Darlo Diary: We all need to be more patient

Another defeat on the road and more defensive mistakes makes a trip to the wrong side of the Wash even longer than it should be.

After all the nightmare predictions about the journey, we turned up a shade under three and a half hours. Anyone who has regularly gone to the Boston away games will know once you turn off the A1 at Newark, you’re at the hands of the road gods. Tractors, lorries and queues for the many roundabouts, King’s Lynn isn’t ideally located but we got there and found a very welcoming pub for us to relax.

The complementary food was an added bonus. “Fill your boots” was the instruction from the landlord; thank goodness we heeded them.

We turned up at the ground to find a scene out of Apocalypse Now. Total chaos. It turns out while King’s Lynn may have a proper big, old football ground, their organisation for getting people in would lead you to believe they couldn’t organise a knees up in a brewery. What a shambles. I believe they refer to this system as being ‘cashless turnstiles’ but even that requires actual turnstiles, something North Norfolk is unaccustomed to even in 2019.

Getting into the ground with five minutes to spare, the thought of food came to mind. Here, King’s Lynn played a blinder straight out of the Henry Ford play book. It turned out you could have anything you want as long as it’s chips. There were hot dogs at some point but they had no buns. It was a poor show. Yes, we’ve been to a fair few places over the last seven years where clubs have struggled to deal with the number of Darlo fans turning up, but this took the biscuit. There wasn’t even that many Darlo fans in attendance. It was grade A shoddiness from our hosts.

Sadly, what the hosts served up on the pitch was anything but shoddy. Having made a good start to the season, we got to see at first hand why. Decent on the ball, strong in the tackle and quick all over the pitch, they bettered us. That said, the first half was pretty even.

We even threatened a couple of times from corners but once again defensive mistakes were our undoing. A poor piece of officiating from the referee, who booked Adam Campbell instead of awarding what looked like a nailed-on penalty, pretty much denied us our only foothold in the game and the second goal which swiftly followed killed us off. Once again, we came away from the game wondering what might have been if we hadn’t handed it to our opponents on a plate.

After a less than impressive first month of the season, it’s hard to miss the comments popping up on social media and the comments at games where people question our defensive frailties and also the lack of goals scored. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I suspect the reality of the situation is we are all going to need to be a bit more patient.

As things stand, there are a lot of circumstances working against us. Some can be managed but others are out of the control of Alun and his staff. We have long term injuries, I suspect a few of those who are playing are also carrying knocks and strains.

Eight games in the space of a month is a brutal schedule and it has battered us from every direction. Once we get this next week out of the way with the games against Blyth and Gloucester, things might just start to settle back down again. We’ll be able to train twice a week and work on our shape, both defensively and offensively. All the little knocks and strains being carried get a chance to recover.

It goes against the instinct of every football fan but we’re going to have to bide our time. Rome wasn’t built in a day and this team won’t be defined by the opening month of the season. Defeats may be hard to take but even when we lose, I can still see far more in our performances compared to last season. If that’s all we can hang our hat on in this opening month, then we are heading in the right direction. It might just be a little slower than some hoped.