Hitchin superstitious

Many football fans have their superstitions for match days. Some have the same shirt one. Some have the right foot sock before left foot sock, or was it the other? Same route to the stadium. Same programme/fanzine seller. Same pre match meal and/or drink.
Anything we believe could help influence the result, we begrudgingly undertake. No matter how daft. No matter how monotonous.
I wear the same group of clothes for when I watch the Arsenal at home, or for when I go to the match. For the Milan and Sunderland matches, I wore what I hoped would be the lucky gear that would get us through the preceding 90mins.
It didn’t. It failed.
What was I doing wrong? Something had changed. Something was negating the lucky power of my mauve pants, centenary shirt and blue pj’s (I do like the comfortable clothes at home). Would I need new gear? Should I change my clothing?
Then it hit me. Something indeed had changed. I’d moved. I’d bought a house, in Hitchin. Since then, 0-4 and 0-2. 2 defeats. We hadn’t even scored.
So, as you can imagine, I was somewhat concerned ahead of the fixture I hate above all others – at home, to them. In my circle of friends, I know more of them than us. Therefore, I am spoken to more when we lose than when we win these games.
They have also improved. Can’t argue with the facts – 10pts clear, with only 13 games left, we were destined to finish below them, too. And we had just seen any chance of a trophy go within that first week of my move.
So, confidence was not high, chez Hitchin, at kick off. Then they scored. After 4 mins. (I can’t recall them scoring so early an any match against us. Fate). The shot was on target, but the horrible deflection took it over our keeper. Meant to be. Then it was 2, a horrendous dive by he who looks like a monkey led to a penalty, scored by he who used to play for us. Where was the luck? Was I destined never to see us win again? To score again? Would I have to tell me better half that we would have to sell up and move, irrespective of any potential loss on the sale? (I would have done anything...)
Then, like a phoenix diving in for the kill, our right back scored (it’s been so long...). We scored, I cheered, my new neighbours knew where my allegiances were.... even more so after our skip bashed one in. We’d scored twice! Half time came, I got Twitter busy, then the second half came. Our busy no7 scored (it had been so long...) and we were winning – we were winning at my new home, in my lucky gear.... Then, our sprinter scored (it had been so long..) and then he scored again(not so long) and I found myself counting my lucky stars, thanking my lucky clothes, that I could see Arsenal 5 Tottenham 2 in the corner of my tele, in my new home, that ,maybe, I could call a lucky home. Hurrah!
Or, my supertitous home. We’ll see on Saturday....

Mike Hennessy