I’ve made an enemy. And when I say ‘I’ I mean, ‘we’ and when I say ‘enemy’ I mean the editor of and contributors to Crewe Vital Football. Man, they’re angry.

I made a joke on Twitter that got re-tweeted by said editor. He then went on to say that we’re worse ‘than Vale fans’. Which is presumably very insulting indeed.

Anyway, it got me reading his site and wow, he’s got issues. Take the definitive moment in Saturday’s 1-1 draw:

“Referee gives goal. Oxford players cry offside. At this point every single Oxford player has surrounded the linesman. After a few minutes kerfuffle the referee whistles for a free kick to Oxford.”

This, he says, is “unbelievable”. Too right, players intimidating officials, officials not applying the rules properly… Oh hang on, what’s this?

“Now, the decision ultimately was probably the correct one.”

Ah. So, the ref’s ‘unbelievable’ decision was, in truth, correct. Looking at the incident, I reckon it was about 4 seconds between the ball going into the net and the ref heading towards the linesman. Not quite the scandal it first appeared to be.

A discussion forum topic called Wilder – Idiot continues the polemic.

To be fair, there are contributions that point out that the Alex need to man up if they’re expected to compete at this level. This is great though:

“His [Wilder’s] comments, just like his teams’ tactics were dreadful – playing that high up the pitch at 1-0, well a better Crewe side would have stuck 3 or 4 past them easy.”

Oxford are shit, Chris Wilder is an idiot and Crewe are brilliant. Although, it should be pointed out that this is a fictitious Crewe playing scintillating football, not one that currently exists.

It goes on. Crewe have always been held up as a model of how a small club should be run. Modest, yet successful, four years ago they were voted the most admired club in the league. Their focus on player development and managerial stability should be an example to us all.

They’ve been relegated twice in the intervening four years. It seems, Crewe are some kind of art project and teams who don’t just stand aside are oppressors of their creative spirit. As a team that knows quite a lot about the damage a superiority complex can have, Crewe might do well to learn from us rather than treat us with such contempt.