Game Thirty - Swindon Town Away

15th November 2008

Wow - it's hard to believe that this was to be the first weekend away game since the trip to Boundary Park nearly a whole month ago. With the away form that served us so well in the opening weeks of the season, it seemed vital for us to regain our footing and look to return home with three points.

This was to be the first match against Swindon since the famous 4-3 defeat at Wembley 15 years before and to say that that dominated the thoughts of the local fans in the build up was an understatement as the Swindon media and programme took the opportunity to remember possibly the best game that the famous old stadium ever saw.

So an early start was needed as it was back onto Fox Travel for this one after the luxury of various forms of travel for the previous two away games... and for once, it was almost like the old days when it was genuinely fun on the coaches. The customary sleep was natural until the services where we bumped into Dexter and Jodie like the good old days. Alan and co were all out in force too so random chats were at a premium.

After that it was next stop Swindon and the magic roundabout which is a force to be reckoned with... unless you're a Fox Travel driver who just ploughs straight across the middle - legend! With us all parked up, I headed off into town to find people at the local pub but instead bumped into Andy, Ben, Joe and Tommeh and so decided to stick with them and head into the stadium earlier than planned.

This is just your typical league one ground that we are becomming accustomed with now but with the added bonus of a "Stockport Style" open stand with no roof that away fans can also get tickets for if they feel the need.

With the five of us soon joined by Bert, Wilksey, Maybes, Dexter and others from Foxestalk and we all crammed into a small space towards the back of the side stand as kick off approached. The "rocking robin" and overweight cheerleader remain possibly the most bizarre thing I've ever seen at a football match and after watching Leicester for all that time, that is saying something!

The game kicked off and our attention was soon drawn to the steward coming up the stairs saying that if we wanted to stand in more room, we could all move to the other stand behind the goal where we could relax a bit more. Happy days - it's always better to be behind the goal at away games for some reason... although with the cold wind soon whipping around us, the decision to move was soon being questionned by me and the random guy I got chatting to during the first half.

I suppose I should comment on the match at some point and to be honest it was Swindon who looked more likely to take the lead in a pretty uneventful first half. Goal machine Simon Cox was played through on goal and somehow he placed his shot a good few yards wide. Personally I was already cursing being a goal down so to get away with that felt like a goal in our favour.

Corners reigned in on us and Henderson was at hand to clear any danger and ensure that we went in at half time level. From one such corner that got caught in the wind, Hendo claimed a difficult catch only to see the ball headed out of his hands and into the net only for the referee to correctly rule it out much to our relief.

At half time, after checking our (losing) bets to the scores, we headed down to the front row on the far left of the stand for the third view of the game. Front row barmy army! This new view from the stand seemed to be reflected with a new view from the players as for the first time in the game they started to move the ball around better and looking to make an impression on the game. Dyer went close with a deflected effort that just went wide of the post and we started to dominate possession and play with meaning.

Corners of our own were swung into the box and as we started to press more and more and it seemed only a matter of time before the net would ripple with a city goal.

And finally it came. Oakley picked the ball up just outside the area, shimmied past a defender and lashed the ball across the keeper into the net. Cue pandemonium. We all shot forward to the adverstising boards, with me, Joe, Andy and Lil' Dave jumping the row in front in our excitement. Arms everywhere and the atmosphere kicked in as we moved back to the top of the table.

As we were still enjoying being one up, a high ball was played over the top of the Swindon defence which Fryatt managed to flick past the unrushing keeper and then casually roll it into the empty net. Let celebreation numero two commence.

This was turning into one of the classic away days as we were two nil up away from home in the cold, having a laugh with fellow city fans, and had had two manic goal celebrations to contend with which resulted in muddy footprints left on seats as we lept rows to get to the front.

The quality banter was only continued after the second goal as a steward with a cheap burberry cap started to get abuse as he looked more and more miserable. Chants of "you're gonna cry in a minute!" didn't go down well and he soon resorted to sticking his fingers up at the crowd and walking off in a hissy fit to cries of "you're getting sacking in the morning". Surley one of the main aspects of the job is to deal with that kind of thing and frankly he got off lightly with some mickey taking compared to the abuse that some people get. Bless him though - Im sure he was back home in time for his bed.

At 2-0 it was perfect though, fun banter and good laughs were being had.... and even the dark clouds gathering overhead didn't look set to dampen the mood as we carried on having our fun behind the goal.... well..... some of us did.

We even spotted a certain young member of Foxestalk gathered with the erm... chav-ier section of our fan base who ran like the clappers when a steward headed in his direction causing much amusement amongst the rest of us. At worst he would have been asked to tone it down a bit but Usain Bolt had nothing on him as he sprinted away to the middle of that group where he couldn't be seen. Bless.

Back to the game though and everything was going well ....but we didn't brace ourselves for the last 6 minutes of the game as Swindon pulled one back when a miss-hit shot fell to Simon Cox who just rolled it into an empty net. Nervousness started but so what if they'd got one back.... they'd never get another..... bugger!

A long throw was flicked on by our own defender and was acrobatically turned in at the back post past a despairing dive from Hendo. How had this happened? True we didn't deserve to be two nil up in all honesty but to conceed two goals in three minutes to throw away 2 points was criminal and the third time we'd lost a two goal lead in 5 away games. How can we keep doing this?

We pushed forward at the end trying to repair the damage but it was too late.

With two points lost and the chance to cement our place at the top of the league in pieces, the final whistle was greeted with a muted response. 3 points to 1. 1st place to 2nd. Happiness to misery. What a crazy difference three minutes can make. At least Jimmy Bullard was there to put a smile back on our faces.

And so it was back onto the coach and the average trip back home where we were left to think of what should have been. A book was passed round too for us to write messages to former striker Iain Hume who had had suffered a major injury when elbowed in the head last weekend - a nice gesture and flicking through it was nice to see what other people had written to him (although why no-one can spell his name after playing for us for a few years is beyond me.)

We arrived back at the walkers in good time and I caught sight of the fixtures on the board outside. Hardly fills you with excitement does it? Gone are the big names in English football and in are Dagenham & Redbridge. Joy!

So thirty games in the season done and the 100% record is still going strong. The first target though is to get to the 2nd January without missing a game as then i'll have done my initial target of 365 days without missing a game. QPR away, the first game of 2008 is the last time I wasn't at a first team Leicester match and boy has a lot happened since then. We're in the third tier of English football and QPR are one of the richest clubs in the world.... football. It's a funny old game!

Oh and thanks to Lil' Dave for a few of his pics that I "borrowed" for this blog. Cheers lad!