The drawback of having a season ticket is that even when you can’t be arsed to go you feel as though you have to, or at least need too to make it worthwhile having one. 

 So I made the journey down the A1 and arrived at the ground at around 6:20. I parked up on a side street and set of strolling down to the ground. As I passed the directors car park (which is directly across the road from the ground and is where the old Tivoli theatre used to stand) I noticed Monkey getting out of his car in that car park! How, what, who, why???? I stopped and waited at the entrance as he strolled across, had a quick chat with the steward and then came over.

“That was good timing” he said.

We chatted as we walked across towards the RU Suite.

“How come you’re parked in there?” I asked. Was he on some corporate invite, had he become a director of our beloved club?

“Well…” he said looking a bit sheepish “some time ago I was late for a game and was struggling to find somewhere to park and as I drove passed this car park I noticed that there was on empty space, No 32 to be exact. So I pulled up at the entrance and said I’m supposed to park in here No 32 apparently, and the gate man let me in”

“What and you’ve been using it ever since?” I enquired.

“Yep, I have a chat with him every week, he knows me now, so there’s no need for him to even ask to see passes or anything”

“How long’s this been going on?” I asked, expecting him to say 4/5 weeks.

“3 years………..”

“WHAT, 3 FECKIN YEARS!!!!”

“Yep” he grinned “me and the steward are best mates now”

“For feck’s sake” How he gets away with these things I’ll never now.

 Once in the bar we got a pint and joined Monty who, as normal, was holding court on the reserved table with another 4 blokes who I recognised but didn’t know. We sat, talked about how bad we were, bought raffle tickets etc. and ate pie and chips. The highlight of the evening as it turned out. Billy, Gav & Daz also turned up, as did Glen, Monkey’s brother who as it turned out had taken Monkey’s advice and told the car park steward that he was supposed to park in space No 33. And had gotten away with it!!

 On the field we are a disaster area, but off it things do seem to be getting better and I have to admit that the Rotherham United Suite is one of the better things to be sorted by the new regeime . There’s now loads of TV’s in there showing SKY Sports News and a big screen over the stage that shows previous RUFC games. The DVD playing this time was one showing all the goals, for and against from the season we got promoted out of this division, about 5/6 years ago. The effort, passion, pride, energy and commitment showed by that team were fantastic. And when you compare it to the dross that is currently being offered up by the current Rotherham United team, you can really see how far down we have dropped. Oh for the days of Alan Lee, Mark Robins, Paul Warne, Kevin Watson, Chris Sedgewick etc. etc. They were brilliant.

 We all left the bar and headed for the relevant parts of the ground. I found myself the only one in the main stand and so took up my usual seat.

 As has become the norm we were awful. The effort disapeared after 2 minutes, the singing stopped after 5 minutes and a dejected silence fell over the ground, and stayed there for the rest of the game. Swansea had only brought about 150 fans, it’s a long way on a Tuesday night. And when you take into account that this game had been called off 2 weeks ago, ½ hour before the game was due to kick off, you can understand their numbers.

Again, as usual, we fell one behind. Crap defending, crap midfield play, dodgy keeping, perm any 2 you like. One down at half time, miserable faces everywhere, I went for a Bovril.

 The second half started on a brighter note, for Swansea, who shockingly had only managed to score one passed us in the first half. They had 2 cleared of the line within the first 10 minutes and our goal seemed to by living a charmed life. Perhaps this was it, perhaps we would go on and get something out of this game, perhaps the our luck had changed, perhaps this could start us off on a run of straight wins that would see us safe?

No, they score again. We feck up a free kick in the middle of their half, they break and with all our defenders in their area still waiting for the cross that never happened, Lee Trundle smashes one in from 20 yards.

 Game over. I sat there and watched Knill make substitutions, mess with the formation and see us fail to create anything, nothing at all. And for the second match in succession I leave before 12 minutes before the final whistle and I wasn’t alone. I headed to the bar and found Monty in there already moaning on about how shite we where to himself, and I joined in. With pulled each of our players to pieces and with just cause. The others drifted in at various points and we noticed on TV that we had scored with the last kick of the game. Lost 1-2.

 Swansea you should be ashamed of yourselves!

 You only managed to score 2 past us, the current going rate is at least 3.