Bit of a round trip, and my first visit to the Walkers Stadium. My first impression is that they don’t want anyone to find it. Not a single signpost (road or path) directs you to it anywhere. Shame, as it’s not bad once you find it. Generic “new stadium” but pleasant enough.
Today’s match was Leicester’s 4000th league game, so the match program came in at a hefty four quid. Mind, it also came in at a hefty size and it’s worth a read through. Makes a decent souvenir of a fairly torrid game. The occasion is also likely to have had a positive affect on the attendance – a record for the ground.
Awful weather didn’t help, but in all fairness Leicester’s players were facing the same conditions ours were. The home crowd were pretty quiet aside from the occasional murmur until they went a goal up from what looked like a defensive shambles on our part. One of the guys near me (I was right on the border between home and away fans) responded to chants of “You only sing when you’re winning” with “And we only sing once a month”.
Prior to that, the game took a while to get going. At the end of the first half, I think we were edging it, but the home side took the game to us in the second and deserved their goal. We started to look desparate, even going as far as trying to concuss our own players to gain sympathy. Watching Bernard collapse like a puppet with its strings cut after a ball was hoofed at his head from close range was humorous for a second until we realised how serious it could be.
But with five minutes left (at a guess – the scoreboard clock had reset to zero after Leicester scored), Bobby elected to bring an attacking midfielder – Ambrose – and a junior striker – Chopra – onto the field. Throw everything forward. And blow me, if it didn’t work.
A goalmouth scramble got us the goal we should have scored in the first half, courtesy of Darren Ambrose’s head. Only his second senior goal for the club, if I’m right, the last being number five against FC Basle away in the UEFA Cup.
So honours even, but with Fulham winning, they’ve nestled nicely into fourth with a bit of a lead on us. Blackburn at home on Sunday should be interesting. They’ve got one of the worst defenses going at the moment while we’ve scored 10 goals in the last 3 home games.
Fingers crossed…
Current MP3 playing: Hallowed Be Thy Name by Anton Maiden. Yes, that’s Anton…
