It’s that time of year again – the telly is blaring out
pictures of beaming fans cheering (rather than miserable away trips), Jeff
Stelling is receiving his final waterproof coating, and fans of clubs in the ‘FL72’
as we’re now called - like a flu virus, are preparing for joy, despair and the narked
indifference of predictable home 1-0 defeats.
Yet for Wednesdayites the clichés of wanton optimism and
dramatic anticipation just don’t fit. Kids won’t proudly be marching through
Hillsborough Park with the name of that new striker we needed stamped across
their back for one simple reason – there isn’t one (yet). Until recently there
wasn’t even an away kit.
For the source of frustration one only has to look at the
front of our shirts, which bear the legend ‘Azerbaijan Land of Fire’. In May it
adorned the shirt of the Champions League finalists Atletico Madrid, and in
June it seemed that the man behind that move, Hafiz Mammadov was set to
take-over at Hillsborough.
