If....

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. Just over a fortnight ago the Glovers succumbed to Exeter City at home for the second time this season and had fallen to just outside the relegation zone in the table. Gloom and doom amongst fans was rife and even your humble scribe - normally a glass-half-full kinda guy - was moved to write the following: ...right now Skivo's judgement and tactical nous is being scrutinised as much as it ever has been by a fanbase - those of us that are left - getting increasingly impatient with poor results and worse performances.

Three games later and the picture looks very different. A good 1-1 draw at home to a strong Southampton side followed by those rarest of beasts, two away wins in a row, firstly at Walsall and then last Saturday at Rochdale. Seven points from a possible nine on offer and most importantly, two clean sheets. Four points away from the relegation zone, but only three points away from the play-offs. I guess the only conclusion to draw from it all is that, as Skivo himself said not so long ago, we shouldn't over-react to events. Rudyard Kipling said it better:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

He knew what he was on about did Kipling. I particularly like the lines: If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same. Very apposite for the modern day YTFC fan. I'm tired of worrying about football. I'm fed up with concerns over Holdingsgate. I'm bored with obsessing over every last YTFC related fact. I don't care where the missing fans have gone, nor do I want to think about the crap beer tent. All I wanna do is have some fun, as Sheryl Crow once said. I just want to go and watch my team play football, to be entertained for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. If we win, we win, if we lose, we lose. It doesn't really matter either way. Me and 3,000-odd others will turn up, whether we're playing the likes of Sheffield Wednesday or Hayes and Yeading. It's football at Huish Park, it's what we do.

Talking of Sheffield Wednesday, they are next up for Skivo's men. The Owls are the latest fallen giants to fill the away end at Huish Park, the latest ex-Premiership club to be informed that they are 'not famous anymore'. They are a massive three points ahead of the Glovers in the table so naturally the bookies make Wednesday 11/8 favourites to win the game on Saturday. The draw is priced at 23/10 and a home win at a somewhat insulting 19/10. My miffed fiver is going on the home win. Running total: -£5.25p.

In case you haven't noticed it's been International Week this week: No Premiership nor Championship football on tv, just international football, qualifiers for next year's European Championship. I noticed because Sunday's without football on the box are plain wrong. I pay a not inconsiderable sum to Sky TV to be able to watch football on a Sunday, so why did they not show a League One or League Two game? The lack of football meant I had no excuse not to go to a flea market/craft fair at the Shepton Mallet Showground, not an experience I want to repeat in a hurry. Sort it out Sky!

It's not as if international football - tournaments apart - is much good or very interesting. I reckon most Champions League teams, hell, most Premiership teams would beat most international sides with something to spare. I'm bloody sure Cardiff City, for example, would see off Wales very comfortably; while Everton would more than likely eviscerate England and Liverpool lamp Latvia. Er, well, maybe not that last example. Congratulations are due to Shaun MacDonald for his first Welsh cap proper, but as a Welshman I can honestly say I have little or no interest in international football at the moment, the damage done to Wales and Welsh football by the mis-management of John Toshack has knocked the stuffing out of a whole generation of Welsh fans and players and it's going to take a long time to get the enthusiasm back. Mind, the Welsh FA could help by appointing the right manager this time - hint, that is NOT Ian Rush. My choice would be for a Ryan Giggs/Brian Flynn partnership but I'd be equally pleased if Chris Coleman got the job. Hell, I'd even give Robbie Savage a go, if he fancied it.

Just read: The Evolutionary Void by Peter F Hamilton: The final part of the Void Trilogy, here at last. Was it worth the wait? Just about. It is, in my opinion, the weakest of the trilogy with the ending, as usual with Hamilton's books, somewhat forced and contrived. Having said that I still thoroughly enjoyed the journey to get to the ending and I'd still recommend this novel highly - but you'd have to read The Dreaming Void and The Temporal Void first, The Evolutionary Void won't make much sense otherwise. It's epic space-opera on a galactic scale but Hamilton never gets carried away with the high-tech settings and neglects his characters. It's just a small shame that the final chapter doesn't quite live up to all of the rest.