Saturday was here and another away game. I was dreading this one, not because of how Luton had been performing but because the ground looked awful on the Internet. Weather was supposed to be bad too which made today even harder to face – but face it we did.

For the first time this season, James and I headed up to the grounds separately, which I have to be honest, was really boring! James got there first and headed for the snooker club, “Riley’s”, which was the only place open near the ground to get a beer!

The Matchday Programme (priced at £3.00)

The Matchday Programme (priced at £3.00)

I arrived shortly afterwards and, as I got out of the car, I noticed I had missed calls and texts from a few people saying the game was off, then the game was on. Very confusing! Luckily I had found a car park near the ground so I asked one of the stewards if the game was on and was told it would definitely go ahead.  The weather was, meanwhile, absolutely dire, the rain was teeming down and there was a very strong wind.

The news the game would go ahead though had put me in better spirits as I was starting to panic that the game was going to be called off.

Anyways, I headed to a pub in the town centre called “Queens” that James and his dad had managed to find was open.  After a few drinks, (Coca-Cola for me as usual), we headed for the ground.

What a ground it was! It was worse than I had anticipated and the most pleasuring sight I have seen all season was the fact that the players came out of the ground floor of a block of flats! There were flats nearly the whole way down one side of the pitch. I thought to myself that if you were a Grays fan then what a place to live! Just pop out on the balcony every home game and you could watch it for free.

About five minutes to kick-off I realised why the home team had been struggling this season. Where were all their fans? The Home end was so dead I could count them all. 54 there were and what was worse was that the other home stand wasn’t busy either.  Hatters fans were congregated on a small terraced stand behind one goal, and in three quarters of a small seated stand along one side of the pitch, and a small terraced area at the opposite side of the ground.

The players came out and, as we had been taking through the announcement of the line-ups, we quickly worked out the team that Richard Money had put out.  Where was Asa Hall and Ed Asafu-Adjaye? Why was Nwokeji on the bench and not in the starting line-up after his recent arrival? I felt sorry for Shane Gore as he had played well the previous game and a lot of us felt he should have started this game as a reward but I didn’t question too much as I have to give a little faith to Richard Money as he is new in post.  Gore had been dropped for new signing Kevin Pilkington.

So as the game kicked off the inevitable started happening with both teams trying to welly the ball up top. I didn’t blame them. With the windy conditions I would have been tempted to do the same.

After the first 20 minutes I was getting frustrated, not with the way we were playing, but every time we had a goal kick all the players went too far up the pitch and the keepers kicks were causing players to panic. You would think that after the first couple of goal kicks the players would realise that Pilkington couldn’t get the ball over the halfway line but they just didn’t learn!

So after a pretty poor first 30 minutes both teams, especially Luton, were starting to get used to the wind and about 5 minutes before half-time Luton were ahead. Craddock had scored. About time! Grays had been a very poor side from what I could remember from the FA Cup game and they were looking no better here.

It got to half-time and James went to get some food and see his mate Edd and I went for a cigarette.

The second-half was a bit better than the first but the weather was making the play very lethargic.  Gallen scored a second for us shortly after the break and we basically shut up shop after that. Nwokeji came on for a brief stint and looked lively and another 3 points were secured. James and his dad had left just before the end as they had a party to head to so that left me with the short drive back to Chelmsford.

So Cambridge was the next game and I was looking forward to that. One it was my Birthday and two our mate Mendel was back from Afghanistan to watch it with us. Let’s hope we put on a good performance for him and get some more points on the board.

Come on you Hatters up the league we go!

Batesy

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