WITH the trip to Southampton in the FA Cup Third Round we at last had a decent ground to visit! A big stadium that even boasted a ‘Ladbrokes’ in the away end so we could have a bet, it was like the old days again and ‘proper’ football!
My dad decided to join us for the trip to Hampshire and we had decided to stay overnight in a ‘Premier Inn’ hotel as we both wanted a few beers. With a return train costing £35 each from Stevenage, and with the hassle of having to go in and out of London to get to Southampton, we decided paying £50 for a hotel room seemed a far better bet.
We left Stevenage at 10.30am for the 2-hour drive to Southampton. We arrived in the city centre at 12.30pm and headed straight for our hotel, which was only a 10-minute walk from the stadium. In fact, you could actually see the stadium from our room window!
After quickly throwing our stuff in our room, my dad and I headed for the city centre pubs. We found quite a few and the first pub we entered (I forget the name) served food, so we both had an all-day breakfast with a pint, which was nice.
Batesy had decided to drive up himself separately since he didn’t want to stay overnight, so we met him in another pub which was next door called “The Cat in the Hat”. We had a couple of beers in here and it also had a ‘Spider-Man’ pinball machine, which we played for a bit (geeks), but you don’t often see those in pubs so we all had a go and my dad actually did way better than us which was surprising considering his age (!).
We left for the short walk to the ground at 2.20pm, arriving at the stadium about ten minutes later. It was an impressive stadium from the outside, although once we got in and saw the place it looked a bit lifeless, just a stereotypical new stadium that was very much like Middlesbrough and Derby County. It didn’t have anything unique about it.
Batesy got himself a burger and my dad and I had a pint each and both had bets in the ‘Ladbrokes’ – we both had a fiver each on 2-1 to Luton, one with Kevin Nicholls as the first goal scorer and the other with George Pilkington as the first goal scorer.
We also couldn’t get a programme, we were told they had sold out! We walked up into the stand and the first two things of note were that there were a lot of Hatters fans in the stand (about 3,000) and that the opposite end of the stadium behind the goal hadn’t even been opened for home fans, it was totally empty, which was pretty disappointing as it really lessened the atmosphere.
Our stand behind the goal was separated into two with a line of stewards to split the Luton fans and the Saints supporters. Quite soon after kick-off, we saw behind us two Luton fans arguing with each other (and their mates joining in) and one of them threw a punch at the other. No idea what that was all about, but they all got taken out of the ground by the police to cheers from the home fans and a round of, “Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio”.
Luton fans were winding the home supporters up at this point by singing, “Play Up Pompey, Pompey Play Up”, the chant of course of their local rivals Portsmouth.
On the pitch, we were surviving – just. Kevin Nicholls cleared a shot off the line and Kevin Pilkington made a great save to deny a Rickie Lambert free-kick. However, shortly after he’d thwarted the Saints top goal scorer, Kevin Nicholls gave away a needless free-kick some 25-yards out (I thought it was a foul although a lot of Hatters fans didn’t) and Lambert stepped up again, this time curling his effort past Pilkington and into the corner of the net – great goal, although my dad though Pilkington’s forming of the wall was poor and was moaning about it even before Lambert had struck the ball. There go our bets too!
Rossi Jarvis had a shot saved by ex-Hatter Kelvin Davis and at half-time Richard Money took off Kevin Nicholls and Kevin Gallen (not sure I would have done) and brought on Mark Nwokeji and Claude Gnakpa as he said afterwards he wanted more pace in the side. It made a difference initially as we came out all guns blazing and Asa Hall forced a fine save from Davis with a long-range drive.
Shortly after, I saw one of the worst, if not the worst, misses ever from a Luton Town player. Gnakpa burst down the right and drilled in a low cross that Tom Craddock just missed at the near post. It beat the diving Kelvin Davis and arriving at the fat post was Adam Newton who surely had to score from about two-yards out. Like the rest of the Hatters fans we were already celebrating as the ball landed at his feet. If he had just stood there it would have hit him and gone in. It was harder to miss than score. But miss he did, somehow, as he contrived to kick the ball with his left foot against his inner right leg. An amazing miss. He then teed up Mark Nwokeji, but he scuffed his shot wide when he should have done better.
With that, our chances of earning a replay were gone. I think if we had equalised we may even have gone on to win the game, but it petered out as we ran out of steam for the final 15 minutes and we were out of the FA Cup.
We were very disappointed at the end as we all felt that Luton deserved a replay and Southampton had been very fortunate to win the game. We just don’t take our chances when we have them and that miss by Newton – dear oh dear.
We went for another couple of pints after the game to watch the Reading v Liverpool game on ITV in a boozer. After this, my dad and I headed back to our hotel to get ready to go out for another few beers in the evening, and Batesy headed home.
All in all, a good day out, but very disappointing that we didn’t get anything from the game, I really felt we were unlucky.
Now back to the league and the all-important push for promotion – we simply must get out of this god-awful league so visits to places like Southampton become the norm again.
COME ON YOU HATTERS!
James
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