On the previous two occasions, I didn’t really care for the result – Reading were underdogs in both games so it was more about enjoying the day. Though it being Reading, on both days they still managed to draw me in to caring, deeply, via a stirring but futile comeback and coming within one decent pass of an unlikely upset, respectively. Cue days of sulking afterwards.
But this Sunday has a bit of a different feeling about it as I’m to watch Coventry City play Oxford United in the EFL Trophy final – the first time I’ve been to a game involving two English league sides, one of whom isn’t Reading.
I’m going as my girlfriend’s family are Coventry fans and it sounded like some fun, going to a final at Wembley without my mood for the next week dependant on the outcome of the game.
However, I am emphatically an advocate of the idea that you can’t really enjoy a game of football in the flesh without having some kind of vested interest – your team is playing, you’ve got a bet on, it’s an overseas team who you have always liked but not supported. That kind of thing.
But I now find myself rather looking forward to Sunday hoping more and more that Coventry win.
I suspect this is because I’ve invented reasons for me to have a vested interest:
· Cov are playing Oxford, which gets my Royal blue and white blood pumping that little bit faster.
· Ex-Reading cup hero Yakubu (still only 29-years-old…) is on Cov’s books, as is Stuart Beavon, son of his namesake father who played 400 odd times for Reading before I was even born and we share a Jay Tabb in common.
· All of the issues Cov fans have had to put up with over the past decade with their ownership, stadium situation and so on (added to the fact they’ve not finished in the top six of any league for 47 years) plus the way their season is going this year, makes me think they deserve this.
· Maybe I’ve missed backing a desperately poor team, it being close to 20 years since Reading occupied the same relegation zone Coventry occupy now.
· The original individual shaping a club - Jimmy Hill.
· Dion Dublin, Darren Huckerby and Noel Whelan in the mid-to-late 1990s.
· The exciting adventures of Steve Ogrizovic (taker of the wickets of Viv Richards, Chris Broad and Alvin Kallcharran while playing for Shropshire, hoax Kazakhstan kidnapping, goal scorer and all that)
· Brian Kilcline. Just Brian Kilcline, nothing further to add.
· A Cov win will make for a far more enjoyable train journey home.
So yeah, let’s all sing together, play up, Sky Blues.
No comments:
Post a Comment