Warrington Wolves 42 Salford City Reds 6

The story of this game starts at about 7:45pm the previous day. With Hull KR playing in France, I received a phone call from Walshy, his tone sounded very downbeat. "Chris have you heard the score?", "No" I replied. "Hull KR are 22-6 up at half-time", "Oh fuck"! To say that this was an unexpected turn of events was an understatement, fresh from defeat in the derby at Craven Park KR were without some key players for the trip to the south of France and the Dragons were in good form, particularly at home. We put teletext on & were heartened when the Dragons reduced the arrears to 14-22 when my phone rang again from Walshy "Jones has just gone in it's 20-22 with 17 minutes left". The next 17 minutes were spent watching Teletext & looking at my phone willing it to ring. It didn't, Hull KR held out & the visit to our local rivals was now even more of a must-win game.

We got to the Eccles Cross at 9am and were first in when the doors opened. My breakfast thankfully arrived 1st and I had plenty of time to savour it, unlike Bobby who had to munch his inside 5 minutes before the bus to Warrington arrived. It was full when it arrived so we were forced to stand until the Trafford Centre causing a comedy moment when a sharp bit of braking sent Bobby hurtling down the bus. Eventually after conversations about prostitutes, clubbing & drugs we finally arrived in Warrington & headed to the Spoons pub for a pint. Solly, Walshy & Ordsall Red were already there so I sat down with them & we talked Partridge, Pheonix Nights, the previous weeks Radio Humberside phone in after the trouble at the derby game & John Smeaton "This is Glasgae, we'll set aboot yer".

Unfortunately the pub stank of piss so we didn't stay long pausing for a refuelling stop at the Hop Pole before heading on to the Lord Rodney made famous by our chant; "There's the Rodney in their town, in their town. And we're gonna burn it down, burn it down. We're gonna hang Lee Briers from the nearest fucking tree, for all you Wire scum to see." Walshy buys a programme which provides us with much sniggering as one page has an advert for a company called Massive with a Warrington badge underneath; "Because Wire are a massive club".

Having blagged my way in for a tenner, we buy the obligatory 2 pint lagers & head onto the terrace to cheer the boys in. The surfer was passed through the terrace before the teams came out only to be followed by Warrington's effort which of course prompted a chant of "What the fucking hell is that". When we got underway things quickly went wrong, in slippery conditions Korki spilled the ball & Bridge went through to feed the supporting Clarke to dash over; 6-0 after 2 minutes. The response was decent though & Dorn sparked us into life with a fine try to level matters after 10 minutes. The next 10 minutes were fairly evenly matched but we allowed the Wolves to stretch away with a poor finish to the half. Westwood, Fa'afilli & Briers all crossed the whitewash & we went in down and out at 22-6.

We parayed for a spirited, Catalan style fightback but what we got was gutless, inept & embarrassing. Amazingly we held out for about 15 minutes before Gleeson went over to extend Warrington's lead, it signalled the opening of the floodgates sadly. The exciting young prospect Kevin Penny then crossed for a hat-trick within 8 minutes before John Clarke sealed the embarrassment with a late try (thankfully the wayward kicking of Briers & Bridge restricted Wire to less than 50). At the final hooter vitriol poured down on the players from the travelling faithful, angry not that we'd lost but that we were going down without even a whimper, where was the pride in their profession, where was the sense of urgency about our situation that we supporters are feeling?

Walking back through pouring rain to the Rodney, I felt numb, even a pint couldn't shift my dark mood. How did we get to this? At this point Mike suggested going to have a word in the players' ears & telling them how angry we were so we headed back to the ground & found Littler, Buddha & Edmo just about to board the coach. We talked to them for5 minutes or so but they weren't the ones we really had anything to say to. Simon Finnigan was one & I felt I had to collar him, the alcohol has numbed what I said but I don't remember it being too complimentary. At least he faced us unlike certain players who we would have loved to have a quiet word with but were in no mood to come out it would seem.

The post mortem over in the Rodney, we headed to the Hop Pole to get on with the serious business of having a laugh. Me & Matt did a virtuoso version of Matchstalk Men & Cats & Dogs on the karaoke & we had a decent sing-off with the Warrington fans (marred only by a small scuffle). On heading outside though, Martin & I got ourselves into slightly more trouble! A bottle crashed against the wall of the Hop Pole narrowly missing Martin so deciding that the likely culprits were the lads heading to the bus station we decided to catch up with them & discuss the matter. Getting into the station we couldn't find who it was so I headed to the loos for a dump!

Getting back into the pub Martin told me that he'd launched a pint pot at the most likely culprits before a group of lads came steaming across from the Prince of Wales & belted him. On finding out that they were outside now we felt it best to confront them but 4 v 2 didn't sound like a good option so we rounded up Paul & Deano to even things up before heading out. As the debate got heated, Martin was dragged away by a couple of women out of it & I suddenly realised that the 4 of them were all facing up to me! Looking around to find out why the reason was soon clear; Paul & Deano had disappeared back into the pub, nice one boys! We decided that it would be best to talk our way out of this one & disappear up the other side of town quite quickly so we headed back to the pissy smelling Wetherspoons before meeting up with everyone in Macauleys.