Who scored?

Watford v Reading

Saturday 20^th September

Taking an old computer up to Sarah’s house meant catching a train to Bushey and going back to Carpenders Park, the first part of which journey I did with my brother and Kasey (who’d been particularly talkative when they arrived the previous day), allowing the HP tower to fall onto the platform as I disembarked. Fortunately, it proved to be in good working order and I left that and our old map of the world from the bathroom before saying goodbye for a year. I cycled to Kerry’s and gave Joss a football and my rollerblades, which he was soon trying. One unused item after another, we are emptying the flat: the local charity shop has benefited too.

Joss and I had to squeeze under the locked gate for the hospital car-park that is a regular route to matches. Had someone simply failed to do their job adequately or was it spite? This was a question that recurred within the context of the match and the most astonishing footballing decision I’ve ever been witness to. As Joss commented after the match, it had everything a football game might: injuries, a penalty, a disallowed goal, a sending to the stands and then some.

Goalkeeper Mart Poom was substituted just minutes after the start when he came out to head the ball outside his area and went over the top of an opponent, dislocating his shoulder. His replacement, Scott Loach, was kept busy (Reading had started on the front foot and looked like they could be in for a hatful), stopping a couple of point-blank attempts. Although the Royals looked likely to score, the events of the 13^th minute are going to be on a future “What happened next?” section of A Question of Sport: the BBC describe it as “farcical” and “one of the strangest goals ever”, though they should have used inverted commas towards the end of that phrase.

From a Reading corner, John Eustace and Noel Hunt went up for a ball, which the Watford no. 8 seemed to win and send over the goal line a few yards the linesman’s side of the post. Another Reading player tried to keep it in, hooking it back for a third to head against the crossbar (after Loach’s fingertips), it rebounded back into play, there was a third shot parried and then whistle went. There were no appeals, everybody assumed it was a corner or goalkick but the referee’s assistant - Nigel Bannister – had told the ref it was a goal and despite the outrage on and off the pitch, it stood.

The anger and disgust engendered by the injustice at least brought the crowd to life. Along with the predictable hostility (“Cheat”, “Wanker”, “You don’t know what you’re doing” and “You’re going home in a Watford ambulance”), came the self-other merging that is required for great support and we went through the litany of tunes. Whenever the ref was at our end again and the abuse had died down, I led the shouts of the question we wanted an answer to. “Who scored, ref?” “What was his name?”

Discussing it with two guys behind me I correctly (according to other, later, sources) assumed that the mistake had been the assistant seeing the ball cross the goal line and believing it was between the posts. Nevertheless, it hardly makes any sense: a Reading player wouldn’t have been trying to prevent it crossing the line if it were between the sticks. It was suggested at the time and has been since that Reading should just have let Watford score, but as I said in the ground, I read in a “You are the ref” column in The Observer not so long ago that a referee couldn’t allow that type of gamesmanship to stand.

With us still down at half-time (Jobi McAnuff had been taken off injured before that), there were more reports from fans of what media sources were saying and – though it didn’t need it from where we sit at the front of the Rookery – the unfairness was confirmed. When Bannister came on (to boos) and over to us to check the nets, I took up the shout again but he was laughing off the catcalls by looking at one of the Reading players and pointing at himself in “Do they mean me?” mock-surprise. Perhaps at that stage he still didn’t know what he’d done? We discussed that too.

The atmosphere stayed hot and the backing inspired the Golden Boys. Before the hour mark, Tommy Smith scored his fourth goal of the season after penalty-area head tennis. All of us had the same idea for a song; “1-0 to the Golden Boys”. Not long after that Aidy “Betty” Boothroyd was sent to the stands for saying too much, making ref Stuart Attwell even more popular. There were constant problems with two balls on the pitch; it was a shambles and I kicked off “Sign on, with a pen in your hand, and you’ll never ref again”.

That was forgotten quickly as John Joe O’Toole passed to Will Hoskins and ran on to collect the ball and pass it wide of Hahnemann: cue “2-0 to the Golden Boys”. And then it all died.

The injustice righted, the fans quietened, the zest went from the team and it all went back to Reading domination. They had a goal disallowed and then with three minutes left and John Joe O’Toole also off injured (Al Bangura came on), Reading got a penalty from what was said to be a Jay Demerit tackle. They scored (shame for Loachy, who played really well), the points were shared and the result, if not the entire day’s proceedings, was fair.