by Ian Herring »
18 May 2017 12:56
The least nervous I've been before a Reading match for many of the thirty-odd years I've been attending.
The most nervous I've been in a seat at a game for many a year.
Not that 'up and down screaming' sort of nerves.
More a gnawing, vicious twisting of the gut that made my teeth clench and mouth screw shut as if I were about to produce something from my ring-hole roughly approximating a foecal version of Archimedes' Screw.
Fulham were like something you'd buy in a patisserie in one of the more effete streets of that London borough, a crepe (or crap) of sorts.
Reading? They were visceral. Like a set of rubber bands set up to widen and expand and then thrash back into some other form - not at all nice to watch - but Alien-esque in some kind of protozoeic shape - expanding and contracting with each spasm throwing the more earthly Fulham off balance or into cul-de-sacs around the wing or box.
Of note: The noise around the stadium in the last ten minutes - I'm an old school terracer with a hatred of all-seat stadia and any facet of the 'modern game' (i.e. I am a fucking dinosaur) but that was quite thrilling.
Of note: The effort put in by players who have at times this season (and prior) had me spitting my teeth out in disgust at their lack of...many things.
Fulham fans? Stop attempting to clone those Palace faux ultras down in Penge and stick to what you've been most of your sorry lives - out of work extras from The Sweeney and Minder, betting shop denizens, park voyeurs, ex-Wimbledon fans, imitation sheepskin coat donners, patent leather shoe wearers and lovers of Old Holborn.
Nice club down by the river? Who gives a flying schooner? So were Shrewsbury when they had a 'nice little ground'.
Behave yourselves and come back down to ground level, yer fat heads!