January 9, 2014, by Ben Read

My F.A. Cup Away Day

On my last day before returning to Nottingham to start the dreaded pre-exam revision frenzy, I ticked something off all football fans’ bucket list, an F.A. Cup away day!

 

As a Reading F.C. fan, I dreamt of glamorous away trips to Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge before the draw was made, unfortunately my trip was to the AMEX Stadium, home to Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.

Having said that, the AMEX is an impressive modern stadium that puts many Premier League club’s facilities to shame.

It was a dreary January Saturday afternoon. It was pouring with rain and our seats were in the third row, great we thought, nice and close to the action but also, as we discovered, not covered by the roof.

If you follow Championship football, or the team you support has been lucky enough to play Reading recently, you’ll know that the team is in a dismal vein of form and there are many issues going on behind the scenes to do with the ownership of the club. However, I was hopeful that a cup victory today could turn our season around.

My optimism didn’t last long, Brighton dominated the first half in which they hit the post three time before eventually taking the lead against a Reading team that showed little resilience in defence and even less lethalness in attack.

It certainly was a case of pathetic fallacy (a term I have been looking to use ever since completing English A level) as Reading failed to capitalise on an abundance of chances in the second half and the game finished 1-0 and we were knocked out of the cup.

A long drive home, was made even longer by a wrong turn and an already depressing day was made much worse when I checked my betting slip and found that if Reading had scored in the match I would be £24.40 richer.

Still, it wasn’t so bad, at least I had all that revision to look forward to…

 

 

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