Seems like yesterday that we overcame a four goal deficit against Southampton in the league cup to win 7-5 on aggregate. Was it really 1980/1 season?
Looks as though Posh are going to finish it. SW take their foot off the pedal and Posh score to lead 5-4
Penalties - am surprised any Wednesday players are left fit enough to take one. They've been falling over like Kabaseles with cramp.
It looks as though things turned nasty after the West Ham game. West Ham players confronted AZ Alkmaar fans after they appeared to attack an area in which friends and family were watching the teams' Europa Conference League semi-final second leg.
What a comeback. Excellent penalties from SW. Unfortunately there seems to be a common theme of trouble in the Netherlands. Plus you add in the fact it’s West Ham ..
I think depends upon who you want to win the final really. Personally I'd rather see Barnsley come up than Wednesday - not so sure about Bolton though.
Have been there twice - in the space of four months - back in the days when it was a different ground. I have a 100% win record there, so don't want to spoil that...
I've watched Watford at around 80 different grounds: missed out on Burnden Park, Deepdale, Ewood Park, Prenton Park, Edgley Park, and Spotland to date. Been to a few more to see Reading or as a neutral: Elm Park (20+, I reckon) Field Mill, Ninian Park, Springfield Park, to name a few and stadiums abroad.The But of an anorak,me. Sorry. The Dell and Withdean are gone gone.
Never made it to Spotland or Springfield Park, but have been to the others you mention. Field Mill brings back memories of a game there in early 1967. Not having the cash for the coach, I decided to hitchhike and, not really sure how far away it was or how likely getting a lift would be, l rather stupidly set off at around 10:00pm - and arrived in Mansfield around 1:00am. Not the best place to be in winter at that time of day - nothing open and nowhere to go for shelter. I ended up sleeping under a hedge in someone's front garden, which gave a little shelter from the snow that started falling a couple of hours later. I emerged from under the hedge just on daylight, just as an old lady opened the door to take her milk in. God only knows what she thought when she saw an abominable snowman appear from her hedge. To make matters worse, we lost the game 2-1.
My one trip to Field Mill is a parallel story. One of my Besties is a Reading fan and is blind which is why I've been to Elm Park so often. We arranged to meet a Reading supporters coach at J5 of the M1. It was the weekend after my 20th birthday and Mansfield is my late Mum's home town... Alas we over did things and he was plastered by the time we got up there. I managed to get him into the ground a bit before k.o. playing him with coffee! About twenty minutes in I had to take him to the toilets which were, for some unfathomable reason, unsegregated, and a couple of home fans came in... Well the police heard the kerfuffle and took them away but my mate was distraught (I'll spare the details but it was wholly unpleasant and totally unacceptable behaviour by those yobs) and my mate, sadly and unintentionally, did some damage for which he was duly arrested. The upshot was that I felt that I had to go with him and the walk in front of the Reading fans with him in cuffs and me following on behind explaining what had happened to another officer was about as embarrassing as it gets. As I say we'd overdone it on the coach so we were already unpopular and our way beyond the shoulder hair, leathers and denim cut-offs, didn't help. I rescued our stuff from the coach, including a rastabox and he was put in a cell to sleep it off and I went to the station to make a statement and was then left to my own devices. No mobiles. The only credit card was Access in those days. Our cash was all we had. 20 years young and 130 miles from home, one in a cell and the other trying very hard not to get beaten up in town. A sobering experience. A glance in the TV shop window at a quarter to five told me Reading had lost 2-0. At half past eight he was released, uncharged. That, on reflection, was fair. We tried to hitchhike home, which was just about the most hare brained, dumb arsed, idea we could have had. We got as far as Chesterfield and ended up in a bus shelter in the hamlet of Doe Lea hiding from the freezing rain overnight. We didn't get much sleep! A while after dawn broke we were greeted by an old chap who had heard us arrive in the early hours. Two enamel mugs of tea in one hand and a plate of buttered crackers in the other! Absolute heaven!! He also let us phone home and my mate's brother drove up to collect us. We couldn't being ourselves to accept his invitation into the warm though. I ended up writing an explanatory letter and apologies to RFC and my friend wrote a letter of apology but that, rightly, didn't spare us a travel ban from the club coaches. Thoughtless, selfish, and quite out of character, victims of our own stupid actions. All part of life's great tapestry though, embarrassing and (not the incident in the toilet which only the police and immediate family know of to this day) funny, on reflection. Did we learn anything from it? Nothing like that happened again, for sure!
