Rejoice, people, it’s Friday. End of another long week at work. Out for a few jars tonight? I am. Why not, eh?
What about tomorrow? Football? Oh, nah, course not, we’re playing on a fucking Sunday. Fucking Sunday. Fuck sake. Highly irritating for number one sessioners and sinker/songwriters up and down the country. I sense a few late starts Monday.
Anyway.. It’s a welcome distraction from what’s been a pretty abysmal league campaign so far. A cup run would be nice. Always are, aren’t they? Almost 2,000 tickets sold. Well done to all. A splendid effort.
I love the FA Cup, as I’m sure most of you do. And it’s loved us at times too.
I cast your mind back to 2013. January. Really cold. What a miserable season we were having. 131st in the conference, with 7 points from a possible 2,000, which left us 1,415 points off the play offs with Paul Buckle at the helm.
Paul Buckle. Ha. Most famous for having a marvellous song created by RiGs in Ebbsfleet on an evening in August 2012. You all remember Van McCoy and their worldwide* hit Do The Hustle? Probably went platinum. Anyway, being the wordsmiths that we are, hustle turned in to Buckle. Genius I hear you cry. Thank you. Do do do do do do do do do!
We continue. We’d just beat a pack of angry, wild, carnivorous dogs in the 3rd round at the Kenny. Just 11 winter hounds, strolling around the pitch, trying to tackle the imperious Alex Lawless. They failed, and just like perfection, ahh, ego alert, flawless, Alexander Lawless rifled in a volley. Scenes. 1-0 Hats. Full time.
A good little drink was then had by all. Fell asleep in the Brewery Tap that night. Still made it home with a large doner from Luton Kebab House. Small victories.
The FA Cup 4th round. Unchartered territory for us young bods. Norwich City (a) was the call. Mixed emotions. Somewhere most of us hadn’t been, somewhere most of those slightly more senior to us would have. Not the glamour tie at Citeh or United we had hoped for but a good one none the less. Easy enough to get to, direct train from Hitchin. Molly Malone’s unfortunately not open pre-departure. Staple breakfast of 8 bottles of corona. We had about 25 of us out, all stopping the night. Organised chaos.
We did OK. They had the odd chance, but we should have had a penalty when Jonny Howson clearly hauled back Sunday, Monday, Andre Gray when he was about to go 1 on 1 with the keeper. Second half came and Norwich continued to dominate the ball but apart from a blinding save from Tyler – they didn’t threaten to much. The forgotten back four of Taylor, Rowe-Turner, Janos Kovacs and Captain Henry were imperious all game. Shame that 3 of the 4 played miserably in most of the league games. Mark O’Misery.
I remember Rendell coming on and he changed the game. Clever ball over the top found just like perfection, ahh, like no other, flawless, Alexander Lawless, and his volley flew just wide of the post. Was that the chance? I remember turning to Angry G and telling him I thought it was. He didn’t know what I was talking about. Concentrating on singing some song about Arnaud Mendy, and keeping the 16 pre match pints down.
Then. It happened. Janos header. Found Fleetwood. He took it wide. JJ had made a great run, untracked, in the inside left position. Fleets found him. Perfect pass. JJ looks up, told to wait by Rendell. He does, a second or so, then pulls it across left footed. Rendell beats the defender…
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
4,000 Luton Hats were sent absolutely coconuts and gravy. Simon Pitts had a coronary in the press box. What a feeling. Anyone who says having kids/getting married/losing your virginity amongst other things is the best feeling in the world is wrong. Chaos. Absolute chaos it was. Bedlam. Delirium. Madness. Just unbelievable.
Last 10 minutes was the longest 10 minutes of my life – but by god was it worth it. We held on with no real scares (apart from LRT playing basketball in our own penalty area. To this day I’m adamant I would have murdered him in cold blood had he gave away a penalty there).
Joyous celebrations. An incredible amount of beer was consumed. Copious amounts. We even got offered down a side road to where 25 scruffy looking heads were waiting for us by a bloke in a Stone Island jacket that his mum seemed to have glued back together that morning. Really brave bloke, offering some lads down an alley, whilst being escorted by meat wagons and plod on horseback. I remember he gave a rallying call, strolling around like he was General fucking Custer. Terrible individual. The cherry on the icing on the top of a stellar weekend and a quite remarkable football match.
To be honest, I needn’t remind you of how biblical that day and entire weekend was for the Hats that made the trip to East Anglia, but I felt it was right for a more positive post after what’s been a pretty tough week-10 days.
Looking forward to Sunday, I think we may just turn up and nick it. Alternatively we’ll lose 9-3, and we’ll all be laughing about how fucking embarrassing the twins are again.
Keep the faith, fellow Hatters, and have a bloody good drink with us on Sunday, in the hope the boys can bring me sunshine.
Until next time.
We’ve got Sol.
The RiGs.
Luton Town RiGs 