March 28, 2024
Rose tinted bus parade

Actually

Rose tinted bus parade
Hey, these glasses don’t work… everything looks worse!

Wait, really? The FA Cu- er, that competition again? Gah, I bet my sub editor £20 I wouldn’t explicitly mention the events of 2013 for the duration of this calendar month… Gnnngh, and it’s only the seventh. Those sneaky swines, how dare they fool us all by leaving that weekend of the fixture list blank until the draw was made!

Ah, this is gonna be impossible. Look, it’s my duty as a Latics blogger – if I don’t keep banging on about… a certain afternoon, you might well forget and believe Everton went on to win it with Jimbo McCarthy delivering the corner for Arouna Kone to head past Ali Al Habsi in the penultimate minute of stoppage time. At Old Trafford, in blazing sunshine.

No, I don’t subscribe to that alternative universe nonsense. I want to live in a world where I can constantly thumb down That Goal on YouTube just so I can thumb it up again. Wow, I just realised that the preceding sentence will make no sense in five years, when YouTube is rendered obsolete by amazing technology involving robot butlers and/or automatic teletext tuners. Er, thumbs…?

But that was now, this is then. (It’s *always* then.)

Robot butler
I say, Jeevus, return that colander to the kitchen at once!

Wait a minute, what are you doing with my rose tinted spectacles? How dare you rip them from my face! Hey, don’t put them through that mincer…

Hmm, is it me or did the weather get really bad all of a sudden? And this isn’t Wembley Stadium… Oh well, at least the pies cost pocket money as opposed to Whelan wallet change oop ‘ere int’ north. Actually, yeah – that’s the spirit! Right here is where the purest footballing action is to be found.

Here in the first round, one is free to commit errors without the evil eye of a television camera scrutinising one’s every minute muscle movement. Here, one can spill a cross and concede in cringeworthy fashion without vainglorious pundits chortling through their thick make up and complimentary prawn flavoured hot coffee. However, I daresay more than a few thousand Bury supporters had a right good laugh when the ball slipped through Richard O’Donnell’s oily, rust-coated fingers and into the cake sack.

Visibly cheered by this slightly comedic turn of events, the previously circumspect hosts were back to their usual industrious selves. As preparation for this tie, they didn’t need to watch tapes on how to cut apart Wigan Athletic – they’d already physically done that twice in the preceding three months. And they were about to do it again.

Bury good indeed

I wouldn’t say Bury picked on Francisco Junior, just… well, it’s the Jordi Gomez principle: if you’re always on the ball, you’re more likely to lose it. When Frankie blundered, the home side stepped in and took over – Danny Mayor complemented Jacob Mellis’ through ball with a pleasing finish for a thoroughly warranted 2-0 lead.

Time for one more before half time? OK, how about a last-second tap home from Nathan Cameron? No? Well, it’s what happened so you’ll have to live with it, unless you have a machine to visit one of those alternative universes. I’d be careful with such contraptions, though – I hear they take 6 months off your life expectancy each time you use them. Don’t listen to that sales assistant’s lies!

Junior’s own match life expectancy would also be cut short as The (Max) Power darted past him and into the ‘action’ on the hour mark. But his entrance was inevitably eclipsed by that of Latics ‘legend’ Leon Clarke, who arrived in a proverbial rose-tinted limo to claim an obligatory goal, his side’s fourth and… well, I’ve already exhausted my allocation of silly puns and analogies for this week. Looks like I’ll have to spend (yet) more time in front of Classic Countdown with my reporter’s notebook.

Erm... aha, "waiting"!
Oh, I dunno. ‘Wine’, maybe?

At any rate, I guess it all became unbearable many paragraphs ago, so I’ll try and make this quick.

So that’s it, the cup dream is over.

No Wembley, no Max Power nodding past Tim Howard with seconds of the final to play. No bum-numbing 200 mile coach journey, no arriving home knackered at 4AM, no waking up on the kitchen table, no nothing. Ahem, nope.

To make matters worse, I am forced to find £20 in pennies and soda caps on the supermarket car park to fulfil that foolish bet. However, there is a more pressing matter – do you know of any garages that might stock rose tinted glasses at this time of night? I never realised how much I’d miss my trusty pair.

Here, this ought to make you feel better.

 Second opinion

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