The death of hope

In the 15 minutes between the end of the first half of tonight’s game against Palace and the start of the second, all the hope drained out of me. It was the strangest thing. Like everyone else, I’d spent the first half leaping out of my seat every couple of minutes, clapping and singing and yelling and generally trying my damnedest to spur the Golden Boys on to glory.

And when none of it worked, something inside of me just gave up the ghost, in tacit acknowledgement that this was it. Those 45 minutes had been our chance to save our season, and we hadn’t taken it. I can’t pretend to have foreseen the second and third Palace goals, but they didn’t come as a surprise either.

It’s odd, because I’m normally a glass-half-full person when it comes to Watford, able to glimpse hope in the darkest hour. But during the second half tonight, I couldn’t even raise the energy to clap or shout. I wasn’t the only one, either. When Danny Graham scored our consolation goal, most of the people around me didn’t even stand up to celebrate. (I did, out of some kind of residual reflex.)

Maybe I’ll feel differently by the time the next home game rolls around. But right now, that feels like the defining game of our season.