Tuesday 19 August 2025

Vale Park, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent

We were better. For long stretches, undeniably better. But football, like life, is not a meritocracy. Two goals in three minutes – one born of defensive negligence, the other a product of a striker in tune with the universe. Between the 87th and 90th minute, the illusion collapsed.

Should we talk about Stevenage? A post-war invention, a grid of streets laid out like a bureaucratic afterthought. It gave us Fields of the Nephilim, those cowboy-goths who sang of dust and death. And now it gives us a football team that has won four from four this season. There is nothing to say about them. They simply are. Like rain. Like tax. Like the slow erosion of hope. It is, though, an impressive beginning to the season. We all need to admit this much.

Lorent Tolaj had opened the scoring for us with grace, rounding the keeper like a man who believed in beauty. Later, he had the chance to do it again, but that moment passed with a corner-kick as our only reward. Ah, that opportunity he had to slide in Mo Faal for what surely would have been a two-nil lead. Lorent chose glory. The Stevenage Keeper was barely troubled.

Mo Faal, at the death, had a header so simple it defied belief. Five yards out. No pressure. No excuse. The ball nestled into the keeper’s arms like it had always intended to. As if it had never truly belonged to us.

Four games gone. Two defeats. Two draws. We sit 19th. The table does not lie, but it does not tell the truth either. It is a mirror we must not avoid staring into.