Outside the Box: Roof will come off if Blues go up – but first a Reading lesson
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Your support makes all the difference.It is a tricky time of season for clubs who think there might just be the need to arrange an open-top procession to the town hall, but cannot be sure. After Birmingham City blew automatic promotion by losing at home to Preston, the following advertisement appeared in the local 'Evening Mail': "WELDER WANTED. Job description: To weld the roof back on a double-decker bus – Apply to: Birmingham City FC, St Andrew's." A win at Reading today and the Blues will still have the last laugh, and their double-decker trip. Reading themselves need a helping hand from Crystal Palace, which puts their coach Wally Downes in an uncomfortable position given his long-standing feud with Palace's manager Neil Warnock. The volatile Downes, once a member of Wimbledon's Crazy Gang, says that in the event of a Palace win over Sheffield United today: "I would shake him warmly by the throat."
Bayern nun too clever
It's the time of year when football teams and their supporters often call upon divine intervention; note all those close-ups beloved by television directors of fans with hands clasped together in prayer. It proved no help to Bayern Munich, however, to invite 11 nuns from the Sisters of Mercy monastery with their red-and-white scarves to last weekend's critical home game against Schalke. Instead of registering the win that would have made them joint-leaders of the Bundesliga with the unsung Wolfsburg, Bayern were beaten 1-0, Franck Ribery was sent off and their manager Jurgen Klinsmann was sacked the next day.
Bengal drown sorrows
An update on the non-League teams mentioned a fortnight ago who were enjoying – or not enjoying – very different fortunes this season. Poole Town went on to reach 40 games unbeaten in the Sydenhams Wessex League, only for "the wheels to fall off" in the words of their chairman. The last two games, played in the space of three days, brought defeats by 5-1 and 3-0 to Wimborne and Brockenhurst, but still left a playing record of 38 wins in 42 games and 116 points, the best in the club's history. Nothing changed, alas, for Sporting Bengal United, who finished 21 points clear at the bottom of the Bulmers Cider Kent League after losing every game. Particularly painful were two games with mid-table Erith & Belvedere, who won 9-1 and 10-2.
Bolton fan ate all the pies
And finally, who ate all the pies? The answer: Bolton supporter and author Tom Dickinson, brave soul, who is visiting all 92 grounds this season and has ranked the quality of pie at each. Morecambe have emerged as top of his culinary pops and Walsall, to their fury, are bottom of the heap. "Barely hot in the middle," was the damning verdict, bitterly disputed by Saddlers fan Daniel O'Connor, who counters: "Our chicken balti is a taste sensation. In 12 years of pie-eating at away grounds, 70 per cent of them are worse than ours."
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