Alright, so it turns out that 2-0 can\u00a0be a dangerous lead.<\/p>\n
The deal you make as an away fan \u2014 particularly deep in the English Football League trenches \u2014 is a simple one. Put in plenty of miles, hope for some smiles. Sometimes it pays off, usually it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Wycombe travelled to third-placed Bolton on Saturday for a Wanderers vs Wanderers encounter having won just three times on the road all season, yet with a sense of momentum that had taken them up to sixth place in the table \u2014 evidenced by a controlled 1-0 midweek victory at Barnsley. So why not traipse up to the most-impressively constructed stadium of the 1990s to witness the turf where Jay-Jay Okocha and Kevin Davies once glided past and wrestled with opponents in equal measure.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the worst that can happen?<\/p>\n
Before the game began there was a perfectly-observed minute\u2019s silence in memory of the 33 people who died in the Burnden Park disaster on March 9, 1946. It was the biggest loss of life at a British football ground for a quarter of a century, and led to an official report that recommended various measures to control and monitor crowd size.<\/p>\n
Descendants of some of the people who died lay a wreath before the game, the names of the dead are displayed on the electronic boards around the pitch. It\u2019s an incredibly moving moment.<\/p>\n
So a sombre start to a game but nothing relishes the present tense more than football and after a nervous opening five minutes, in which Bolton squander a one-on-one, smartly stopped by Wycombe goalkeeper Will Norris, the visitors take control of the game.<\/p>\n
An increasingly-deserved 1-0 lead arrives on 27 minutes, Wycombe then make it 2-0 15 minutes later. This is, as many seasoned travellers will understand, a perfect cadence for an away fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll need to weather their early pressure\u201d \u2014 TICK<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to turn this control into a lead\u201d \u2014 TICK<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve not let up after scoring, we need to add another\u201d \u2014 TICK<\/p>\n
The mood at half-time in the Toughsheet Community Stadium away concourse \u2014 replete with what are surely the highest shelves in the EFL \u2014 is one of happy disbelief. And yet it\u2019s not really disbelief because none of the 369 Wycombe fans are remotely surprised that their team is winning, based on the way the game has transpired, just nonplussed that today the football gods have smiled and said, \u201cYes, Bolton are arguably the most impressive footballing side in League One right now but Wycombe are in decent nick, let\u2019s give them a good day out here shall we.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is the odd dissenting voice, as there should be. \u201cKnowing us, we\u2019ll blow this lead,\u201d someone murmurs. Of course, supporters of every single football club in the world think this, that their side is uniquely cursed to throw leads, to lose goals at crucial moments, to suffer defeat when they probably don\u2019t deserve to. In truth it happens to every side, to every fan. You just have to hope it\u2019s not your team when the music stops.<\/p>\n
Spoiler: the music stops.<\/p>\n
Bolton come out for the second half with more purpose, and think they have scored after 55 minutes, when Wycombe clear the ball off the line after a corner is played into the box. This is why 2-0 is the perfect lead in football. It gives hope with both hands. One more for Wycombe \u2014 and they do come close \u2014 and it\u2019s game over. But if Bolton pull one back\u2026<\/p>\n
At one point I say to my daughter \u2014 early on in her experience of all this but with enough games under her belt to know this seemingly strong position is built on a base made of the sort of balsa wood no furniture-maker in High Wycombe would go near \u2014 \u201cIf Bolton get one, it\u2019s probably over.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Bolton do get one, albeit in the 88th minute, via substitute Ruben Rodrigues. The hitherto subdued home crowd finally cheer, still powered at this stage by hope rather than expectation. But three minutes later it\u2019s 2-2, via another substitute, Mason Burstow. Now the ground erupts, now the disbelief \u2014 actual disbelief \u2014 rolls around all four of the Toughsheet\u2019s stands.<\/p>\n
There are six minutes of stoppage time remaining and Wycombe\u2019s sudden happiness with a point is illustrated by the fact that they are still trying to close the game down, to take a point, a single valuable point. \u201cYou\u2019d take a point wouldn\u2019t you?\u201d Right now, yeah, very much so. A point. A point is nice. Thanks for the point.<\/p>\n
And then it gets worse.<\/p>\n
A slip on the edge of the box, some space for yet another Bolton substitute, (how many do they have?! answer: five, as per EFL regulations) Corey Blackett-Taylor, to bend in a brilliant winner in from the edge of the box. From 2-0 up on 87 minutes to 3-2 down less than 10 minutes later. Opta have no records of a team in the Premier League or EFL ever losing after leading 2-0 that late in a game. We\u2019re witnessing history. We\u2019re hating every second of it.<\/p>\n
Every away fan knows the feeling of seeing three-quarters of a stadium roar at a late winner. All you can do is stare as where there was once silence there is a level of noise that feels almost unrealistic in a way. Unearned, perhaps, but vivid. Joy in 4K.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s complete silence as the Wycombe fans make their way out of the stadium. Rage, anger, disbelief, choose your own term \u2014 yet the sight of a Bolton fan on the phone to his dad, recapping the game frantically and saying it was one of the greatest games he\u2019d ever witnessed softens the heart.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll see your team win games in the last minute, you\u2019ll see your team lose them in the last minute too. You sort of have to remember both, just as you have to remember that 33 people didn\u2019t come home from a Bolton game in 1946.<\/p>\n
This was a stupid, nonsensical game but it will \u2014 outside of south Buckinghamshire at least \u2014 be remembered for all the right reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alright, so it turns out that 2-0 can\u00a0be a dangerous lead. The deal you make as an away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[72833,7,14623,3372,112083],"class_list":{"0":"post-799918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-bolton-wanderers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-league-one","11":"tag-premier-league","12":"tag-wycombe-wanderers-fc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116192269280648495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}