In our beginning was our end

8th August 2009: 16th May 2010.

[The above photo is © Lewis Outing LRPS CPAGB, and reproduced here with his kind permission. See more of his photography here: http://www.mainlyfax.fotopic.net]

Defeat away at Eastbourne on the last day of the regular season

(The result passes Us by, fixed as we are into the dark of the night on other thoughts)

Blank staring terraces of Stevenage

Kettering at home: Picking over the bones of a season still alive

Feeling empty after Hayes and Yeading at home

What we lost in the storm

(A moment: but there are more to come, and they're not to be let slip so easily when we've come this far)

The sublime followed by the ridiculous at home to Ebbsfleet

After the return of the prodigal son

‘I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. Not quite, not yet’

- Atonement

I’ve been standing at the mouth of the tunnel, feeling the waves of post-match fatigue wash over me, as I look at the penalty area in front of the East Stand. Thinking of goals from the last few weeks; thinking of goals from two years ago.

It’s been a month now, a month of trying to do what I’ve wanted to do for some time. Not to go back to that time two years ago, although I would be a liar if I were to deny I would do it if I could, but to find some kind of atonement for what came after.

The problem for this month has been this: how can a footballer achieve atonement for the past when forgiveness seems to only live in the present, so fleetingly? How many of these moments must there be before there can be atonement? The supporters may forget the past in the moment I score a goal, but can they ever really forgive? As the euphoria dies, is there not a look that tells me they can’t quite give themselves entirely to the moment - not yet - as I once didn’t give myself to them?

Perhaps it was always an impossible task, and perhaps that is precisely the point. The attempt was all. I can give them happiness, but I am not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. Not quite, not yet.

If I have the power, I would conjure them at a promotion party in April… a spring day at Minchery, milky sunlight slanting across the pitch, the supporters, jubilant in the stands, a sea of yellow as we confirm the championship? It’s not impossible.

(The images of Matt Green in this post are courtesy of Steve Daniels/Rage Online, reproduced here with kind permission.)

Planting a marker in the ground at home to Stevenage