2008... a year of change

I suppose it's an annual labour of sorts. We sit back as Demon devotees and salivate at announcement of this or that. We hang on many a throw away quip !! We hunger for any morsel that might remotely epitomise the foretelling of our deserved desserts.

We do it every year. Then we wait, watch and waiver. False dawns are penny a pound it would seem.

So ought we be more reserved this time ? Should we contain our annual excitement at the prosepcts of the coming year ? Do we await the report card of yet another season that might have been save for another bout of unexplained and damning misfortune ?

I say NO

and here's why....

I genuinely feel that the club ..from the top down and bottom up is quite frankly fed up with our plight. More the point as a club we are no longer sitting on any laurels and just awaiting things to happen. There's been a slow and steady turning of the ship. The bow is pointing the right way. Together with this is an almost wholesale change of crew. We thank the predecessors for their efforts but acknowledge they didnt get the job done as a whole either.

On the bridge our course will now be charted by Dean Bailey. You sense there is absolutely no nonsense about this bloke. He seems a Thinker as well as a Doer. I dont anticipate being caught out on game day any more.

In the ranks we have some new blood. The make up is from both the lil' wet behind the ears types to those who have already seen battle at different theatres of footy war. The addition of these lads will no doubt relieve those who have had to slog for too many minutes a game and at the same time the nuance of the gentle threat of the new kids in town might give some the giddy up they have needed and posibly wanted.

Seasoned campaigners will now feel they can go out fighting and know that the shop will be minded come time to hang up the apron.. That last charge...that last Hurrah !! awaits.

Whilst never a Dads Army our beloved Dees have succumbed to some strange orchestrations over the times leaving many a watcher wondering just who was the enemy. The new General is a litlel more battle hardened and savours more the 'smell of a footy club " than any brandishing of sermons and the belief in divinations from above. After all we do hail from that other place and as such a little heat will prove more beneficial.

We wont want for heat either . The playing list is on notice is perform or perrish. Just about every position is up for grabs. Sloth and serpitude no longer tolerated.

That it is a momentus time in our clubs history can only add to the impetus. It wont be the cause of action but a flag held high as those warriors engage their destinies.

So I await season 08 , not with fanciful illusions of footy fate but with genuine expectations that those taking to the field in Red and Blue do so not only so as to equit of themselves well but to do so with genuine menace and ability. it will be so at anyone's folly to disrespect the Bailey Boys !!

You can just feel the winds changing.... something Winning this way comes !!