It was a pleasure watching their left fieldsman, a red-haired Scotsman, with a ponytail and beard like Alexi Lalas, trying to catch up with our Cameroonian. What a sight! The bloke flew around like a meteor. He took control of the ball and went to the right. Their midfielder tried to catch him the player in the centre left shifted their focus too, you could see their line-up bursting at the seams, and Fabrice did everything right. He didn't overdo moving around the ball and didn't give it away ahead of time, but then passed it a little diagonally, as if on a silver platter. And Alan Parker, our main striker, arrived just in time. Then it was just a matter of technique. A kick – and goal!
I automatically checked the stopwatch. It was the forty-second minute and the score was one zero. Way to go! That’s our team!
"Alex, bloody hell! Where did you find this bloody cannibal?" Johnny Martin, the assistant coach almost strangled me with his huge paws.
"Come on blokes!!! Don't let up!!! Get it together!!!" Old Harris's mug didn't move a muscle, but he looked rather pleased.
"Come on! Let's go! Come on!!!"
There was almost no time left until the break.
We were escorted to the locker room like heroes. The «Den» roared like we were winning against the Spurs or Chelsea, not some bloody Reading. However it was still nice.
We went out for the second half in a good mood and even the first-half thrashing of young Fleming by old man Harris for his error didn't serve to dampen anyone's spirits.
"No one likes us!"
"No one likes us!"
"No one likes us! We don't care!" roared the stands.
"Come on, lads!!! Old Harris was clapping his hands like he was cracking nuts. "Be careful with the defence! Pass the ball faster! And put them under more pressure! Pressure!! Pressure!!!"
You couldn't say that the boys from Reading were playing that bad today. They honestly tried to turn the game around and from the very beginning of the second half they drove forward like madmen, but in the end that's what killed them.
In the first counterattack, young Fleming found Parker's pass and their defender had no choice but to foul and for him it was already his second yellow card. After that, they continued to attempt to pull something off but their efforts were no longer serious.