Harlequins RL 18 Salford City Reds 18

The day starts unfeasibly early! A late-afternoon/early-evening/late-night drinking session with John_D while watching Half Man Half Biscuit had left me with a fair old hangover so the thought of a 4 hour coach-journey to West London did not fill me with joy. Anyway, three bleary-eyed people (me, Nic & Jan) in Salford shirts fell into a taxi to take us to The Willows (via the off-licence naturally) to meet up with the infamous Turkey funbus. And what a chariot it was! Looking like the bastard offspring of a Skoda and an articulated lorry, it appeared to have a suspension specifically designed by the Marquis de Sade. Any chance of hearing the choonage blasting out via Iain's MP3 was negated by an engine that was only slightly quieter than your average Boeing 747.

I had struck a deal with myself not to have a beer before 12pm. However as the M602 transformed into the M62, I found myself rummaging around in the bag to pull out a San Miguel. The satisfied look on my face after the first gulp obviously brought on a craving for ale from the ladies behind me & Nic asked me to get them a beer too. Struggling to hold my beer while rummaging around for their piss-weak brews & looking for the bottle-opener would ultimately lead to disaster as my ale toopled from its precarious grasp & proceeded to roll around the bus. We hadn't reached Warrington yet & the bus was swimming in beer while I was a bottle out of pocket. Not impressed at all.

The constant flow of beer on a bus built before the toilet was probably even invented could only have one inevitable conclusion; the whole bus pleading with the driver to pull over at the first M40 service station. As we pulled up & the whole bus de-camped to dash for the loo well let's just say that Salford shirts have never been seen to move so fast since Keith Fielding was in his pomp!

Eventually we arrived at The Stoop to be herded around by various jobsworth car-park attendants who eventually found us a spot nearer to Birmingham than to the ground. How big an attendance were they actually expecting? To make matters worse, the ground wasn't open yet & so we had to walk into Twickenham to find some refreshment. Making our way into the 1st pub (The Cabbage Patch) we were greeted by a wall of heat & a revolting smell. It's as well that for most of us the 1st port of call was to be the toilet as it was the most fragrant spot in the boozer. Needless to say we just had a quick one in there before heading next door & then back to the ground.

OK, it's a yawnion ground but I love the Stoop. Huge bars, friendly locals, it's fast becoming one of my favourite away haunts & the only downside pre-game is the lack of Utd on any of the many screens in the Kings Bar. Luckily Iain manages to get one of the tellies flipped over & we set about watching 20 mins of the plagarist Red Devils before heading out to watch the originals.
15 mins into the game & I'm considering going back to watch Utd. A cross-field kick gives Tyrone Smith time to clean his boots before taking the ball over the line for the opening score (although he looked suspiciously offside to me). Chris Melling ran in a 2nd shortly after (with a possible hint of obstruction?) before some woeful defence allowed Sykes in for a 3rd. Only some poor kicking kept us remotely in the game at 14-0. We were atrocious.

A rare foray into the Quins half & Robbo gets it out to Finnigan who plays a smart pass around the back to Wilshere to scoot over, Hodgy adding a brilliant conversion. Then amazingly Wilshere hacks through from a clever kick and despite an obvious forward pass, Robbo pulls us right back into the game. How we go in at half-time only 4 points in arrears no-one knows.

We play a bit better 2nd half but it's Quins who apply the 1st serious pressure as Rinaldi goes close. He gets up to play the ball but Bentham puts the square in the air. To our relief the big screen nearby indicates a clear double-movement. Penalty to us, but wait he's still looking at it & slowly to my disbelief I start to realise he's gonna give the try. Surely not but yes the T-R-Y appears to our left & the Salford end goes mental. The screen shows Robbo's gob-smacked reaction to the award & Rhino's clear annoyance. In the ensuing protests from our fans stewards move in to calm some of our boys down & Ignito is dismissed from the touchline lmao.

We continue to plug away & the impressive Buddha goes close after a cross-field kick caused panic but we rarely look like scoring until we create an oprning for Andy Coley, with men over he chose to go alone but just manged to ground the ball & bring us back into the game. Come on. With a couple of minutes to go we're back on the attck when Dorn is tackled high; penalty. Korki drives the ball in & keeps driving & keeps driving & he's over the line, did he get it down? Back we go to the VR; he got it down! Absolute mayhem ensues amongst our fans, it is one of the great goons of all time. Only 92 secs remaining, easy kick to come. Beautiful!

Klein takes an age to make his mind up, here it comes; "TRY - Benefit of the doubt". WHAT FUCKING DOUBT? Anyway it is madness again in our section as we celebrate a dramatic win but then I see Hodgy getting ready to kick in front of us & you can see he doesn't fancy it. True enough he screws it wide & we're left with a draw. Still most of us would have took that at the start & we would have definitely took it 20 mins into the game. We all head down to clap the players, Nicknito comes back onto the pitch before stewards kick him off again. I get thrown over the advertising boards & on to the pitch before we head back to the bar.

A great night in the bar again, a good chat with some Quins fans & a good sing-off (even though they only have 2 songs). The band are decent too, a really good night had by all & we head back to the bus drunk but happy. There's plenty to laugh about on the way home:-
"Why are you late?", "I like a drink"
Gaydon
Oxford Services
Big hats

Eventually we all have a bit of a snooze & arrive back to a cold Willows about 2:30am. Good day out, we'll be back in September.