These are the good days
Chester start the season on Saturday, and it's got me thinking about our past
On Saturday it begins again.
Yes, we’ve been back at it for a few weeks with pre-season, but the serious nature of the regular season is upon us. The pre-match and post-match rituals, the extended family we haven’t seen for a while who wear blue and white, it all returns as we embark on another journey of hope, with the usual smattering of elation and despair.
We’re still here. The National League North. The ninth time around in English football’s sixth tier. It’s Chorley. Again. Victory Park. Again.
Will this season be the one where we finally get over the mountain top? Who knows? I cannot tell you that, the Blues board cannot tell you that, and Phil Parkinson and the players cannot tell you that. Football requires faith, always.
But there is faith and there is blind faith. I’m not sure the second applies when heading into this campaign. It certainly feels a little different.
These past few weeks I’ve been going through old press cuttings, photographs, TV spots and interviews for a project I’m working on in the background (more will hopefully become apparent in due course), and I found myself quite struck by where we were and where we are now. We are two levels further down the pyramid then where we were long accustomed to being, but have we ever been more serious as a football club? I’m not sure we have.
