by floyd__streete »
26 Dec 2008 21:24
.....was what today reminded me of. Good game between two decent sides, ebb and flo but with defences on top in all honesty. In 04/05 the Ipswich home match - 20,000+ crowd with a full, raucous away end - saw them at the top of the league and us in the top 4 or 5, Ipswich scoring a scruffy goal right at the end of 90 minutes like Cardiff did today (Cardiff's was offside though?

) with their supporters celebrating delriously by spilling onto the pitch.
I got up and left in a sulk at that particular game

and by the time I had reached the bottom of the Y25/26 stairs Ivar Ingimarsson smashed in a leveller; I didn't have time to celebrate properly as by the time I began to react, Compo's Hat (who had left the top of Y25/26 barely 20 seconds after I) landed on me having apparently leaped the last 4 or 5 steps, launching himself onto my back in celebration. The ensuing bundle at the bottom of Y25/26 was memorable as some stick was dished out to the Ipswich fans who were larging it not sixty seconds earlier

.
Today was even more memorable! Scruffy goal at the end for Cardiff -
offsiiiiiide???!!!

- and I left on about 92 minutes feeling rather philosophical this time; even in successful seasons last minute sickeners
do happen. I walked along the concourse, saw an Armstrong cross from the left on the small telly drift out of play, headed out of the stadium and walked towards the north-east corner. As I reached Gate 8, I heard a roar go up for another corner so I nipped in and through a crowd of heads I watched from a fair distance on another small screen as the corner came across, met by a Reading player and.....GOAL was the shout for dozens of others like me who didn't have the faith to stay in their seats until the end. Not a split second later the rebound is in the roof of the net and I am running. I am running like David Pleat celebrating on the pitch at Maine Road in 1983*, towards Y19 I think, with dozens of others who are intent in joininh in the party. Chaos, absolute bottleneck. People running back in to celebrate collide with dozens who were heading to the exits themselves, I have grazes on my arms from crashing into people, proper
radio rental moment

. Folk are leaping and bumping into each other and when it is announced that it is bloody
Federici who has scored it another mini frenzy of celebration! Amusing, memorable scenes.
Good point for us in the end against a very capable side who are a handful. Poorly refereed in my opinion and the two Reading substitues Long and Kebe performed very poorly I felt. But I still have generally very positive thoughts of a decent game with an incredible ending. Fair play to Reading for never giving up.
* =
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XyAUkaC6nsI
Last edited by
floyd__streete on 26 Dec 2008 21:41, edited 1 time in total.