We’ve come a long, long way together
Through the hard times and the good
I have to celebrate you baby
I have to praise you like I should
Fat Boy Slim’s ‘Praise You’ is composed of a dizzying amount of samples. The vocal comes from the opening of ‘Take Yo’ Praise’ by Camille Yarborough, a piano sample from ‘Lucky Man’ by Steve Miller Band, a guitar piece from ‘You Should be High Love’ by Billy Squier, and rather fantastically, a guitar sample from the Disney song ‘It’s a Small World’, and many more.
Put it all together and it works. An uplifting creation carefully stitched together with many moving parts but each one doing exactly what it should.
And we have indeed come a long, long way together. There have been hard times. Christ, there have been hard times.
But these are the good times. The worse case scenario looks like being a run to the FA Cup quarter finals and a top half finish. It bears repeating that this is a worse case scenario, one we all would have been reasonably pleased to take when we glared at that opening run of away fixtures last summer with a sense of ennui.
The most likely scenario is a place in some sort of European competition and as for the cup, in the words of Willy Wonka, there’s no earthly way of knowing which direction it is going, where we’re rowing, or why the river’s flowing.
The best case? Well, you just let it play out in your head and see where it takes you.
But right now we are in the middle of a maelstrom, and it’s all rather exciting. Being buffeted by powerful external forces this way and that isn’t usually this much fun, yet after being sucked towards the epicentre of it, we have rediscovered our footing and a sense of control again.
Sometimes whirlpools and eddies appear and as much as you try to steer round them, you just end up going right into them, wishing you’d have done something earlier. Some whirlpools and eddies look a bit like Fulham away.
Newcastle away was a three course meal: a decent starter of succulent garlic doughballs, followed by a disappointing main course which the waiter somehow threw all over both them and us, making a right old mess of our freshly ironed light blue shirt (maybe we should have worn a red one.) But the dessert was solid and redemptive – just wish it could have come sooner though.
Arsenal at home was a big bag of chip shop chips. Not much variety, a bit stodgy, but you know exactly what you’re getting with them. Hearty and comforting, reminding you that you should have them more often, chips and/or clean sheets, preferably both.
Then came the weird amuse bouche that was Ipswich in the cup.
There were times when it seemed like Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliott Anderson were just passing the ball between themselves when they came on. Just when you thought that after an exchanged pass they’d lost each other and better options were on, one of them managed to find the other again with a pass nobody else saw. Whatever the direction the game was going, I simply enjoyed watching that.
As it was, we looked the most likely side to progress as the substitutions brought on to the pitch with them a steely determination to make all that extra time and travelling worthwhile. And the penalties were violently delicious.
So with pretty much every team around us having the odd stumble and fall, in the words of Brian Moore when Michael Thomas burst through a gaping hole in the Liverpool defence, it’s up for grabs now – whatever you define as ‘it.’
We’ve sailed through some tricky waters recently and although we’ve took some hits and damage, we’re intact and hoisting the sails up again. We’re not quite through it, and it’s worth remembering that although next up is Manchester City, it’s still Manchester City, and it may well be every bit as ‘oh my god they’re just keeping the ball and not letting us have a touch it’s like the first season back under Cooper’, but that’s fine. We know what to expect now and not to get too frustrated when we don’t seem to be getting a touch.
It’s a long, long way to Brighton again, to the home of Fat Boy Slim himself. But long journeys like this with such rewards at the end are why we started this thing of ours up in the first place.
One of my books, ‘The History Boys: Thirty Iconic Forest Goals’, has been reprinted in paperback, with a lovely review quote on the front cover. Click here if you fancy buying a copy.
I have almost completed the 92. Here are some observations from visiting lots of football grounds over the years.
If you don’t know me, I am the author of ‘Reds and Rams: The History of the East Midlands Derby’ and ‘The History Boys: Thirty Iconic Forest Goals’ (both available in the Forest club shop). I have written pieces for Mundial magazine, Football Weekends magazine, edited two award-nominated fanzines and was a columnist in the Nottingham Forest programme for eight years.
If you do know me, I’m truly sorry.
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