here that on average each Aero bar has 1000 holes and that to my knowledge is nowhere near the amount our starting 11 has so who is responsible for that then?!" a narked Mansell said.
Knill showed no interest, "Callum, Maltesers sunshine".
Callum slunk over to the Maltesers station but was surprised, "Boss hang on, there are only boxes here!"
"Too right mate, I told the production staff to only supply you with boxes because you have great difficulty in bagging anything" said Knill.
He continued, "Courtney, Picnics for you pal as you seem to think playing for TUFC is one large one with a hamper chucked in. I've given the catering lads the heads up at Spotland to lay on a spread for you at half time, there will be a couple of KFC buckets, a box of deli wraps, a twix and a bottle of VK. The half time music will be a popular picnic song and tweaked to reflect your performance at Fleetwood last week. (throws Cameron the lyric sheet) This is what I want the Yellow Army to be singing at Rochdale, it is a wonderful piece of prose if I do say so myself, it highlights in it the fact that nearly all of you were cack last weekend and also that you will put in such a great performance at Rochdale that you will have rewarded the paying fans for last weeks b*llock up. I'm not sure the Yellow Army will be celebrating with a picnic, maybe a sh*tload of beer but no picnic but that's by the bye."
THE TEDDY BEARS (YELLOW ARMY) PICNIC SONG
If you went down to Fleetwood Saturday you had such a big surprise
If you went down to Fleetwood Saturday you should have gone in disguise
'Coz on the pitch we were so f*cking sh*t and they made each fan look like such a big t*t
But today's the day the day the Yellow Army will be having their picnic!
Knilly was really getting into this now so much so that thoughts crossed his mind that perhaps he wasn't cut out to be the manager of a small league 2 club after all and maybe by complete accident he had stumbled upon a new career as a shop floor sweetie factory supervisor. He certainly had the balls to tell the players what the frig they should be doing in a factory but when it came to matters on the pitch, if he WAS doing the same then they sure as hell weren't listening to him. Alan felt like Willy Wonka and he was praying that after Rochdale he wouldn't be Knilly W*nka! Saturday has to bring about a new direction and instead of the big man settling down to a cuppa to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he wanted to instead be enjoying Knilly and the Spotland Victory.
AK dwelt on the pain and anguish he suffered when struggling in sports shops to find tapeworm length tracky bottoms and a new career as a sweetie guru would mean he would only require a long white overcoat and a hair net, in fact he considered putting a hairnet on Harding to use him as a model for the works uniform but Harding, although he thinks he IS a model refused as he didn't want to get his hair gel smudged. :no:
No, Alan was in his element now and he was already planning his new line of sugary surprises with which to take on the world - WOBBLY JELLY SQUIRRELS!!
These are free from all artificial preservatives and contain natural fruit juices and he was just considering which choccy bar making machine to send Billy to (BOOST or TIME OUT - he needs both) when Knill suddenly exclaimed EUREKA!! OH NO!! COULD THIS BE IT?!! A monster was being spawned and this time it wasn't Rene Howe! :} The power and self importance flooded through Alan's veins and it took 3 weeks to reach his brain (because of how tall he is and not due to him having circulatory difficulties), when it DID kick in he could not resist grabbing a Toblerone and tucking in. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM TOBLERONE NOM NOM NOM
