Reading 0 Fulham 2 - It ain't over 'til it's over

Our first away win since the 9th September 2006. Nineteen months of depressingly consistent failure finally ended and, just when we all thought it was going to end with a whimper, there's a faint hope that we've not quite dead and buried. I got back from a couple of days down at my Dad's in time to watch the scoreline via the Internet, but a night out with the boys and a rare "first game on" slot meant I missed both showings of MOTD and am still yet to see any of the action. There's some good first hand reports from FtF here, here, and here and from CCN here with pictures here which all capture what sounds like a cracking day out.

Whilst my brain told me we'd blown it after the Derby and Sunderland games I knew that I wouldn't really accept that we're down until it's mathematically confirmed and the BBC have got an R next to our name on the league table. I still have a vivid memory of my Dad taking me to a Tuesday night game back in the Eighties. The details are a little vague but I think it was a Third Division match against Cambridge United. We were losing, possibly 3-0, and with 15 minutes left most of the crowd around me were moaning and grumbling about every mistake. The reaction annoyed me and spurred me on to cheer every cross, applaud every shot and generally sing as loud as I could to show my support. It didn't make any difference to the final score, we didn't manage a late revival, we didn't even manage a consolation goal, but I felt a lot better about the part I'd played. I'm older now and am probably a little more ready to accept when a game is lost. That said even if my head tells me we've lost, as it did against Sunderland, I'll still be ready to cheer the team on and hang onto the shred of hope we could spring a surprise. I'll have everything crossed for the rest of the season, you never know what might happen if you keep believing.