Showdown

Sometimes your words can come back and haunt you...

Remember that I said that what can be worse than missing the only goal of the match in this post?

Remember me complaining about 515pm kickoffs in this post?

Those words have been shafted back into my mouth one by word on Boxing Day.

To get to the point more quickly, I missed the Man United vs Bolton game TOTALLY because I was caught in a traffic jam.

*$&#^$^#&&@!?:"***##@

Why am I so suey? Getting stuck in TWO jams in a month out of FOUR matches? That must be some kind of record! As if missing the only goal of the match last time wasn't enough, this time I fucking hell missed the entire game! When I finally got to the stadium, the usual queue at the metro station made up of people getting back to the city centre had already disappeared. Even the mega store, the mega money making machine of United was also closed by the time I got there. I reached about an hour after the match had ended. That was how late I was.

And the mega store closing means I could not even buy the fucking match programme.

*$&#^$^#&&@!?:"***##@

As a side thought, if any of you thought the jams in JB are jia lat, you all should have seen the situation yesterday. The oh-so-helpful information boards above the motorway actually said the M6 was CLOSED (yes CLOSED) at junction 16. And it was no exaggeration. There were long intervals in which the bus actually DID NOT move at all. All there was to do was to look at the endless line of vehicles stretching far into the horizon as far as you can see. Perhaps I should not have been a cheapo, perhaps I should have just travelled on Xmas eve and stayed in Manchester for one night. But a jam of this magnitude, when vehicles hardly moved at all was terribly hard to imagine. There were countless vehicle recovery trucks, 1 ambulance and a number of police cars which zoomed past on the road shoulder but they did not seem to alleviate the situation at all. All in all, I was caught in the jam for around 4 hours.

And you know what? The-one-up-there (whoever it is) nearly won while I was on the bus. While the bus was stuck in the jam refusing to move an inch, I found myself questioning why I am doing all this. What have I done to deserve all this? I paid for the match ticket and the travel (50 pounds in total) with my own money. I was willing to endure 5 hour coach rides back and forth to watch Untied live. I just wanted to arrive in time and enjoy the match comfortably. Is that too much to ask? I had not been in the best of moods for the past 2 weeks, and had looked forward to this Boxing Day game in particular as it was a local derby. Other people enjoyed Christmas dinners and all. I only wanted to enjoy my Boxing Day game. Am I asking too much just to enjoy something which I paid for?

I found myself questioning why I had to go through so much shit. And I actually told myself I am not going to go through such shit again. I won't apply for anymore tickets.

But when I reached the stadium (there weren't any earlier coaches back to London anyway...), my thinking changed again. Just looking at the stadium gave me a small sense of joy. The gates were long closed and denied me the chance to even go inside for a moment. However, the feeling of being shut out merely increased my resolved to be inside there the next time. The more you keep me out, the more I want it.

I am going to apply for all tickets for matches that I can possibly go for.

It's going to take more than a couple of traffic jams to stop me.

Its showdown time.

P.S : The saying "you only appreciate things that you have lost" had never been so true for me...