Rotherham v Scunthorpe United

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Football League One

Rotherham :
Cutler, Worrell, Hurst, Barker, Murdock, Mullin, Williamson, Robertson (Hoskins 80), Stephen Quinn (Monkhouse 64), Shaw, Butler
Subs not used:
Montgomery, Newsham, Gilchrist

Scunthorpe United :
Evans, Crosby, Hinds, Sparrow, Torpey, Baraclough, Taylor, Keogh, Foster, Williams (Byrne 45), Sharp
Subs not used:
Musselwhite, Stanton, Beagrie, Richie Ryan

SULSESC REPORT

by Neil Holland at Millmoor

I GUESS next season it's up to the prawn sandwich brigade to understand what the hell it is Reading fans go on about. I'm sure 'Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, rub your beard all over my body' will go down a storm at Old Trafford, but it was slightly less well received by most of carriage B of the 18.27 out of Sheffield as any sane people vacated in search of a seat elsewhere on the train.

The slightly insane (why else would we follow Scunny?) Iron fans, however, decided to stick it out, with Mr. Vaughan's 'tash the subject of much derision.

More of that later, 'cos I guess I'm supposed to start at the

beginning. So, we started out at St Pancras where another Mr. Vaughan was deciding that fast food was the best cure for a dodgy knee, as the crocked England cricket captain feasted on the pasty shop's finest.

The £12 return was not looking such good value as overhead line damage the previous day had led Midland Mainline to start the majority of their trains from Bedford and Luton.

Miraculously, however, our heavily overcrowded train left on time and quite a few hands of Black Maria later (and a short train trip from Sheffield), we arrived at Rotherham armed with a pub name and Mr. Skeels' well assembled map.

After stopping to ask directions, we arrived at the Hare and Hounds for a few pints of Everards Tiger.

The majority then opted for a sit-down kurdish kebab, before a couple more beers at the Wetherspoons, and on to Milmoor.

Strangely the ramshackle ground is still standing, with the addition of half a stand which seems to have been being built before the club ran out of money...

As for the game itself, we weren't great, but managed to score against the run of play in the first-half with our first attempt on target, Keogh tucking home Taylor's cross. We were slightly better in the second, Rotherham equalised towards the end, but we got the point we needed to mathematically ensure safety and clinch our highest league position since 1966 when we finished fourth in the old Third Division.

And so to the most entertaining part of the trip – the journey home.

For those of you interested and still reading, I've done some

research, and discovered that the Bill Oddie song originates from something called ‘Beard Day’ which was the brainchild of some Reading fans just over 10 years ago, who decided that to celebrate their mate's birthday, they would wear beards and go and watch Reading play.

Over the next 10 years, it became an annual event and for some reason they came up with a bizarre song, so that's that story.

Where the songs "Bob Carolgee's tash is so big it can be seen from outer space", "They've built a new motorway on

Bob's tash", and various other favourites, all directed at our own porn star lookalike treasurer, I haven't got a clue. Vaughany attempted to respond, and at one stage had them stumped with "Hitchin Town, Hitchin Town, Hitchin Town", but on the whole had to suffer more abuse than he tried to give.

The moral of the story is, of course, that if, on your way to the penultimate away game of the season, the fans of some newly promoted football team hijack your train carriage, don't have a silly 'tash...