One Year On

"Hi! I'm not Troy McLure - I'm SJNR. You won't remember me from such films as The President's Neck is Missing and episodes of The Simpsons from back when the show wasn't a joke free shell, but from 12 month old blog postings where I state I'll be putting up new content very soon and on regular-ish basis after that."

I know, I know. As opening paragraphs to blog postings go, even on a site like this where the quality threshold is already staggeringly low, it's far from brilliant; if it had the use of a telescope mediocre would still be a dot on a distant horizon in front of it.  The fact it's there instead of something else though (and trust me, there was an awful lot of awful something elses there before it) may give you an idea of how difficult this thing has been to write.

You probably won't believe me but when I wrote the statement at the end of last year saying new stuff was on its way to the blog my intentions were utterly sincere.

2013 is/was the 10th anniversary of Mossley80 existing in one form or another on the internet and while I normally hate the marking of the passing of time (birthdays, New Year, etc.) I wanted to do something for the website.  Why?  Even though I'm not much of a sentimentalist I do like the site and hate that circumstances have left it to wither and die in the way it has over the past couple of years or so.

My aim was to try and correct that neglect.  Pieces were started and some came close to almost being finished. The groundwork was done for other bits and bobs that would have led to a steady stream of content over a series of weeks and months. The site was redesigned and a plan for going forward with a relatively football-free (for the foreseeable future anyway) Mossley80 was in place.  So, what happened you may ask? The answer is, life did.

Twelve months ago I wrote that 2013 was shaping up to be a bad year and while that was written partly in jest a bad year did come to pass. No, scratch that, it was much, much worse.  No details will be expounded on here but with everything that has happened the blog, football and other things too numerous to mention have been the furthest things from my mind.

There's an argument to be had that throwing myself back into the things I did for fun (Mossley80, football, etc.) could have helped alleviate some of the overwhelming gloom a little.  However, being the type of person who is not very good at compartmentalising their life it's highly likely that all I'd be successful in doing would be allowing that darkness to seep into things that should be light.

So what of the site now? Well, being someone who doesn't believe that things can suddenly change for the better because a large number on the calendar increases by a single digit I'm not going to make any promises for 2014.  There may or may not be some content on here over the course of the next 365 days that doesn't consist me explaining why the site has been so quiet. I just don't know.

What I can say with some degree of certainty though is that I'm determined to try and shake the metaphorical pitch black cloud that's been hovering overhead for a good length of time now. It's not going to be easy and to be honest I don't rate my chances of success that much but it's the first step - even if it is a shaky one - in something approaching the right direction I've attempted for a while.  That may bring about the catalyst needed to spring this site into life once more. It's just a question of wait and see.

If things don't get better then in all likelihood it will just fade away.  Some may take pleasure in its passing.  The majority though will remain as indifferent to it as they were while it was in its perceived heyday; barely giving it a second thought as it vanishes quietly into nothingness.*

Not for the first time on Mossley80 a short message seems to have gone on a lot longer than I'd originally intended.  If for some inexplicable reason you're still reading at this point after all the doom and gloom above, I'd like to thank you for doing so and wish you a Happy New Year.  The law of averages say someone has got to have one so why not you? :)


* This paragraph is available free of charge to be cut and pasted into any articles about Droylsden FC in the upcoming months.**

** See! I can still do football!