Scunthorpe United v Blackpool

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Football League One

Scunthorpe United :
Murphy, Byrne, Crosby, Foster (Foy 78), Williams (Baraclough 85), Taylor, Goodwin, Hinds, Morris (Torpey 66), Sharp, Keogh
Subs not used:
Lillis, Butler

Blackpool :
Evans, Barker, Jackson, Evatt, Wilkinson, Forbes (Vernon 83), Fox (Farrelly 89), Southern, Hoolahan (sent off 73), Morrell (Jorgensen 75), Parker
Subs not used:
Burgess, Fernandez

SULSESC REPORT

by Mark Borrill at Glanford Park

POOR journey, poor weather, poor game. This is the heavily censored, fully sanitised and much abridged printable summary.

There is another version available but publication may result in imprisonment for the Editor, litigation for the author, massive coronaries for readers of a sensitive disposition, and serious breaches of human rights.

I will try to elaborate but in order to avoid the above consequences, you, the reader, will first have to use your imagination. Now sit comfortably, sip your Latte or Mocha, adjust the office air conditioning to suit only you, delay sending superfluous inter-departmental e-mails which no-one reads anyway, and imagine that like the author, you are an embittered, middle aged lorry driver.

Hopefully you are now in character. Ideally you should be able to smell the heady mix of tobacco and diesel which permeates your new found being and your sense of resentment should be raging against life’s injustices like your ex-wife, your employer, other road users, Brussels, the Government, immigration, etc. The list is endless and still growing. You should be incapable of cognitive thought but have a vocabulary largely consisting of every expletive, profanity and obscenity known to man.

Right, back to the match report and associated matters. Staying in character, you have the day off from the daily grind, have arranged to travel early aiming for a decent pre-match relaxation period, and are actually looking forward to a pleasant evening’s entertainment.

But life is not like that with harsh reality about to dump on your parade and thereby revert you to type, namely a disillusioned, frustrated and wound-up nobody!

Milton Keynes to Scunthorpe is 145 miles and today that journey took four-and-a-half hours, largely in first or second gear at an average of around 30mph on the M1. Arrived at Glanford Park just before 7 pm, tired and annoyed without any time for relaxation.

As for the match, no complaints. Blackpool deserved to beat a very inept United side for whom a high percentage of players had a shocking game. Without wishing to be too pessimistic, I reckon we will soon be known as “fast fading Scunthorpe United”.

The return journey was also marred by a standstill in North Derbyshire and heavy, blinding rain on the Godforsaken M1.

So, over seven hours of driving (crawling!), interrupted only by a pathetic United performance. All in all, an absolutely forgettable day.

I hope that you will have been able to assume the author’s character, thereby liberally inserting expletives everywhere, have roared with impotent frustration at all opportunities, and have had your sense of injustice stretched to dangerous, pathological levels of intolerance. Only by so doing can you truly appreciate this shambles without me having to write what otherwise would have been the nastiest report to date, even surpassing Bob Dook’s anti North East tirades.