Just like Watching the Gills! Lions 26 Eagles 23

For years, supporting Gillingham Football Club has been a stressful, frustrating and largely disappointing experience.  I've sat through plenty of heavy defeats at the hands of mediocre opponents, as well as watching us throw away leads on a regular basis.  Even the most casual of football fans is familiar with our stunning Play Off Final defeat to Man City in 1999 - 2-0 up with just seconds to play, we managed to concede 2 goals and wound up losing on penalties.  A string of poor players and even poorer managers, plus the occasional moments of glory (A promotion in 2009) have been the story of my Gills supporting life.  The team have a very clever knack of conceding late goals and turning simple victories into agonizing draws and defeats.  Worst of all, the majority of games have been exceedingly dull, and it's only threw a perverse sense of obligation that I've carried on going.

Tactical Genius

Then, this summer, something changed.  Along came Martin Allen with a few new players, hilarious press conferences and some "interesting" ideas.  Suddenly Saturday afternoons are a pleasurable experience, full of exciting play, excellent goals and, most importantly, victories.  The season is only a quarter of the way done, but the Gills are sitting proudly on top of the league and it feels great to be a fan.  Everything is looking rosy ....and then we get to the Philadelphia Eagles.

This is my first season supporting the Eagles (For any new readers this is why) and so far they are doing a pretty good job in replacing the "misery gap" in my supporting life.  Close, stressful games, terrible management and heartbreaking defeats have been the story of the season.  In fact, the errors besetting the Eagles are almost identical to those suffered by the Gills over the years.  It's as if they've filled in the void created by the Gills excellent form.

As sport's fans, we love to wallow in our misery and misfortune. Even supporters of Manchester Utd or Barcelona will find things to moan about. The away draw becomes a source of disappointment, the red card the start of a crisis and the penalty conceded is a reason to ring up 606 and whinge about referees.  It's the same in the NFL, my Twitter feed is full of negative comments.  Last Sunday I had loads of tweets from Falcons fans complaining about Matt Ryan and the fact they weren't stuffing the Raiders.  The team have a 100% record for Christ's sake, why can't fans just be happy?

Supporting a team is a chance to let off some steam and the best way to do that is via negative emotions.  Bad week at work? Don't shout at the boss, let your team's Quarterback have it instead!  Fell out with the girlfriend?  Nothing a few screams at a ref won't fix.

I'm no different. It's not a conscious effort to be negative about supporting the Eagles and Gills, but it's just that I (like most people) use my supporting life to vent my spleen.  A successful period for the Gills is nicely offset by the misfiring Eagles.  Instead of moaning at Andy Hessanthaler and various sub standard footballers, I get annoyed at Michael Vick and Andy Reid.

This week's game against the Lions was a prime example of how frustrating the Eagles can be.  After an error laden first half went largely unpunished by a distinctly average Detroit team, the Eagles improved considerably in the second half.  So much so, that when Jeremy Maclin scored a 70 yard touchdown we were 10 points up, with only a few minutes remaining.  That's when the "spirit of Wembley 1999" kicked in and a seemingly unassailable lead was turned into a soul destroying defeat.  This time the ingredients were an inexplicable change in the defensive scheme, some absurd offensive play calling and an offensive line that were completely unable to stop the rush.

Still we managed to reach Overtime and by virtue of winning the coin toss we had the first chance to score.  What happened next was a truly catastrophic period of possession which saw us make a grand total of -21 yards in 3 plays before punting the ball away and giving the Lions excellent field position.  From which they duly went on to win the game.

After Maclin's touchdown, I made the fatal error of thinking the game was done.  No way could we lose from here!  Having done my research on the history of the Eagles I should have known better.  Perhaps I should be thankful that they've allowed me to let some steam off now the Gills are winning regularly, but at present it doesn't feel great being an Eagles fan.


Luckily enough, this week is the Eagles bye week, so no Sunday misery for me in Week 7. Instead Ill be able to watch the fixtures and enjoy them.  Which given the last 2 Eagle's debacles will make a nice change.
Next week, I'll be looking ahead to the International Series and how the sport is developing in the UK