About

Established in June 2009, the two unfortunates started life as a place to air our views on all-things Championship-related. United by a (un)healthy interest in the second tier of English football and a shared set of values, our idea was to evolve what we’d been speaking about in the pub into something that could be appreciated by a wider audience.

After a year, a few of our writers’ teams departed from the division, tearing up our rationale before we really got started. We’d enjoyed the season so much, though, that we decided to extend the scope of the site to include coverage of the whole Football League, as well as semi-regular contributions from those unfortunates who are now counting the days until it’s their team’s turn to get stuffed at Stamford Bridge.

We all have full-time jobs, so don’t pretend cover the League exhaustively. Instead, we get to as many games as we can before signing in to describe what we’ve seen and heard. From time to time, we’ll sound off about something or other, but feel free to put us in our place through the comments section.

The line-up:

	Lanterne Rouge Lanterne is a Reading fan exiled in London. His formative memory was a rainstorm as Robin Friday and company put paid to Swindon in 1976. A keen follower of football at all levels, he can jump up and down with the best of them but disbelieves in mindless antagonism of opposing clubs and fans; although Jose Mourinho has stretched his patience in the past. Lanterne has moonlighted for a range of other websites in recent times including Two Hundred Percent, Twisted Blood, The Real FA Cup, A United View on Football, The Football Attic, Viva Rovers and In Bed with Maradona.
	Lloyd is a Plymouth Argyle supporter whose pessimistic nature seems to complement his choice of team nicely. He walked out of Home Park in the first match that his dad took him to in search of a park to play in, but returned a season later only to be mesmerised by the wonder of Paul Dalton, Steve Castle and Dwight Marshall. The subsequent years have never quite recaptured that initial exhilaration, but he still turns up in hope.
	Scarf is a Stockport County fan who believes in terracing, cheap entry and going to games. He has no ambition to see his club reach the Premier League, and is quite content to wallow in the squalor of the lower divisions. An ardent believer in the Supporters’ Direct movement, he has worked extensively with the Stockport County Supporters’ Trust and spends a worryingly large amount of time obsessing over football finance. He now helps to run the County messageboard, and is still in recovery from Luis Cavaco’s miss at Middlesbrough in 1997.
	Ben is the co-founder and co-author of Newcastle United blog Black & White & Read All Over. Since its inception in 2004, he’s never been short of things to write about, be they messiahs returning, messiahs walking out, expletive-riddled press conferences or team-mates indulging in fisticuffs. He is the slightly shameful owner of a cardboard coathanger with Robert Lee’s head on it, and is currently in search of a new lucky pub for watching televised games. Perhaps a new lucky team would be an easier option.
	William Abbs is a Manchester United fan but don’t blame him, blame Rupert Murdoch and Mark Hughes. No sooner could he kick a ball than he was trying to dribble like Andrei Kanchelskis. Born and raised in Norwich, however, he remains sympathetic to events at Carrow Road and attends games throughout the league pyramid. Last year he moved to London to begin a PhD on football writing with the words of Alan Partridge ringing in his ears, asserting that he would either be mugged or not appreciated.
	Columbine Harvester supports Cork City FC (or whatever they’re called this week), and so observes the Football League with the easy leisure of the neutral. Being of the Irish persuasion, he is particularly interested in the careers of his illustrious countrymen in the English leagues, and Kevin Kilbane.
	Stanley As a kid, Stanley undertook an odyssey around the football grounds of London and North Kent before alighting at Millwall, where a single stint as ballboy was distinguished by his failing to touch the ball once. He now resides within walking distance of the arena erroneously known as the New Den and continues to attend regularly. His least favourite player is Gavin Maguire.
	John McGee’s first footballing memory was of Gordon Strachan lodging the ball in the angle of post and bar during his farewell season at Leeds. For a while thereafter he worshipped at the altar of Elland Road, a youthful, family provoked aberration which lasted longer than such passing phases ever should. During this time he harboured a burgeoning soft spot for local strugglers Carlisle. As he migrated from Cumbria, first to Durham, then to Leeds itself and now London, the magnetic pull of Brunton Park grew stronger. The ‘club chose him’ once and for all on 3 November 2007 – Carlisle 3-1 Leeds and was fortified by memories of Dougie Freedman’s 99th minute cheat’s goal at Elland Road to set up a Johnny Howson hammer blow in the play-off semi-final. John writes a weekly ‘Blue in Exile’ column for the Carlisle Evening News & Star where he’s compared Greg Abbott favourably with George Osborne and contrasted Frank Simek and Joan Miro. He occasionally has naughty thoughts about James Berrett, Michael Bridges and Warren Aspinall.

All views contained on the two unfortunates are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily represent the views of the other writers on the site.