MotM: 06-04-24 Halifax Town (H) Weston

[SCF1985]

Desperately disappointing. It's not over until next weekend, but it's looking desperate now.

These little cross roads in a club's history can have far reaching consequences over many years.

It looks like we've blown our big chance this season.

Totally agree. We seem to blow every chance we’re ever given.

2005 - blow hard-earned promotion to League Two and get relegated.
2007 - blow a 2-0 HT lead at Wembley to win a trophy.
2013 - blow our best season in years and fail to reach the football league. Mansfield, who won the title, and Wrexham, who beat us in the play offs, are now in League Two. We end up being relegated to the NLN 3 years later.
2017 - blow a 1-0 win AWAY at Chorley to lose the home play off leg 2-0. Our best chance at an immediate return with the strongest squad we’ve had in years.
2022 - blow a 1-0 lead against West Ham in the 93rd minute at home. Okay, we didn’t expect to do this, but we still got into the position and blew it.
2023 - somehow the only year we don’t blow it and get promoted.
2024 - blow a hard-earned promotion to the National League through poor recruitment, poor management and naivety.

We give ourselves ample opportunities and just never take them. We’re a very difficult team to support. And that’s before you factor in our home form over the last two seasons.

I’ll add some more
2001-Comfortably lead Preston 2-0 at home with 13 mins left and lose 3-2 after extra-time for what would have been our only League Cup win
2004-Absolutely dominate and batter Wolves. Should have been a few goals to the good. Conceded 89th minute equaliser. Lost the replay
2009-One of the forgotten moments. Need one win from our final two games to make the play-offs on the back of an impressive 14-game unbeaten run. Lose both, and lose last one at home to a Kettering side with nothing to play for
2014-Fail to build on previous season’s impressive run, having comfortably finished second the year before
2018-Rested entire first team in final game at home to BPA and lose 2-1. Somehow lose by a bigger margin with our first team against same opponents in play-offs despite, once again being favourites
2018-Lose for the 3rd time against a Stourbridge side whose cup glory era was behind them at this point, despite comfortably being in control and leading 2-0 with half an hour left
2022-Produce a nervous performance against Boston in the play-offs, again being favourites and despite our Cup exploits earlier in the season, and with a side who I think would have comfortably survived in the level above

When it keeps happening time and time again, it’s not bad luck. And unfortunately, it does.

[harry211]

I hate this sort of talk. That run, which I would empathise with, was broken last year with the playoff win. We also beat Reading. Failure isn't inevitable and the more we see it as such, the worse the pessimism is.

See also: entitlement from being in a league below what we think our natural position is. Completely unhelpful.

[Bucks Harrier]

Desperately disappointing. It's not over until next weekend, but it's looking desperate now.

These little cross roads in a club's history can have far reaching consequences over many years.

It looks like we've blown our big chance this season.

Totally agree. We seem to blow every chance we’re ever given.

2005 - blow hard-earned promotion to League Two and get relegated.
2007 - blow a 2-0 HT lead at Wembley to win a trophy.
2013 - blow our best season in years and fail to reach the football league. Mansfield, who won the title, and Wrexham, who beat us in the play offs, are now in League Two. We end up being relegated to the NLN 3 years later.
2017 - blow a 1-0 win AWAY at Chorley to lose the home play off leg 2-0. Our best chance at an immediate return with the strongest squad we’ve had in years.
2022 - blow a 1-0 lead against West Ham in the 93rd minute at home. Okay, we didn’t expect to do this, but we still got into the position and blew it.
2023 - somehow the only year we don’t blow it and get promoted.
2024 - blow a hard-earned promotion to the National League through poor recruitment, poor management and naivety.

We give ourselves ample opportunities and just never take them. We’re a very difficult team to support. And that’s before you factor in our home form over the last two seasons.

I’ll add some more
2001-Comfortably lead Preston 2-0 at home with 13 mins left and lose 3-2 after extra-time for what would have been our only League Cup win
2004-Absolutely dominate and batter Wolves. Should have been a few goals to the good. Conceded 89th minute equaliser. Lost the replay
2009-One of the forgotten moments. Need one win from our final two games to make the play-offs on the back of an impressive 14-game unbeaten run. Lose both, and lose last one at home to a Kettering side with nothing to play for
2014-Fail to build on previous season’s impressive run, having comfortably finished second the year before
2018-Rested entire first team in final game at home to BPA and lose 2-1. Somehow lose by a bigger margin with our first team against same opponents in play-offs despite, once again being favourites
2018-Lose for the 3rd time against a Stourbridge side whose cup glory era was behind them at this point, despite comfortably being in control and leading 2-0 with half an hour left
2022-Produce a nervous performance against Boston in the play-offs, again being favourites and despite our Cup exploits earlier in the season, and with a side who I think would have comfortably survived in the level above

When it keeps happening time and time again, it’s not bad luck. And unfortunately, it does.

What is then?

Could it be those Gypsies that once camped in the car park?

[SCF1985]

Desperately disappointing. It's not over until next weekend, but it's looking desperate now.

These little cross roads in a club's history can have far reaching consequences over many years.

It looks like we've blown our big chance this season.

Totally agree. We seem to blow every chance we’re ever given.

2005 - blow hard-earned promotion to League Two and get relegated.
2007 - blow a 2-0 HT lead at Wembley to win a trophy.
2013 - blow our best season in years and fail to reach the football league. Mansfield, who won the title, and Wrexham, who beat us in the play offs, are now in League Two. We end up being relegated to the NLN 3 years later.
2017 - blow a 1-0 win AWAY at Chorley to lose the home play off leg 2-0. Our best chance at an immediate return with the strongest squad we’ve had in years.
2022 - blow a 1-0 lead against West Ham in the 93rd minute at home. Okay, we didn’t expect to do this, but we still got into the position and blew it.
2023 - somehow the only year we don’t blow it and get promoted.
2024 - blow a hard-earned promotion to the National League through poor recruitment, poor management and naivety.

We give ourselves ample opportunities and just never take them. We’re a very difficult team to support. And that’s before you factor in our home form over the last two seasons.

I’ll add some more
2001-Comfortably lead Preston 2-0 at home with 13 mins left and lose 3-2 after extra-time for what would have been our only League Cup win
2004-Absolutely dominate and batter Wolves. Should have been a few goals to the good. Conceded 89th minute equaliser. Lost the replay
2009-One of the forgotten moments. Need one win from our final two games to make the play-offs on the back of an impressive 14-game unbeaten run. Lose both, and lose last one at home to a Kettering side with nothing to play for
2014-Fail to build on previous season’s impressive run, having comfortably finished second the year before
2018-Rested entire first team in final game at home to BPA and lose 2-1. Somehow lose by a bigger margin with our first team against same opponents in play-offs despite, once again being favourites
2018-Lose for the 3rd time against a Stourbridge side whose cup glory era was behind them at this point, despite comfortably being in control and leading 2-0 with half an hour left
2022-Produce a nervous performance against Boston in the play-offs, again being favourites and despite our Cup exploits earlier in the season, and with a side who I think would have comfortably survived in the level above

When it keeps happening time and time again, it’s not bad luck. And unfortunately, it does.

What is then?

Could it be those Gypsies that once camped in the car park?

Jokes aside, it’s obviously a psyche and mentality problem, and it doesn’t seem to matter what the squad, or who the manager is.

I blame the gypsies though personally

[HarrierWolf]

Desperately disappointing. It's not over until next weekend, but it's looking desperate now.

These little cross roads in a club's history can have far reaching consequences over many years.

It looks like we've blown our big chance this season.

Totally agree. We seem to blow every chance we’re ever given.

2005 - blow hard-earned promotion to League Two and get relegated.
2007 - blow a 2-0 HT lead at Wembley to win a trophy.
2013 - blow our best season in years and fail to reach the football league. Mansfield, who won the title, and Wrexham, who beat us in the play offs, are now in League Two. We end up being relegated to the NLN 3 years later.
2017 - blow a 1-0 win AWAY at Chorley to lose the home play off leg 2-0. Our best chance at an immediate return with the strongest squad we’ve had in years.
2022 - blow a 1-0 lead against West Ham in the 93rd minute at home. Okay, we didn’t expect to do this, but we still got into the position and blew it.
2023 - somehow the only year we don’t blow it and get promoted.
2024 - blow a hard-earned promotion to the National League through poor recruitment, poor management and naivety.

We give ourselves ample opportunities and just never take them. We’re a very difficult team to support. And that’s before you factor in our home form over the last two seasons.

I’ll add some more
2001-Comfortably lead Preston 2-0 at home with 13 mins left and lose 3-2 after extra-time for what would have been our only League Cup win
2004-Absolutely dominate and batter Wolves. Should have been a few goals to the good. Conceded 89th minute equaliser. Lost the replay
2009-One of the forgotten moments. Need one win from our final two games to make the play-offs on the back of an impressive 14-game unbeaten run. Lose both, and lose last one at home to a Kettering side with nothing to play for
2014-Fail to build on previous season’s impressive run, having comfortably finished second the year before
2018-Rested entire first team in final game at home to BPA and lose 2-1. Somehow lose by a bigger margin with our first team against same opponents in play-offs despite, once again being favourites
2018-Lose for the 3rd time against a Stourbridge side whose cup glory era was behind them at this point, despite comfortably being in control and leading 2-0 with half an hour left
2022-Produce a nervous performance against Boston in the play-offs, again being favourites and despite our Cup exploits earlier in the season, and with a side who I think would have comfortably survived in the level above

When it keeps happening time and time again, it’s not bad luck. And unfortunately, it does.

Agreed. This is what I mean about us being hard to support.

[HarrierWolf]

I hate this sort of talk. That run, which I would empathise with, was broken last year with the playoff win. We also beat Reading. Failure isn't inevitable and the more we see it as such, the worse the pessimism is.

See also: entitlement from being in a league below what we think our natural position is. Completely unhelpful.

I do see your point. Failure isn’t inevitable, but since the turn of the century it seems that the trend line is downwards, and we’ve come up short in the vast majority of our key moments.

In terms of footballing ability, you’re right that it does come across as entitlement. You’re only as good as where the league table has you. But in every other aspect (facilities/recent history/commercial ability/attendance), the national league is our natural level. I also don’t think it’s a sense of entitlement to expect us to have done better this season on the back of the first promotion in years.

With that in mind, relegation (if it happens) is unfortunately a continuation of the previous trend.

PS I don’t mean this to sound like I’m arguing. Just lamenting.

[garthrockett]

2005 - blow hard-earned promotion to League Two and get relegated.
2007 - blow a 2-0 HT lead at Wembley to win a trophy.
2013 - blow our best season in years and fail to reach the football league. Mansfield, who won the title, and Wrexham, who beat us in the play offs, are now in League Two. We end up being relegated to the NLN 3 years later.
2017 - blow a 1-0 win AWAY at Chorley to lose the home play off leg 2-0. Our best chance at an immediate return with the strongest squad we’ve had in years.
2022 - blow a 1-0 lead against West Ham in the 93rd minute at home. Okay, we didn’t expect to do this, but we still got into the position and blew it.
2023 - somehow the only year we don’t blow it and get promoted.
2024 - blow a hard-earned promotion to the National League through poor recruitment, poor management and naivety.

All a question of perspective. Circumstances outside club's control often negate the best teams and the end result.
I'm a pessimist most of the times but I could argue the exact opposite against several of these and present evidence to postulate we are one of the the unluckiest clubs in football: Read and weep;
2005- ITV Digital goes bust early 2000's and we lose over a million from our budget. Relegation results.
2013- Bottom of the league after 10 games , no win and 5 points. Burr/Whild lucky to keep their jobs. Last minute Mansfield goal at Hereford seals the title, as a 'resting for playoffs' Wrexham put out a reserve team in the deciding last game .....against Mansfield, who win to become champions.
Relegation in 2013 because Steve Miller persuades Whild not to resign end of the previous season and stop on -for relegation.
2017- Owen Oysten's refusal to sell Blackpool prompts several entrepreneurs to invest heavily into a emerging Fylde FC, who's championship season stops a automatic KHFC promotion under Eustace.
2022- David Moyes underestimates KHFC for 60 minutes and has to bring on 160 million worth of talent at Aggboro to save his cup run.
2023- fourth worst NLN team at home somehow is second best team on our travels and not only stays up in NLN, but wins the play off lottery.

I'll also add;
1994- won the league with arguably our best ever team and denied promotion into the Football League because of events outside our control at Bradford.
1997- led the NL most of the season and yet beaten on the last game of the season by a Macclesfield who had a 16 match winning run.

[garthrockett]

Oh, you forgot Whild/Burr deciding against taking a young Andre Gray on a KHFC contract.
Nice one.

[Mayo]

I can't see that this is an exclusive KHFC issue, talk to any football fan and their perspective will likely be that their team is underachieving, doesn't get the rub of the green,terrible refs always give decisions against them etc etc. I'm sure many could also pull out a laundry list of 'unlucky' moments in history (as above) that have cost their club.

The reality is there are few prizes in football and most teams won't win them (at least with any regularity). That doesn't equal failure or bad luck or even a perceived entitlement to want / expect more. Its just football.

[Jackygold55]

I feel like weve been quite lucky as a club. Weve reached the third round of the fa cup numerous times. Coventry, west ham, wolves, sunderland. First team to play at new wembley. Sure we fluffed all the games, but we managed to get there whilst most other clubs at our level maybe will have had 1 third round game in the same time span. Weve been challenging for playoffs in a lot of the seasons to make it interesting instead of mid table, seen the attendances be as low as 1000 up to what we see today.

Theres a lot of reasons to be positive and negative. But overall theres been some big moments that we could at least enjoy, instead of 20 years of mid table mediocrity with 0 cup runs.

[SCF1985]

I hate this sort of talk. That run, which I would empathise with, was broken last year with the playoff win. We also beat Reading. Failure isn't inevitable and the more we see it as such, the worse the pessimism is.

See also: entitlement from being in a league below what we think our natural position is. Completely unhelpful.

We also beat a strong Peterborough side who were incredibly unfortunate to get relegated the previous season with 54 points, which I believe is a record at second tier level. Of course we have had these games, which were memorable for different reasons. Peterborough arguably the bigger upset, and Reading achieved as a sixth tier club, something we’re unlikely to do again at that level. There were other great games to mention over the years such as the Newport comeback, but they’re bits and pieces moments and very sporadic.

I could have mentioned more negative moments such as the Salford 4-4 and the first two Stourbridge defeats (neither of which were upsets), but my post was about crunch games.

At any level of football, winning when it matters most is also a skill, and this is something which unfortunately hasn’t gone our way over the years.

On another post, Jacky mentions our FA Cup runs. But let’s not forget how embarrassing our record was in between Sunderland and Sporting Khalsa. Our FA Cup record aside from the runs generally isn’t great. We never won a League Cup game. I would also argue most clubs our level have had numerous more promotions and won at least one FA Trophy in the same time span.

While I acknowledge the points you, Mayo, Jacky, and others make, I think I’m just being matter of fact rather than negative. There have been fleeting moments, as with any club. And yes, we haven’t gone bust or gone into freefall like some clubs. But if last season’s promotion (which I would agree has (probably) now been cancelled out with relegation) and beating a Reading side prioritising Championship safety has been our magnum opus since the year 2000, then this is what me and Harriers Wolf are getting at.

[Medieval]

The current depression with our position is possibly a factor of ‘glass half empty’ attitude towards our past. Only one team remains unbeaten in a ko cup competition.

[harry211]

I hate this sort of talk. That run, which I would empathise with, was broken last year with the playoff win. We also beat Reading. Failure isn't inevitable and the more we see it as such, the worse the pessimism is.

See also: entitlement from being in a league below what we think our natural position is. Completely unhelpful.

I do see your point. Failure isn’t inevitable, but since the turn of the century it seems that the trend line is downwards, and we’ve come up short in the vast majority of our key moments.

In terms of footballing ability, you’re right that it does come across as entitlement. You’re only as good as where the league table has you. But in every other aspect (facilities/recent history/commercial ability/attendance), the national league is our natural level. I also don’t think it’s a sense of entitlement to expect us to have done better this season on the back of the first promotion in years.

With that in mind, relegation (if it happens) is unfortunately a continuation of the previous trend.

PS I don’t mean this to sound like I’m arguing. Just lamenting.

I agree with a lot of that.

My worry is that the atmosphere around the ground starts to turn again (I think the mood has held up surprisingly well) and it becomes an even tougher place to play and ultimately that has a detrimental effect. It touches on what someone else said about some of the characters in the North Stand berating our own players, or the yobs singing "We're {expletive deleted} shit."

I think it has a big impact over time. Look at a higher level, I know it's hard to prove, but look at clubs like Spurs, forever beholden to be 'Spursy'. I think the inward perception thing has massively affected United too.

The fact is we didn't prepare properly for this season, with a manager not up to it and an owner who was very niave. None of that has anything to do with 'typical Harriers' (a phrase even I use regularly) and everything to do with practical conscious decisions being taken.