While our big news was that Medina had been relieved of his contract (no doubt collecting a couple of million in the process), our delightful chums up the road hoyed out poor old granddad Bobby, with Dirty Doug using his now accustomed, and legendary, tact and decency.

Perhaps he’ll be pleased to know that our Spenny Spy, who may or may not be called George, out walking his dog prior to our 440 mile round trip to Berkshire yesterday morning, spotted an spanking new Aston Martin, the registration of which may or may not have contained the number 1 and the letters K & D. The driver of said vehicle, sneaking around the back streets of Spenny, may or may not have had a striking resemblance to a lazy, money-grabbing wannabee England star who recently fell out with the ex-manager. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that he managed to drive that far without damaging the car and at least three bridges. As for the young lady undoubtedly involved, shame on you. What’s wrong with the normal lads of South West Durham?

Allegedly.

If you thought that KD skulking in Spenny was strange, the sight of a fully dressed Roman soldier crossing the A167 and entering McDonald’s really set the morning off. By the time we’d discussed why he was there (up for the mags job? I doubt it, as we reckon Hufty is the odds-on favourite, being both a supporter and a media personality – and having big boots) we’d arrived in Abingdon, which goes to show that I can’t tell Watford from Reading, and the Duke of Bedford can sleep easy for a few weeks at least. Despite my winning the first doubler of the day (meaning that I’d have to try hard to be financially down), it was Robbin Ron who took the most abuse, especially when his winnings went through the hole in his pocket and bounced across the market place. We also found that the beer named IPA is so called because of what George does with it - “I’ll Pinch Anybody’s”.

Reading fell victim to our now customary early trick of letting an early goal in and then forcing the opposition to fell better than they really are. For the first half we looked as busy as them, but also as if we were going nowhere. When we did change it around, we looked far more positive, had about 75% of the ball in the second half, but failed to produce any clear-cut chances. Lawrence’s penalty appeal could have been successful, as ones like that sometimes are, but only in the premier league. We began to apply real pressure in the last 15 minutes, but by then, the officials had lost all sense of spatial reality, and gave a series of weird and (not) wonderful decisions all over the pitch.

In the end, we got what we deserved on the pitch, and the team barely deserved the applause the got from the fans. We were beaten by a one-dimensional team from a little plastic club in a little concrete town – not that I’m bitter, you understand, because their goalie could have sat next to me for all the work he was called on to do. Off the pitch, there was no way we deserved that bloody irritating drum beat and their single chant of “oh-eh”, whatever that means (“blue army”, I’m told, but no accent on the planet could turn it into what we heard).

We need to start with the midfield that we finished with – at least they looked like they wanted score or create a goal, even though they rarely got close to achieving that – and with Elliott up front. Whether he’s with Kyle or Stewart I don’t care.

Man of the match? Whitehead was the most effective outfield player, and the 9 foot tall Collins did OK on his debut, but Poooom has to take it because, without his three or four outstanding saves in the second half, it could easily have been 0-4.

We were everywhere and nowhere baby,
That’s where we were at.
Running round the field all evening,
Like a bunch of……(insert lyric of choice here)

Tactics, please, Mick, tactics