The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Whilst we’d lost the first leg 2-1, I had high, high hopes of us coming good when they came to our ground – a place where we’d not lost in 20 games.

Even though it was going to be played in the middle of the night, there was no way I was going to miss it, so I went to bed early and set the alarm for 2:30am.

Anyway, a few hours passed and the alarm went off and the first thing that hit me was confusion.

You see I had fallen asleep and in my dream I had dreamt they had won 2-0 … a score that would have secured their progression to the grand playoff final.

However it gets worse, because in my dream, I also dreamt I‘d woken up in a panic realising that I’d only dreamt that score only to be ridiculously happy and relieved when I logged on to BBC.com and found that 2 goal result had actually turned into reality.

So imagine how weird and fearful it felt when I realised [1] I had only dreamt I was awake [2] they hadn’t won 2-0 and [3] the match hadn’t even started yet.

As we all know – despite a very bright start – we ended up losing 3-4 and our hopes of a return to where we belong were dashed for another year … however the thing I find interesting is that my love for my team/brand is so strong that it not only infiltrated my dreams, but positively affected my emotions and feelings.

There’s plenty of talk about how great brands affect people – and there’s a general acceptance that the greatest brands tend to be the ones that live and play within people’s/societies lives – however when a brand can affect your sleep and mood simply through the anticipation you have of interacting/experiencing/engaging with it again, then I would say the number of truly great brands is far less than many in our business claim.

For me a great brand isn’t about sales or profit [though obviously they are very important components] … it’s about an irrational love …. where it affects what you do and feel beyond rational reason.