St Helens 48 Salford City Reds 4

Easter Monday is always a bit of a downer, after a 4 day bender you can see work looming inescapably on the horizon once again, pulling you back to reality. It's even more of a downer when you have to travel to St Helens & witness your side take it's annual arse-humping. To make matters worse, the sunshine of the past 10 days had decided to do one (at the exact same time I sat down in the beer-garden of the Bridgewater the previous day) & the bank holiday rail replacement services were in effect.

At least Saints is easy enough to get to from our gaff, a short walk to Patricroft station provides you with a direct route to St Helens Junction (which granted is a long way from the centre of St Helens) and this is the route I plan to enable me to meet up with a Saints fan for an hour or so before catching up with the lads near the ground. However, the best laid plans & all that, the rail replacement bus shot past me without stopping! When the next one didn't even turn up, I decided to sack it & head to Eccles to meet up with the boys.

The back of the bus is swiftly taken up by our group & plenty of funny stories of away days gone by pass the 40 minutes or so before we arrive at Lea Green station to take camp in the nearby pub which has just opened. It's empty thankfully so we get prime seats near the telly & get ready for the 1st competitive Hull derby in more than a decade. It's a close one but it never really seemed to be in doubt as a Paul Cooke inspired FC edge out KR. Cooke's excellent return doesn't bode well for Friday & our visit from him & his Hull teammates.

With the game finished we order a group of taxis to shuttle us down to Knowsley Road, arriving early enough for a quick one in the Black Bull before making our way into the ground & round to the Eddington End. We at least manage to hold out for 8 minutes before Long darts over, from then the only contest in the 1st half is Saints against the clock; Gidley, Meli, Wellens & Gardner add further tries to make it 26-0 with barely half an hour played. Thankfully we keep them out for the remainder of the 1st half.

The 2nd half saw a handful of us head round to the opposite end amongst the Saints fans to try & re-create some of the classic comedy moments from last year's game. Sadly it was never going to be as funny, indeed, our mood darkened about 50 seconds into the 2nd half when Fa'asavalu crashed over for Saints. Mike Bennett added a couple & Roby added another to leave Saints 48-0 up within the hour & a truly embarrassing scoreline appeared to await.

Despite their cruise to victory, it was clear that the average Saints fan still has no sense of humour. As try after try crashed in past us, we struck up a chant of "The Super League, Is upside down, The Super League is upside down, we'll play the Giants at Old Trafford and St Helens are going down". Which prompted various straight-faced scousers to point out that we were far more likely to go down than them. Thanks. For. That.

It actually appeared as if we would have nothing to goon about until with a little over 5 minutes to go, Andy Coley put in a little grubber which he re-gathered to score out wide provoking massive goonage amongst our 8 or 9 hardy souls & a lusty chant of "We're not getting nilled". Still some helpful Saints fans pointed out that we were very likely to still lose the game. I must try & get hold of the local St Helens paper; I can just see the front-page headline now "POPE CAUGHT PRAYING SHOCKER; Pontiff admits to Catholic beliefs".

After the match the boys head out to Lea Green to take residency in the boozer while I head into the Black Bull to meet up with Nic & discuss quite how things have gotten as bad as this. To make matters worse Warrington have rolled over at home to Huddersfield & we are now firmly ensconced in the mire. We order taxis to the Glass House and when a couple of Warrington fans arrive in the pub our feelings are made perfectly clear to them. Next step is a cellar bar which has without doubt the most rank toilets in the world. They are minging & it's difficult to get the smell out of your nostrils for the rest of the evening, causing Ray to have a right rant at the poor barmaid on the way out.

A couple more pub stops in St Helens and then a train to Wigan for a few more pints while a tedious goalless draw between Charlton & some other Premiership no-marks goes on in the background before getting a kebab & a train back home. As we head through Bolton Ray suddenly remembers that Prison Break was on TV tonight and a few of us groan on realising we've missed it. This prompts Jay to inform us that the only programme he hates to miss is The Bill which provokes much laughter & piss-taking from all around. Jay's indignant responses to such jocularity suggest that we have touched a nerve & that in his eyes, no-one disrespects The Bill.

A long wait in the freezing cold for a taxi back from Salford Crescent just about puts a top-hat on a thoroughly miserable Easter weekend. At least we have a few winnable games to come now which should hopefully lift the gloom.

Salford City Reds 32 Warrington Wolves 34

The Easter weekend is a special one for all followers of The Greatest Game. No work (well for most of us) & two games to follow over the weekend together with a feast of televised derby games. I managed to get home from work in time to catch the 2nd half of Leeds' stolen win at Bradford the night before & then it was an early start on Good Friday to get warmed up for the big one.

Good Friday has been a particularly happy time to be a Red in recent years (unless Jesus Christ himself was a Red, I reckon he probably harbours bad memories of Good Friday). The last two have seen maulings of Warrington (one at the Willows, the other at Legoland) both played out on gloriously sunny days. Perfect beer garden weather for toasting memorable victories. The omens on Good Friday were certainly good; Warrington were without several key players (most notably Lee Briers and Adrian Morley) and the walk into Eccles was accompanied by blazing sunshine.

Nevertheless the mood over breakfast in the Eccles Cross was downbeat, most of us were expecting Briers to have made a recovery akin to that of JC himself all those Easters ago and lead Warrington to a win they would have been craving after our whitewash of them last season. However, as these thing always seem to pan out, optimism raised somewhat as the 3rd or 4th pint eased down the throats & we headed onto the short tram journey in very good spirits.

Arriving at the ground we sat outside the church hall with a pint to soak up the early spring sunshine & watch the Wire fans arriving. Mike was adding the finishing touches to a banner we hoped to give the light of day after the hooter which read "Dream On Cullen" (a reference to Cullen's post-match comments a week previously when Cullen responded that his only dream "is to beat Salford on Friday".

We head into the ground early, it would seem a good move as a good crowd is in attendance for this one. As soon as I enter I can see Briers warming up on the park, I fucking knew it! After a nervy opening, we got away to a great start as Wilshere crossed early on & then added the extras brilliantly to give us a 6 point jump-start. The lead wouldn't last long though as Rauhihi's green boots powered him over from close range, Bridge inexplicably missed the goal though & we held a slender lead.

Despite looking very sluggish, we extended our advantage with a Robbo try (again goaled by Wilshere) and we looked set to turn the screw when Wire were reduced to 12 with Leikvoll's sin-binning. However, in a story that's become depressingly familiar, we allowed the Wolves a series of easy yards culminating in a try for Grose right on the hooter (superbly goaled by Briers).

With a full compliment of players almost straight from the re-start, the momentum had swung in Warrington's favour. Even more so when Daley Williams was sin-binned & Fa'afili went over to give Wire the lead for the 1st time. We held out from then until Williams return & then a bit of magic from Dorn put us back in front & the game was heading for a grandstand final 20 minutes. How wrong we were; what followed was a humiliating capitulation as Rauhihi, Wainwright & Bracek were allowed through powder-puff tackling to cross & kill the game effectively. In the final 5 minutes we mounted some token resistance against a side with one eye on their next game no doubt. Some fine open rugby created tries for Littler, Williams & Hodgson. With time against us Wilshere had no time to set himself for the conversions & missed 2 of them meaning that we fell 2 points short at the hooter. However, all that happened was we applied a bit of gloss to the scoreline, the truth was we were well beaten & beaten by our own mistakes rather than good Warrington play. Not such a Good Friday after all.

So we headed straight for the Tavern to get royally drunk & forget the depressing reality of the situation but 1st we had a Wigan v Saints game to look forward to on Sky. After watching an intense 40 minutes of RL in which Saints held an advantage that didn't look safe by any means, our anticipation of the 2nd half was disturbed by the telly being turned over to Citeh v Charlton. After 15 minutes it was clear that it wasn't being turned back and an enquiry at the bar made it clear that their orders were 1st half of the rugby then put Citeh on. All this in a RL ground as well, amazing. A protest had to be led & I felt like just the man to do it, chants of "we all agree, rugby is better than Citeh" met with no response so I went round turning the TV's off. This met with a huge cheer from the assembled crowd but still no turning over. Finally a synchronised drinking up & leaving of the pub had the desired effect as the tedium at Eastlands was changed to the drama at the JJB.

We then headed off to the Height to round off the night, seeing a great band in the Welly & having a good sing-along to them before heading to what we thought was a karaoke night but turned out to just be a shit pub-singer. Oh and some cheeky sod nicked my copy of the really rather excellent RAW issue 1 (buy it now, you know it makes sense) out of my arse pocket when I was stood at the bar. I only hope it was a woman.

Gateshead Thunder 4 Salford City Reds 64

The road to Wembley was always going to start at a canter after the draw paired us with NL2 journeymen Gateshead. The only real thrill for the Red faithful from the draw was that we were away & so could look forward to a night on the pop in Newcastle. Any such thoughts were swiftly denied when the unavailability of their stadium meant that the game was switched to the Willows. Anyhow, having managed to get out of work at a reasonable time, I got to the Con club in time for a couple of quick pints with Nic before making my way into the ground for the expected rout.

To be fair Gateshead had started brightly & asked a couple of questions of the Salford defence before with our first attack, Andy Coley powered through & hared over by the sticks, Wilshere tagging the easy extras. Then, before the re-start, the floodlights failed causing around about a 15 minute delay (eating into valuable post-game beer time). Anyhow it got my creative juices flowing resulting in the cant "We've been to Hull and we've been to Leigh, but we've not got electricity, we're the team that you can't see, Salford RLFC". Well I liked it anyway!

The power restored Salford cantered to victory with further tries from Hodgson, Halliwell, Highton, Finnigan, Robinson x4 & Brocklehurst before Gateshead finally got over the line for a well deserved score from Clarke. Dodgy Hodgy had the final say in the matter though crossing for his 2nd try of the game before Wilshere added his 10th goal from 11 attempts. All that remained was to give the Gateshead players a deserved ovation for their efforts before de-camping to the Tavern to lament the non-appearance of Captain Thunder & his purple helmet. Dreams of Wembley may be just that but we're in the draw & the dream is still alive.

Huddersfield Giants 16 Salford City Reds 18

Sometimes when you give up all hope, when you think that nothing good will ever happen in the rest of your days, something unexpectedly wonderful occurs. This was one of those days and it started in the most unanticipated of fashions. A healthy throng of Salford supporters were gathered on the concourse of Piccadilly station for the early train to Huddersfield, all of which were agreed that there was no chance today that we could stop our fellow strugglers from gaining the W. And by all, I mean all, even Bobby could see no possible way that we could win today! This was a very unusual (and slightly disturbing) turn of events.

The day got off to a very bad start, our early train was very, very delayed. The kind of delay that Transpennine Express have made a signature of their piss-poor service. This meant that the Wetherspoon's breakfast which had been long anticipated was a non-starter, Koppabergs all round instead then! The return of the Pakistan cricket team was headline news after Bob Woolmer's apparent murder & Karl came up with the joke of the day; "Pakistan are giving up cricket. Apparently they're taking up Bobsleighing".

We stayed in the Cherry Tree for quite a while before heading down towards the ground. We managed to squeeze an extra passenger in our cab by getting Deano to lay on the floor, however, the driver had the last laugh by dropping us in some side-street miles away from the ground and charging us £7 for the privilege. Cnut!

After getting our bearings back we stopped for a quick un in the Market Tav & headed to the Galpharm and it's wonderfully named Pink Link away stand. Alker's injury left us without a recognised hooker & the club had moved quickly to sign Catalan Dragons' David Berthezene on a month's loan. Despite only arriving in England a few days earlier Bertie was, as expected, thrown straight in to the starting XIII.

Huddersfield looked fired up from the word go but our defence looked far more resolute than in recent weeks & after 6 minutes we got the start we wanted. After initially running the ball on the 6th, Wilshere 's options seemed limited so he placed a smart kick across the sticks. Skandalis should have dealt with it comfortably but he inexplicably allowed Robbo to pounce & give us a 6-0 lead. Huddersfield huffed & puffed without ever seriously threatening our line until Hodgy failed to deal with a harmless looking kick & Gardner pounced. We were being hammered in the penalty count & it was no great surprise when we were eventually reduced to 12 men as Berthezene's promising start was slightly tarnished with a yellow card.

Most of us would have been thrilled if we could just keep the Giants at bay until Bertie came back on for the last few minutes of the half but Luke Adamson had other ideas. Making a great break from his own 20, the young 2nd rower just kept on going and going and going. He was finally caught about 20 metres out but Hudds just couldn't get the numbers back & Robbo scampered over from the resultant play the ball.

12-4 up at half-time would surely have seen us coast through to victory against a team whose confidence was slightly more fragile than even ours but right on the siren some poor defence allowed Nero through & Thorman finished the move off. 10-12 at half-time.

The consensus on the concourse at half-time was that the next score would be crucial & our early pressure paid off when Robbo put young Jordan Turner through the gap to ground wide out. The goon from the players seemed to suggest that they thought this try was crucial too! John Wilshere's fine conversion restored our 2 score advantage & it was happy days again.

Any thoughts that we might cut loose & give ourselves a nice relaxing afternoon were quickly dispelled, Hudds started to pile on the pressure towards our line. Eventually & inevitably we conceded & Andy Raleigh crossed to being the Giants within 2, squeaky bum time. We were being mullered in the penalty count by Mr Silverwood from nearby Dewsbury & when the Giants got another pen 30 metres out I prayed that they'd elect to take the 2 and we could escape with a draw. They did, phew, and even better Thorman missed the kick! The remaining minutes were absolute agony, I've no idea how much stoppage time they played but it seemed to go on forever. Finally, with time surely up, we put in a poor kick on the last in the Huddersfield 20 and throwing caution to the wind, they worked the ball to the left wing. I have no idea who broke down the flank but I could sense the heartbreak that was looming as he roared towards our line. Thankfully Dorn got across to cover & dump him in touch sparking goonage in our end (in which I took an elbow flush in the face). So much jubilation that we didn't even hear the hooter, I only noticed the game had finished via the players' wild celebrations!

So, for once gleefully, we left a ground to concentrate on the pressing matter of getting as much beer down us as humanly possible. First stop was the Bradley Mills club, just a short walk from the car park (where we paused to consider various ways in which to deface Richard Silverwood's car) for a quick pint before heading across Leeds Road to take in the adult 'entertainment' in Ricky's. After the usual interminable wait while the management get us to part with as much beer money as possible, the ropey stripper duly arrived on stage. It's hard to believe but Ricky's used to provide top quality birdage for the entertainment. Today's was another cellulite-ridden hard-faced girl going through the motions for a bit of pin-money. I swear I'll never return to that place, most Reds already seem to have made that decision, there can't have been more than a dozen of us in there.

The walk back into town is punctuated by a pop into the Market Tav to see if anyone's around. Nic's in there & so are Bobby & his crew so we stop for a quick pint before piling into a taxi to the Warehouse where we pick over the bones of the game with some Huddersfield fans (with the pleasing spectacle of Warrington getting humped playing on the TV's around us). From there I head into town with Martin where we make camp in a pub that has a singer on. His set is lapped up by a throng of Reds singing & dancing along. As he finishes Danny Holmes comes up with a new song for our much maligned stand-off as Paul Johnson's "Get, Get Down" becomes a mass of Salford fans dancing around & changing the lyric to "Dorn, Dorn, Dor-Dorn"! This spectacle continues all the way down to the Cherry Tree where we kill the last hour or so before getting on a train home, pausing only to nick posters & antimacassars from said transport. The night is complete when we stop the taxi home to pick up a traffic-cone & bring home the souvenir that Martin's mum had requested. Great day/night.

Salford City Reds 6 Wigan Warriors 25

Yazz has been lying to us all these years. Sometimes the only way isn't up you know & this night was only ever going to prove that. Finishing work at 7pm meant a mad dash to The Willows was in order & arriving at 7:30'ish I decided that the best course of action would be to get in the ground asap & get a beer in there. Having queued at the turnstiles for an age, I was congratulating myself on a wise decision. However, when I saw the queue for a can of warm Carlsberg, I decided that abstinence would be the best course of action after all & got myself a burger instead. This, however, was definitely not a game to be watched in sobriety.

We started off fairly brightly, Korki had a couple of good carries & we looked to have more urgency across the park. Nevertheless, the pie-eaters got the first points on the board when Pat Richards slotted home a penalty. John Wilshere levelled things up for us but to be honest things could have been far worse with Wigan's handling letting them down frequently when the line was begging (Gareth Hock being a repeat offender), worse news came though when Mal Alker was helped off the pitch, if he goes off it must be a serious injury. Nevertheless we stayed in touch & as the clock counted down, I was reminded of last season's challenge cup encounter which was 0-0 at the turn-around before we ran out victorious. Such hopes were dashed when Thomas Leuluai's kick took a freakish bounce & Ganson missed a blatant push in the in-goal that allowed yawnion rent-boy Chris Ashton to give Wigan an 8-2 advantage. The decision not to go to the screen incensed the Salford players & Robbo made a point of walking out to the 20 metre line to watch the reply of the try before giving Ganson a look of disdain.

Any hopes that a sense of injustice might fire us up were quickly dashed; Wigan eased further in front with a Richards pen before the pube-headed high-tackling machine crashed over from Millard's short pass. The officials then conspired to miss 2 forward passes in a row which really shouldn't detract from the quality of the move that Mark Calderwood finished off. Further goalkicking from Richards & a Barrett drop increased the advantage to 25-2 before a late Buddha try in the corner added some ill-deserved gloss to a woeful performance against a Wigan side that still looks mediocre. If only I could apply a term like mediocre to some of our performances. Mark Edmondson (probably our most consistent forward of the season) was also lost to a nasty looking shoulder injury in the 2nd half.

Not surprisingly, the mood in the Tav post-game was very subdued. Not much to report from the rest of the night I'm afraid.

Bradford Bulls 56 Salford City Reds 18

Of course any chance of keeping the momentum going after the morale boosting win of the previous week had been effectively ended by the fixture computer. The visit to Odsal is so pointless (in every conceivable way) that it's a relief to just take the thrashing, head home & be thankful that it's over for another year. Of course last year we were misled into thinking that when in reality the Gods had us marked for our first ever play-off appearance back at the bowl (or should that be hole) where the hosts tore through us with depressing regularity. Only a blind optimist (hi Bobby) could see any other outcome this time.

A reminder of how much everyone was looking forward to this one came when Nic, Jan & I arrived on the waiting train at Victoria. Only Roy, Jay & Frankie of the Red Army were on this one. Everyone else was coming down later. When we arrived at Bradford, the latecomers may have made the right choice. After failing to find an open pub in the streets around the station we admitted defeat & headed to a Subway to discuss Stuart Fielden's close personal relationships & the music of Kasabian over freezing cold coffee (which the staff eventually warmed; in the microwave. Thanks. For. That!)

Eventually, after waiting for the traditional signal of the 12 bells, I headed back to the Queens to await the arrival of my mates. They were rightly punished for their decision to take a later train when police at Victoria mistook them for Citeh fans heading to Blackburn haha. The conversation quickly turned to our non-existent chances later on before Bobby rounded on us for our pessimism. "IF & I mean IF we do lose, it won't be by much"! Despite our obvious disdain for his comments, Bobby kept his opinions coming in a manner that suggested that he'd taken vast quantities of hallucinogenic drugs just recently. "Attack their left-hand side, no-one ever attacks their left-hand side". Quite Bobby & I wonder why that is when you have Solomona, Hape & Vainokolo just waiting to pounce on any errors, just why teams would continue to batter away at the likes of St Hilaire, McAvoy & Ben Harris instead is quite beyond me.

Thankfully, Salford didn't heed Bobby's advice. However on the evidence of the 80 minutes they hadn't heeded any advice whatsoever (unless Harrison had asked them to not move off the defensive line, take the ball in very slowly & to attempt to tackle in an unconvincing, ineffectual manner). We managed to hold out for about 8 or 9 minutes before that notorious weak-link David Solomona put Deacon through the gap. In a moment of supreme inevitability, Harris eventually put Salford cast-off Michael Platt in for the opening score. Almost immediately afterwards, Solomona burst through some poor line defence to score before bursting through again to put that other liability Hape in for a third try in the space of around 5 minutes. Each of these tries had been accompanied by the nauseating Odsal Muppet Show of "Bully, Bully" blasting through the PA system at thousands of decibels & the strange sight of disinterested looking ZZ-Top wannabes on Harley's riding around the old speedway track (I preferred the stock-cars for what it's worth).

Andy Coley gave us a brief glimmer when he managed to hold onto the ball long enough to get over the line for us with Wilshere adding the extras but Bradford soon replied when St Hilaire dived over on the right from close range. What followed was easily the highlight of the game from our perspective; Bradford were camped on our line & looking menacing again as the ball moved out to their left. Young Daley Williams (who had defended manfully against Vainokolo all game) picked off what looked like being a scoring pass & then set off. His mazy running took him clear & then he tormented the covering Platt before feeding the supporting Dorn to race over & touch down. Amazingly despite our lethargic performance we were going in at half time trailing by just 22-12.

Any thoughts that the players may be able to raise their game & maybe challenge for the points in the 2nd half were short-lived. In short our 2nd half was even worse and to be truthful I can't be arsed summarising it. In short Hape, Henderson & McKenna (twice) all crossed with ease while Michael Platt was allowed to grab a hat-trick which he no doubt thoroughly enjoyed. The irony that we can't currently field a specialist full-back while one of our rejects tops the SL try-scoring charts is lost on no-one, believe me. Right at the death Daley Williams' superb efforts were rewarded when he was given a penalty try, Daley is fast appearing as a bright spot in our otherwise awful season.

So back we go to the Top House to mull over how poor we really are over a couple of pints. The only real cheer of the day is when we arrive in the pub to see Citeh are already 1 down. As the 2nd half goes on and the massive club eventually concede a 2nd to provoke much anger from the assembled travelling support, our own travelling throng treat football's version of Warrington to a chant of "31 years....FUCK ALL"! This brings a Bradford fan over to ask if we're Utd fans, I reply in the affirmative. "So at least there are a few of them in Manchester then", I treat this comment with the contempt it deserves of course, all it displays is a supreme lack of knowledge about either M/CR or Utd's support. I don't even bother pointing out that I am the only Mancunian in our bunch, the rest are very proud Salfordians (apart from Paul who hails from Preston but he supports PNE anyway). He asks how I think we'll get on this season & I tell him that while winning the FA Cup or Champs League would be nice, winning the title back is the main aim. "I'd better hide this then", he says before showing us a Chelsea badge! I can't help but point out the irony of his out of town reds comment so he explains that he supports Chelsea cause it used to wind up his Leeds Utd supporting brother. Good enough reason for me.

Anyway, it's now time for the highlight of the trip to Bradford as me Martin & Paul make the short walk to Shah Jehan for one of the finest curries known to man. My Madras is spot on, hot but not too hot and as Martin would later remark upon, there wasn't a grain of rice left on my plate by the end. The helpful staff get us a quote for a taxi to Halifax & within half an hour of mopping up the last of the curry, Bobby & I are serenading the good people of the Railway Inn with our karaoke stylings.

A short pub crawl around Halifax beckons (minus Deano who's stayed in the Railway to pull some ropey-looking bird) stopping only to play on various diggers & steam-rollers left in the streets. We end up in a big Wetherspoons when a couple of midgets walk in surrounded by a very familiar-looking huge mate, it's Andrew Brocklehurst. As our occasional 2nd rower makes his way to the loo, we start a chant of "Stop the Brock, you can't stop the Brock" which he acknowledges while looking very embarrassed. On getting himself a drink he comes over to talk to us about the game today & our general malaise. Worryingly, he continually describes the club as you eg. "I think you'll do alright this season" or "you're too good to be down at the bottom for long". Whilst trying to be diplomatic, it's clear that he doesn't rate Harrison too highly & tells us that assistant coach Jimmy Lowes is the heart & soul of the club. Thoroughly nice bloke all in all but I found our chat to be very illuminating and slightly worrying.

Everyone heads back for the train now but me & Martin fancy stopping out for a bit so a quick call to Nicola & we meet up for a few more beers. We leave on the last train out of Halifax (which is heading to Leeds) leaving Frankie & Ray on the platform who are convinced that there's another train to Manchester, they're wrong!

We arrive in Leeds & put Paul in a cab to take him on his short journey home before heading to Flares. Almost as soon as we get in there though, it shuts & we join some locals in heading to The Birdcage but they won't let the girls in as they're wearing Salford shirts. It's the same outcome at The Hi-Fi club too so we head back to the station (getting into a small altercation with some locals on the way). A by-now wound up Martin does himself some damage by punching a toilet roll holder with LUFC written on it, in his confused state he thought it was Liverpool, I point out that the U in the middle would suggest Leeds United.

A very long train journey (due to work on the line) is enlivened by a concerted effort to steal as many posters & antimacassars (sp?) as possible, Which Martin's mum was thrilled to see scattered all over the house the next morning!

Salford City Reds 10 Les Catalans Dragons 0

Some days are just so perfect they should be preserved in the memory forever. While this day won't be remembered for breathtaking sporting entertainment it will be remembered (by me anyway) as the day that Salford finally got their first win of the season AND United took a huge step towards winning back the title with a famous win at Anfield. Happy days!

I was up unfeasibly early for a Saturday, an admin cock-up at work had meant that I had to go to my branch of my bank to get my hands on my hard-earned pittance. Only problem being, my branch is in Leeds! After sorting out my cash & dashing back to civilisation, I got a taxi down to the Height to join everyone in the Dog for the early kick-off from Anfield. I walked in the Dog to find row after row of unfamiliar faces, a quick phone call solved the mystery "We're in the Welly" thanks for telling me lads!

Optimism was very low around the table, the feeling was we'd be more than happy with a draw. Bobby however was his usual up-beat self and was confident that Vidic would do the job for us, so much so that he'd staked 2 whole pounds of his hard-earned on the no-nonsense Serb opening the scoring. Nic & Janice turned up just before kick-off & we started to frantically look for a corner with no view of a telly to stick Janice in (she's a notorious jinx when it comes to Utd games).

The game was frenetic stuff as you'd expect from a Scouse v Utd game where the stakes are so high. To be fair Liverpool had most of it but Ronaldo always offered us a dangerous outlet. The 2nd half was real backs to the wall stuff though, the freak looked to have made the breakthrough but Van Der Sar made an amazing save & the draw was still on. It might have got better when Saha tricked his way through & was clearly brought down but a penalty? At Anfield? At the Kop end? No chance! Things got steadily worse for United; Rooney limping off, Scholesey lashing out at Scallygher (sadly not connecting) and earning a red card, John O'Shea coming on as a sub, oh dear.

As the clock ticks into the first of 4 long minutes of stoppage time that we have to hold on for, Giggs wins us a free-kick on the left. That'll waste a bit of time! Ronaldo's delivery is a beauty, low & hard, and Saha dives in but doesn't connect. However, it's enough to fool Reina who fails to collect & the rebound drops to a white shirt on the edge of the 6-yard box who sidefoots it into the roof of the Kop net. Absolute bedlam ensues.

As the bodies pile on top of me, as I hug the 10th random bloke in as many seconds, I start to realise what has just happened; John O'Shea, of all people, has written his name in United history. The man who scored the goal that will surely bring back the title is one of the players whose blinding mediocrity is the reason the trophy has spent so much time in the capital recently. The irony is fucking superb!

With the euphoria of the Utd victory fast subsiding, we turned our thoughts towards this evening's game. A win is vital & if we don't get it here then it would be a crisis point. Most of us seem confident of nicking it & a taxi is booked to take us to Weaste & a few beers in the church hall. As we make our way onto the Shed the heavens start to open. This cannot be a good sign for a fast-flowing open game (which given that we're on Sky it would be nice to serve up) & sadly I'm right. To make it worse for the viewing public, kids get in free tonight (a good move by the club if I may say so) & are given an annoying horn on their way into the ground (a shocking move by the club if I may say so). For 80 minutes a pathetic, annoying whine is the backdrop to a shocking game of RL. What an embarrassment.

The performance didn't really matter, getting the confidence boosting W was all that counted. We certainly made the perfect start with a sweeping right to left move creating the space for Luke Dorn to go over on the 6th tackle play. Johnny Wilshere added a superb conversion & all was well with the world (except for those bloody horns). If anything though, the play became even scrappier after the try. Robbo put a nice kick in for Daley Williams to chase but the Video Ref correctly ruled out the score.

The 2nd half unfortunately continued in much the same vein. We had most of the pressure & to be fair never really looked like losing, when Les Cats did pressurise us, our line defence was much, much better than in recent weeks. As the game went into the final 10 minutes, an Alker scoot found a big gap in the visitors line and the skipper touched down for the clinching score. In the dying seconds, the french failed to deal with a hopeful punt into the corner & john Wilshere appeared to have added a bit of gloss to the scoreline only to see the VR controversially chalk it off. Difficult one this one, I can see why he disallowed it but if you look at every try close enough & in super-super slo-mo, you'll eventually find something wrong with most of them.

The feeling in the Tavern afterwards was mainly one of relief at the victory, together with annoyance about those bloody horns. Of course it was a perfect opportunity to wind the Parkin clan up about earlier events at Anfield & that was too good an opportunity to miss out on. The lads were all scooting off to the Height & I was just about to join them when Nic called to say she was on her way to meet me with the girls. Shit! As it was we had a relatively uneventful night ti the Tav while I'm told I missed a classic night on the Height. Oh well, I suppose you can't have everything eh!