Reading Away – FA Cup 3rd Round 02/01/2010.

I’m lying there in bed, trying like fuck to sleep but it’s just not happening, New Years Eve has fucked me Body Clock up beyond recognition. I went to bed at 12:30am, it’s now 4:30am, Fuck it, may’s well get up and watch a bit of telly.

It gets to 7:30am and I’m starving so I decide to have a shuftee around the streets of Anfield to try and find someone who’ll make me a Sausage Sarnie. It is, after all, just a bog-standard Satdee morning now. Chrimbo is over. Alas, Fuck all is open. There's loads of Greasy Spoon Café type gaffs around, all wi’ the shutters down. Now I can think back to my 8:00am Satdee morning shift starts and I could deffo get a scran on me way to work. The world’s gone mad!

I come back home, sort me ale, clobber, ticket out and wait for me arl fella who’s givin’ me a lift to the pick up point . I’ve been really looking forward to today. Not only is it the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, but it’s also the first time the BOSSmag Editorial Team Trio have seen each other for months , so it’s a double cause for excitement.

Me hunger pangs were startin’ to get the better of me, just before we pulled into a Servies, and I saw the best sign one could ever wish for when in this predicament, “KFC”. Made up isn’t even in it. We usually stop off at the same servies which is absolutely Shite. The only scran to purchase in there is fucking Wimpy!!! Wimpy? It’s abar 8 nicker for a standard Burger Meal in there and it’s not up to much. Nowhere near as nice as this Wicked Zinger Box Meal which gets demolished in next to no time, and now, I just can’t wait to get back on the coach to attack my plethora of Peroni. I’ve been slightly lethargic to the lager so far, but I’m planning on making up for lost time as soon as I get back on. And I do.

We pull up in a beautifully picturesque town that I’m informed is called Henley. Our Tour Operator and Colonel of the LBU, John Garner, informs us that it is a town synonymous with Tory Support so the first chorus of “MAGGIE MAGGIE MAGGIE…DIE DIE DIE” is sent up into the bitingly cold icy air. It was a lovely looking place though. Right on the Thames, nice boats parked up, rowers going past, up and down the river givin’ it ten to the dozen. What the fuck the locals must’ve thought when about 50 scousers made an unannounced invasion to break the solitude of their sleepy Satdee afternoon stroll, I’ll never know.

First port of call was a boozer called The Angel where an extremely pretty girl with curly hair served us nice cold pints of Fosters. We chat to the locals, as is our style, going way way too far out of our way to be nice, intelligent and articulate in the vain hope that we may leave them with a different view of the inhabitants of that ghastly city in the north known as Liverpool. The three of us talking in that way that McManaman does when on TV Punditry duty.

Next stop was this empty pub which fuckin’ stunk of sweaty Labradors so we drank our bevvies fast and made our exit to meet every other lad off our coach…where? Like you need to ask? Wetherspoons of course. Decent one this though. The ale was flowing wildly and the banter was flowing loudly with the outrageously popular Gerry Shields holding court at the bar, having five conversations at once, trying his best to include every Kopite in the pub in these conversations. A better man you’ll never ever meet in your life. It was getting close to Offski Time so we ordered a few shorts, necked them quickly, and got on our toes.

It took us a while to realise that we’d walked past where the coach had been parked and it slowly dawned on us that they’d actually fucked off without us. Nico gets on the blower to Colonel Garner, who confirmed that they had indeed ‘fucked off’. They said they’d wait for us, and gave us instructions where they were positioned, which was an absolute ballache cos we had run, not even jog, proper run to get on the coach. We finally made it and I think I had a little kip at that point on the short journey from Henley to Reading.

Match report – We drew 1-1. It was freezing. We were shite. Again.

The return journey stop off could also be filed under the ‘interesting’ category, as it was Oxford. Another posh as fuck gaff for the scouse hordes to invade. We ended up in a pub called ‘Chequers’ Anyway, this ‘Chequers’ boozer was sound, we were all drained by this point so the lager was sipped slowly and conversation was at a premium, which suited me fine and left me to do a bit of ‘people watching’. Quite interesting these Oxford University types, they were all the type of cunts you would have seen on Bob Holness’ Blockbusters TV Show if it was still going, bad divvies in Smiths T-Shirts doing that stupid fuckin’ dance at the end. Blerts!

We had to run to make the coach again, this time with a crate of Stella and three 6-packs of Grolsch which was no easy thing, but we made it with plenty of time and settled down for a nice journey home with an adequate amount of lager to get us to The Rocket, keeping our throats lubricated.

We had a new driver for this trip, never really noticed him until the journey home. He looked like a Pirate and drove like a Primate. Absolute buffoon! Whilst bombin’ it down the motorway, he’d slam on, to try to make the lads standing in the aisle topple over like a shitload of skittles. The mad bastard was having his own game of ten-pin bowling using the LBU Lads for pins. “Steeee-rike” he’s probably shouting in his mind as he see’s another group of Kopites tumble to the lager drenched floor. He’d also go crazy on the steering wheel wildly sending the bus left to right which in turn sent the coach zig-zagging across the motorway. He did, however, get us home about an hour earlier than what we’d all thought due to his mad driving, so bonus points for that.

We got back The Rocket for about 1:00am, tired, weary and dreaming of a Delta cab. Another full day on the road watching our beloved Redmen. I’ve waffled on far too much in this report, when four words would suffice, in fact, the same four words that describe most LFC Away Days of the last couple of months – ‘Great day. Shit game’.