January 23rd: Cardiff City v Leicester City (FA Cup fourth round)
Now here's a novelty: I'll be in a car today. No getting up at 3am to go in the wrong direction today. Helen will be expecting me to arrive at 10am so we can be in Cardiff in plenty of time. No problem.
Ten minutes late, I knock the front window of the student house and within a few moments a flustered and slightly annoyed-looking sidekick opens the door. I'm not that late am I?
A card sits in the front seat, and on it are directions to street parking near to the stadium. Wonderful, nothing can possibly go wrong. We arrive at Sainsbury's for petrol. It seems that my paying for the tickets is sufficient payment for a lift to the game. So essentially, this lift has cost me fifteen quid. Seems fair. Better than fair, actually.
As Helen goes inside, I observe the car in front. It's been there since before we arrived, and the owner wasn't there. The owner still isn't there. Helen comes back, and the owner still isn't there. We wait. And wait. And wait. I go to get out, with the intention of finding out who, if anyone, owns the car blocking our exit, but the look on my travel companion's face tells me this is unwise if I don't intend to walk to South Wales. Finally, the woman who owns the Audi TT returns. So she hasn't abandoned it then.
Soon our trip is properly under way. Most of the time, I'm happy to travel in silence, or at least concentrating on something else, but there's something different when travelling with Helen. You see, the difference between her and most people is that she can be interesting for a number of hours. During our trip along stretches of varying lengths of five different motorways, we have a series of involved discussions about a variety of topics, mostly under the general heading of football. Helen also happens to be one of the most informed people I know when it comes to football. This makes me comfortable. What makes me less comfortable, however, is her description of a recent dream. I won't go into great detail, but I'll say that Swansea's Joe Allen wearing just his boxers is the least disturbing part of it.
Eventually (and via a couple of unnecessary diversions - let's just leave it at that) we find the free street parking near to the ground. After coffee and food, we enter the ground shortly after 2pm. The away end has an odd, unfinished look to it. I look up and see that the exit signs have two words on them. Presumably the one underneath, which looks like a sequence of arbitrarily chosen letters (perhaps Scrabble tiles drawn from the bag), is the Welsh for exit. So here's a question: what for? Think about it. Who, other than a tiny percentage of Swansea fans, is going to come in the away end and look for the Welsh translation of the exit sign? Who is going to look at a sign saying 'EXIT' next to a big arrow and think 'I wish that was in Welsh, then I'd know why that sign is pointing at the massive door over there'? What possible function do these bilingual signs serve?
Unreserved seating is the order of the day, so we find a pair on the end of a row about halfway up. A glance around the stadium only serves to increase the feeling that the structure isn't finished. Is it finished? Have they actually arrived at the planned construction, or did they just get so far and think 'fuck it, that'll do'? Questions whose answers I frankly don't care about.
Seventeen minutes into the game, Michael Chopra crosses from the right and Jay Bothroyd's head meets it in the box to put the home side in front. No less than we deserve really, we're still not out of the blocks yet.
City get their act together and about ten minutes before half time a Paul Gallagher free kick is headed on and past David Marshall by Michael Morrison for the equaliser. Five minutes after that, Dany N'Guessan powers through to make it 2-1. The game's been turned on its head.
Only twenty minutes remain when Peter Whittingham scores directly from a free kick on the right side of the pitch, and the time seems to just vanish from there. At 2-2, it seems a replay is on the cards (although, mercifully, this one will be at home). But then, two minutes into injury time Chris Burke smashes a loose ball through the penalty box to put Cardiff in round five. It seems, however, there's time to add gloss to the scoreline, as Ross McCormack finishes from close range. That's the cup out the way for another year then.
On the way back home, it takes us some time to get out of Cardiff and, despite the directions, we find our way back to familiar roads and eventually back to civilisation. I finally walk through the front door a little after 8pm - much earlier than I would've done coming by coach.
[I know some may be disappointed by the simplicity of my journey today, but here's a little story for you. A frustrated Leicester fan called me on Thursday to have a general moan about the poor choice of public transport options for getting to Cardiff. A train was out of the question because it was far too expensive. Places on Fox Travel, the official supporters' coaches, were sold out. By now you can probably tell what he ended up doing: he was up at the crack of dawn getting a coach to London, and arrived back in Leicester some time after 2am. Fucking loon.]
Final score: Cardiff 4 Leicester 2
Time: 10 hours 15 minutes
Ticket: £20
Sidekick ticket: £15
Total: £35
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