We were in the Forest of Dean on a weekend visit to Susan and Andrew.
It was the weekend of Andrews 50th birthday and Rotherham were away at nearby Cardiff. A match made in heaven. Vicky and Alex had accompanied us as Alex had just celebrated his 21st and the weekend was his present from us. What more could a boy ask for. We rose late and chilled all morning. I made microwave porridge and we saw no magpies, good start. The little ones rose very late, so late it was already time to leave. We had sought opinion on the best way to get to Cardiff. Todd advised the train, apparently Cardiff traffic is bad, but the cost of £9 return each put me off. Then we would have to take a taxi or walk 1.5miles. We decided leaving early, driving, and paying to park would be cheaper and easier. Cardiff was indeed busy, built not very, and we arrived in the vicinity of the stadium after only a couple of fights with Tiffany.
I had read on the internet directions from a Scuntorpe fan to an away fans carpark close to the ground so we all looked out for HSS plant hire and duly turned into the indicated road. That was when the Carling day really started. 'Hello Sir' said a cheery fellow 'away fans?'. We replied in the affirmative and after parting with £8 (steep I know but wait) we were directed to park next to the range rover in an almost empty car park, barring a few beer buses, not twenty metres from the away fans entrance.
We strolled over and were merrily searched by stewards who chatted amicably about Vickys visit to the London Dungeon. In the concourse itself a TV was showing the Rotherham United promotion video from last season. A sign thanked us Millers fans for making the 392 mile round trip and hoping we had a pleasant day! There was no queue so we all had a nice hot chocolate.
Stewards mixed and chatted with fans as if they were long lost family. We then went through and found some nice seats, 'sit anywhere', by the corner flag. A good number had travelled the 186 miles, around 300 I would say, and were in good voice when the teams exited.
Derbyshire had a knock (yay) so Revell returned, and Arneson replaced the injured Clubfoot, but the team was otherwise the same as the one that failed to convince against Blackpool. Mr LeFondre was introduced and got a good round of applause from us, as expected, he is a Millers legend after all.
As the teams lined up the scoreboard and tannoy screamed out a very fierce and scary rendition of Men of Harlech, imploring all the Welshmen to gut the English, or something like that. The crowd joined in with relish, and that was virtually the last we heard of them.
The match kicked off and we started to play beautiful, sexy, football. We didn't lump the ball up to Revell, we pressed them, won the ball, then passed it through their midfield. It was stunning stuff. We had a few poor attempts on goal but up till that point it was faultless, and that will come. Cardiff, and Alfie, barely had a kick. We came very close when Paul Green had a shot cleared off the line. Not as close as my Sky app thought however. 'PENALTY MISS PAUL GREEN!!' Screamed my pocket, I must have blinked at that point. Suddenly, on 20mins, the librarian like Cardiff fans all stood and started screaming and waving blue flags.
Apparently they didn't like changing their colour from blue to red, who can blame them. We sympathised by singing 'we wear what we want, you wear what you're told.' After that our skilful Barcelona like passing game, with Tom Lawrence in the Messi role, stupefied the Cardiff fans back into silence. 0-0 at half-time.
In our roles as investigative reporters Vicky and I headed to the loos. First impressions were good. The whole wall of the ladies were painted pink, the gents blue. No embarrassing New York stadium style errors could occur here. No standing water on the floor. Lots of clean toilets with a strong flush. Copious hot water. Brilliant. Ian reported a similar standard in the usually horrendous away stadium gents.
Back for the second half and more of that football that had us purring. A stunning move saw a Revs header that the keeper miraculously touched onto the bar. The ref (D'Urso) even more miraculously gave a goal kick. Cardiff huffed and puffed for about five minutes then we regained the upper hand. They replaced the scary looking Kenwynn Jones with the ex Man Utd star Macheda, they replace Alfie with ex Man utd star Fabio, and replaced some other player with ex Man Utd star Ravel Morrison. No worries for the brilliant Millers, we attacked to the end and the only disappointment was that the final score was 0-0.
Same result as last week but this time it felt like a win. Cardiff had won their last five home games easily and were playing in the Premier League last season. I can find no weak link, from the back four who snuffed out any threat from Jones and Alfie, midfield with the lively Ladesma outstanding, to the forward line of Revell and the wonderful Lawrence. If we can only start scoring someone is in for a hiding. Let's hope it's Nottingham Forest next Saturday.
We wandered down towards the exit. 'Have a great trip home' said the steward. 'Bye, see you again' said another. We filed out and looked for the car, oh there it was 20m away. The stewards directed us down a narrow lane while waving goodbye. It wound away from the stadium and brought us out on a road free from traffic and we sped off towards Lydney.
If Carling did away days........
Men of the match
Ian - Tom Lawrence, with a big praise for the ref for a near flawless performance!!!!!!
Jackie - Tom 'Pele' Lawrence
Vicky - Ladesma
Alex - Ladesma
Toilet watch - 10/10
Funniest moment - sky app thinking Green had missed a penalty
Quote of the day -
Re: MOTM v Rotherham United (h)
Ian's award - Cornergate
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