Ben recaps his matchday experience on Wednesday evening, when Reading took a point from the Toughsheet Stadium.
Five and a half hours. That’s the time it took me to get from Upper Tilehurst to Bolton. That was driving time, not travel time (I stopped at a services but I’m not telling you which one or what I bought because that’s private and confidential).
What I will say is that I did buy sweets for myself and Phil Catchpole but I got so stressed I wouldn’t make the agreed time of 7pm that I ate them. If you’ve never been to the Toughsheet Stadium, it’s impressive. It’s basically a Premier League ground. The set-up, facilities, the views etc: all elite.
I rocked up to the ground at dead on 7pm. Bearing in mind we went on air at 7.30, it was a tight squeeze. When I walked into the media suite room, which incidentally was as quiet as a community hall on local election day, I was amazed at the variety of people in there.
“I hate chilli, hate it. Almost as much as I hate the north of England”
An older boy asked if I’d got there early. I thought he was being sarcastic so said: “Sorry?” He said: “You know, for the chilli?” “The chillI?” I questioned. And with a finger that looked like it had seen its fair share of manual labour, he pointed behind me. “The chilli,” he repeated, mouthfuls of rice falling out of his mouth like droplets of water from a tropical waterfall.
And there, to my utter disgust, was a huge bowl of chilli and what I imagined to be “fake” salted Doritos (basically tortilla chips, but if you aren’t doing Doritos, I’m not interested). I hate chilli, hate it. Almost as much as I hate the north of England.
It’s a pointless dish that is mostly bland and contains kidney beans. “No,” I said, “I don’t like chilli.” With that, I walked out of the suite, accidentally walked into the stadium concourse, did a U-turn and then proceeded to storm up at least six flights of stairs to what was effectively cloud level.
It was very, very, very high. Out of breath and mildly perspiring, I noticed James Earnshaw and sat down next to him. We had a bloody good chat actually (hopefully he agrees) and, as we did so, mulled over the team news. No Ben Elliott. No Long Kelvin. Shambles.
I looked around but didn’t see Phil or Ryan. After what seemed like an age (about 15 minutes), they appeared like ghosts in an old mansion. Ryan looked like… well, like a man who’d spent 6.5 hours in a car with Phil Catchpole (stop it!). They unpacked, settled and began being media people, I with them.
“There was no real game plan, we couldn’t get the ball forward much and the midfield, overall, looked bare and despondent”
It’s very, very, very, very high up in the media part of the stadium (not sure if I’d mentioned that). So much so that looking to my right to see our fans gave me all kinds of tingles. With the players out, the intros done and my headphones in the right way, it was party time. I won’t go into details as you’ve already read the match report from us at TTE, so will keep it to “off field” stuff.
Phil kept a decent eye on the tweets. There was plenty of communication from fans coming in to us and that’s a good thing. The first half was hard work – I think we treated the game well in the opening 15 but then it became pretty clear we’d be up against it.
There was no real game plan, we couldn’t get the ball forward much and the midfield, overall, looked bare and despondent. I mentioned to Phil about the sweets and how I’d eaten them and how I could do with them now and he just looked at me blankly. We both were in a bad place.
At half-time we went down for a liquid product. The water was in an urn, the coffee looked instant and the milk warm. I reminded myself, privately, that we were in the north and that basic formalities didn’t matter up there.
What happened next was criminal: a person affiliated with our football club (and I won’t mention names, but it rhymes with Bryan and begins with an ‘R’ – so lose the ‘B’, basically) was helping himself to a drink and, in doing so, took the remaining water.
Well, I was next up and all hell break loose. I shouted: “I’m glad you are getting pelters for your official tweets” at him and poked my finger into his chest. Things became so desperate that some Bolton officials were close to drinking the milk from the jug, just to get liquid into their bodies.
Swearing and sweating, I marched out onto the concourse to find liquid. People stared at me. My shaking hand groped my hoodie and then I remembered: I was wearing a club-branded hoodie (basically just had the Reading badge on it).
Well, the abuse I received was disturbing: “Get out” and “you’re an awful team who muddy the waters of football” and “if I hadn’t paid £2.60 for this pie of meat and gravy, you’d be wearing it”. Shaken, I stumbled back through the media entrance and up to the gantry where I could catch my breath.
My mood wasn’t helped when Bolton eventually broke the deadlock. We were a shell of a team, a bit like when a crustacean from the ocean actually loses its own shell.
We struggled to get a foothold anywhere in the game. Royals TV cut out. People thought we’d gone home (we hadn’t, the internet went).
The game was stale, the 330 heroes from Berkshire to our right had lost faith. And then Andre The Giant Garcia did something amazing: he scored.
I think I screamed a bit. I tried to slap Phil but missed and just airshot myself. I described the scenes of our fans as them being like “dogs at Christmas dinner”. Just a great moment!
Listen, we didn’t deserve it, but who cares? We got the draw that we desperately needed to kickstart our season and, hopefully, we can kick on from there. I left the stadium with a smile on my face and the hope that it wouldn’t take 5.5 hours to get to Wycombe on Saturday. We can but dream.
Until next time.
Category: General Sports
