Harveys Porter is a particularly fine beer, so I had one or two!. We left just after 2pm to get the train from London Bridge South Bermondsey and by 2.30 we were getting into the ground.
We sat directly behind the goal and the ground began to fill up. The Millwall "asbo" youth were in the stand to our left, the end block segregated off by netting and a row of Police to keep them a nice safe distance away.
To our right was the more dangerous looking psychopathic looking mid to late 40 year olds. They had a line of stewards and police for the last 5 minutes of the first half and the last 10 minutes of the second!
The one that stood out was the meat head down the front giving us the poofter references with his arms, bending down showing us his fat ar&e, all whilst wearing a lovely pink T-shirt.
He got back as much as he gave, before he finally zipped up his jacket and shut up!
As for the match, well what can I say. The line up was back to players who would give 100% rather than have skill, and it worked. Chippy had his best game of the season, CKR grew in confidence feeding of GNW.
Reid was getting forward and hassling, harty was losing his teeth for the cause (we were down to 10 men for 12 minutes whilst they tried to patch him up!).
Gatting looked sharp when he was on and his replacement Mayo got stuck in all over the place.
Hinshelwood and McShane looked great as a central defence and Henderson gained in confidence with these 2 infront of him.
Reid opened the scoring, after a GNW cross was fumbled by Marshall under pressure from Harty. Reid made space for himself and confidently blasted home.
Moments later CKR had a shot turned round the post, from the corner McShane won a fantastic low header to make it 2-0. After that the game was poor, but we had chances. They only had 1 I recall being dangerous, but Hayles poked the ball wide after getting in between McShane and Henderson.
At the other end CKR had several good shots, Marshall made save of the season to somehow push a Gatting shot over the bar.
We celebrated at the end and nearly and hour later finally got back to London Bridge.
So Southampton to tackle next.....come on its not over yet!
Henderson - 7 solid game
El-Abd - 6 solid, but not really tested
Lynch - 7 good game
McShane - 8 commanding game
Hinshelwood - 7 good combination with McShane
Hammond - 6 kept running and running
Carpenter - 9 the old Chippy was back and superb
Hart - 7 battled hard, hope the dentist can sort him out
Reid - 7 good return, got forward well
CKR - 8 for first 60 mins when looked a dangerous player - then drifted out of the game
GNW - 8 great centre forwards display - always puts in the effort
Gatting (for Hart) - 7 gave the team options - so unlucky not to score, before missing a good opportunity
Mayo (for Gatting) - 7 good sold display - helped shut down the game towards the end