'I'd forgotten how good enjoyment felt' ... The David Rawson Rotherham United Fan Column

I enjoyed myself.

I went to a football match and I enjoyed myself.

We didn’t win. We probably should have won. We are two points above the relegation places.

And I still enjoyed myself.

We went two goals down and we got it back to 2-2, through heart and character and guts and some good football, and it was fun.

We took the lead, we played well, we made mistakes (some big, some small). We overplayed a bit and we tried to force it a bit and we kept going at it and at it and at it and a winner just wouldn’t come. And it was a bit frustrating, and a bit disappointing, but it was entertaining and wholehearted and exciting and draining and all the things football should be.

And nothing else.

There was no wider narrative, nothing about someone returning to a club they’d had success with before, or managing their home-town side. There was no bigger-picture stuff about how we have to adapt to this or develop that.

Just a bunch of players who’d had a right good go, done their best and were knackered at the end.

That’s kind of all I want.

The club has got so tied up in what it thinks it’s supposed to be and what it should be achieving that it’s forgotten what it is.

We’re an unfashionable, widely-ignored northern team that has a funny habit of turning up where it’s not wanted, because sometimes the whole can be more than the sum of its parts.

A “workmanlike” performance is used as a criticism at most clubs, but that’s what we’re about. No-one is at Rotherham as the fulfilment of a lifelong ambition. No-one sees it as the peak of their career. It’s just a place to play football in a lovely ground where, if you put in a shift, you’ll do fine. The unpretentiousness is the point.

Our decline set in when we started to pretend to be things that we weren’t. We pretended to be an established Championship club. We pretended to be too big for League One. We pretended that there was some magic to us that you could tap into with a heartwarming tale of local connection.

At the very least, the decline seems to have slowed, and it does so with a return to a focus on working hard and doing your best. And if you don’t succeed, work harder to do better.

Honestly, that’s enough for me.

I don’t expect to win every week. I don’t like the added weight of someone’s story being grafted on to the season.

I like turning up, watching a game and going away having enjoyed the effort of the team, win or lose.

So far, I’m enjoying watching this team. Been a while since I’ve said that.