It makes you wonder why you bother sometimes, it really does. I’ve been wound up about this game all week. I’ve read player after player quote and manager after manager comment talking about how everyone at the club knows what this game means to the fans.

So why, oh why do I now feel so let down and humiliated sitting on a stationary bus outside Scum Park? Well anyone reading this knows the ins and outs of what happened during the game, but one thing needs to be said. Roy Keane got his tactics wrong.

I spent Saturday trying to avoid the build up to the game. I went into town and bought myself a new pair of Stan Smith’s, but the kid who got me my size nines from out the back only talked about the match. I popped into Asda to get some nice food and a few beers for a quiet night in, but once settled on the settee my phone was a torrent of texts about the match.

I went to bed at midnight after being annoyed with Boro’s futile attempts to beat Bolton on MOTD and tried to get some kip, but I couldn’t. Just as I was settling down my moby started buzzing again. My drunken mates gave up at about 4am and I drifted into a dream.

Sadly it was a nightmare. We were playing the Mags, Johnny Evans wasn’t fit and somehow Gary Breen replaced him and surprisingly it all went wrong. I woke up in a cold sweat at 6am and thought I may as well get up. Three hours later I was in The Worm having a pint for Breakfast.

We decided to avoid the slow coaches and Metro through and cleverly (or so we thought) hired a mini bus to allow us more drinking time. We weren’t so happy when it arrived at midday and discovered it was red and white in colour and had a Sunderland crest on the number plate. Very undercover!

By the time we got to SJP and got in unscathed we’d discovered that my nightmare had come true and not only Evans was out, but so was Bardsley. To make matters worse they were replaced by Higginbotham and McShane.

We climbed the two thousand stairs to our seats, realised we were playing one up front, gave them a goal head start and then just when we started playing semi OK, they were gifted a penalty on the stroke of half time and it was effectively game over.

Keane admitted his mistake at half time and switched Murphy from wing to up front, but despite us being the better team in the second half it was too little too late. Fair enough Evans and Bardsley were injured, but why put Chops and Richardson on the bench?

The Scum didn’t even play well, but we were so crap it didn’t matter. Miller got a run out, but after not playing for so long he looked a little rusty and with McShane and Higgi in the same boat we were never at the races. The players will go back their posh houses, pick up their big pay packets and not be bothered. It makes no difference to their lives.

Meanwhile, us, the fans, will be gutted for weeks and ridiculed by Mags at work and Uni. I wouldn’t have minded so much if we’d lost and given it a real go, but we didn’t even get out of the starting blocks. Pathetic. Everyone at the club should be ashamed of that performance. Not good enough. The end.

Final Score: 0-2

ALS Man Of The Match: No One

Seamus Alexander McGregor

ALS Books click here