Beware, as you enter the place where things are never quite what they seem...
The MATRIX
"You take the blue pill. The story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe." That was easy enough. A Saturday afternoon supporter. Travelling to games home and away at the weekends, and those that were within easy reach midweek. The occasional UniBond championship every six years or so. A couple of seasons in the Conference, knowing that relegation wasn't far away, but also knowing that reclaiming our rightful place in the Football League was only one... the one?... season away. A good Trophy run just around the corner and getting in against the big boys in the third round FA Cup draw every decade or so, only to get drawn against Rotherham or at (un)sunny Scunny. Or had it been Bolton? It was so long ago now. I was no longer a young man and my memory wasn't as good as it used to be. "You take the red pill. You enter Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." That wasn't so easy. Your team's about to go into liquidation. You're thinking of making a 600 mile round trip to Yeovil that you can't afford, just because it might be your team's last game before they get wound up in court. Things were bad, but surely the rabbit hole couldn't be much deeper. It already felt like it had gone pretty deep. Six months ago you stood on the Holker Street terracing watching Eddie Johnston doing a jig as the championship was won, and that had tasted sweet. Sweeter still that it was against Boston and ß@$!*¢# hadn't stood a chance as the net bulged and two thousand odd people shared the ecstasy of the moment. "The choice is yours." Not so easy when you were colour blind. The blue - the status quo. The red - the Scouse Scumbag, the Conference Management Committee, the NorthWest Trains League, Duncan Bayley, cheated out of the Trophy, chairmen not knowing what they were voting for, and the prospect of falling ill on the away trip to Hyde. I swallowed the red pill. "I thought you would have chosen the blue pill." Morpheus was smiling broadly. "I thought I had." I was grinning weakly. Suddenly I understood. I was in a Matrix where... "the rules can be bent, but not broken. Right?" "Wrong." Morpheus' smile metamorphosed into a belly laugh. "The rules can and will be broken. This isn't a film, mate. This is non-League football." "...but what about Crystal Palace, Crawley Town, Welling United and Spennymoor?" I gulped in desperation. "They all got help." "No, my friend. You don't understand. You are Barrow and the Matrix exists only to destroy you." Morpheus was in absolute stitches now. He also knew that the League team I'd always followed was Manchester City, so it was with great relish how he told me that Peter Reid had also had a hand in constructing the Matrix. Barrow AFC were wound up in court on January 25, and it seemed like the rabbit hole had flattened out at some scarcely recognisable subterranean level. The Conference allowed Barrow, in receivership, to complete their fixtures. And with a tremendous away victory at Kidderminster on the final day of the season, Barrow finished fourth from bottom, safely clear of the three automatic relegation places. But as Hughie Green once said; as one door closes, another shuts in your face. A vote was taken by the Conference No Confidence Management Committee, and the appeal date passed before the vote had been taken. It seemed that time really did have no meaning in this carefully constructed Matrix. And it didn't stop there. The rabbit hole went deeper still. Threatened injunctions... The UniBond's committee trying to strangle the life out of the club as they failed to turn up to appeal meetings... Arranging an EGM at their latest possible convenience. But then there was light at the end of the tunnel. 1,700+ against Guiseley; 2-1 up against a Conference side in the Trophy, twenty minutes to go and then the Matrix took hold again. The rules of time and logic seemed not to exist in the Matrix, and the laws of football seemed not to exist in referee Gary Shaw's mind. Southport's trainer still on the pitch as the free kick is taken. Southport score. The kick should be re-taken. But the Matrix bends and distorts the normal rules. The goal stands. On the Tuesday following the game, an appeals committee holds a hastily constructed meeting where several weasels weaselled, a couple of ferrets ferreted about, and a few suits just suited themselves. "That @®$£ Shaw has really mucked this one up." The head suit opined. "Yeah, if he'd just kept quiet, then come the end of the season when there was no media attention on Barrow, then we could have really shafted them, " one of the weasels whined. "But now it looks like we'll have to let them back in the Trophy." "Maybe not. Get Peter Reid in here." "Mmmm, Do you think he'll agree?" "We'll offer him the Premiership as a reward if he does." "But haven't we already given that to Manchester United for going to Brazil. What about the FA Cup?" "Nah, we have to give that to Tranmere. Remember? Player sent off, but at the same time Tranmere made a substitution and they finished the game with eleven men on the pitch instead of ten." "Damn, promise him a place in Europe then. Only give it to him next season." And the rabbit hole got deeper still. I was watching television in late December when suddenly Peter Reid was on the screen, larger than life, going on about how Tranmere deserved their win and he couldn't complain about the result. Replay? "No, not me mate, I don't want that." And then Peter slowly winked in my direction. "And what's more, I feel sure we'll win the Premiership next season." The weasels stamped their paws in delight and as one. "That should stop Barrow moaning about the unfairness of it all, " the chief suit said. "I now declare this meeting closed. Anyone fancy a pint. Some Northern club has sent us a cheque for £100." A few pints later, and the laughter was flowing and the inhibitions dropping and one of the ferrets made a suggestion. "What about really taking the p¡$$, and send that fourth official from the Tranmere-Sunderland game down to referee one of Barrow's games." The Matrix closed in; a white mist swirled around. The normal rules no longer apply. Inside the Matrix nothing is what it seems. And never will be. The mist cleared. But still I couldn't see. Chris Armstrong Issues 045 - May 2000 and 046 - October 2000