06:40am awoke to the pitter patter of rain on the windows of Langley Towers and news that Lewis Hamilton had won the first F1 race of the 2008 season in Melbourne. 

07:35am repeat of match of the day saw West Ham stop their run of three consecutive 4 – nil defeats by beating Blackburn 2 -1.

09:15am boarded the train from Langley International rail station (it’s got four platforms), return fare £7.90.

09:39am arrive at Reading rail station.

09:50am popped into McDonalds to line the stomach, two sausage and egg muffins and a large coke.

10:33am hopped on the first shuttle bus to the Madejski stadium, match day home to London Irish rugby club, £2.60 return.

10:42am the shuttle bus arrives at the Madejski stadium, the place seems to have changed from my last visit two week ago, there is a stage and lots more outside catering trucks and portable toilets, this was not going to be a usual day.

11:00am Minty disco starts off the entertainment to a small band of party goers. I took position by the Supporters club tent.

11:32am the first band, The Reels, take to the stage. The Reels a five piece combo of two females and some other people, went down a storm when they played the cow shed some months ago. The Reels play traditional Irish music, so no Stereolab to be found here. The Reels were joined on stage by Digger and Dogger the London Irish mascots, later they were all joined by the Dunlop-Munnelly Academy of Irish Dance.

12:34pm and its back to disco diva Minty for some more tunes and grooves (although I think the youngsters call them cd’s).

01:07pm the second band – The Overtures take to the stage, A very tight five piece 60’s cover band, although with forty years to practice they should be tight. They may well have sounded crap doing Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas covers init (that’s young speak for don’t you know). The closet these chaps would have come to Stereolab was if they played the theme to Get Carter, but they didn’t.

02:16pm and I was taking my seat in the South West corner of the stadium. Surrounded by a small bunch of familiar faces and a slightly larger bunch of Dutch people and an even bigger bunch of people I am never likely to see at the stadium until next year.

02:30pm The Dunlop-Munnelly Academy of Irish Dance took to the centre circle for another stunning display.

The crowd when then warmed up by a few laps of Mexican waves. Ordered by Minty’s older, greyer, hipper brother, have you every heard the sound of one man laughing? Minty’s brother found it very funny.

03:03pm kick off time. Going into the game London Wasps are in 7^th place on 38 points, one place and two points ahead of London Irish having played one game less.

London Irish were playing top to bottom in the first half, as luck would have it Wasps were going in the other direction.

Teams: London Irish – 1. C Dermody 2. D Paice 3. F Rautenbach (18 T Lea’aetoa 04:29pm) 4. N Kennedy 5. B Casey (c) 6. S Armitage 7. D Danaher 8. J Leguizamon (19. R Thorpe 4:45) 9. W Fury (21 P Hodgson 04:16pm) 10. E Hickey 11. S Tagicakibau 12. S Mapusua 13. G Tiesi 14. T Ojo 15. P Hewat unused replacements 16. D Murphy 17. S Mackie 20. G Johnson 22. R Broadfoot.

London Wasps – 1. T Payne 2. J Ward 3. T French 4. G Skivington (22. C Bishay 04:38pm) 5. T Palmer 6. J Hart (18. D Leo 04:40pm) 7. J Worsley (19. R Webber 04:00pm) 8. L Dallaglio (c) 9. M McMillan 10. D Walder 11. D Doherty 12. R Flutey 13. F Waters (21. D Waldouck 04:32pm) 14. M Van Gisbergen 15. J Lewsey unused replacements 16. R Birkett 17. N Adams 20. S Amor

The other team – R Debney, P Dix and A Pearce

Irish kicked off and with Wasps not wanting to upset the party hosts gave the ball back to Irish.

03:05pm P Hewat puts the ball down for an Irish try. The wind started blowing again as the conversion was missed. Score 5 – 0. Come on you Irish, but they didn’t.

03:19pm converted penalty to Wasps by D Walder, who had luck on his side all afternoon as the wind seemed to drop every time he took a kick, or was he just better than our kicker… no it was the wind. Score 5 - 3

03:29 saw E Hickey extend Irish’s lead with a penalty, Score 8- 3.

03:31 saw another D Walder penalty, Score 8 – 6.

3:45pm with the last kick of the first half D Walder kicked another penalty to make the half time score 8 -9.

Two evenly matched teams reflected in the 8 – 9 score line. Both the ref and his lines men have had a good half.

My highlights of the half were seeing two Wasps players blend into the new white advertising screens so that two passes were played behind them.

The amount of empty green seats was explained when the new single match league attendance record was broken at 23,709.

The half time entertainment consisted of the Guinness ultimate seat competition which consists of eliminating three quarters of the entrants in the first few minutes and ends in one lucky seat holder walking off with a supply of Guinness.

This was followed by the, only London Irish could get away with this, parade of local orphans around the pitch. This serves two purposes, it gives the youngsters some exercise and helps to replace any divots in the pitch for the second half. I am assuming they must be orphans because they don’t seem to have any grown ups to tell them to shut up when kicks are being taken, and they are allow to roam free throughout the South stand as the game is in progress, they only sit down and shut up when their roaming results in finding what nature has to offer, foot long hot dogs, crisps and coke. The invertible happens and the paying adults are rewarded for their patience with the herd’s migration to the toilets and back.

This was to be followed by the ever popular paper aeroplane throwing (I’m not making this up), but this had to be cancelled due to low cloud cover and strong winds. The tag festival finals were also cancelled due to no apparent reason and the player interviews were moved to the outside screen so as not to allow the Wasps players an insight into the Irish training methods.

4:00pm Wasps make their first play for glory when they substituted J Worsley with R Webber. Wasps kick off, now playing top to bottom rather than as previously stated.

04:08pm came Wasps only try by someone with the unlikely name of R Flutey this was converted by the same bloke who got all his kicks in the first half. Score 8- 16.

04:20 a penalty kick by guess who, there’s no prize, so I’ll tell you it was D Walder. Score 8 – 19.

04:35pm bought a very bizarre incident, a 100 yard knock on by Irish was not spotted by the ref, his linesmen or T Ojo who picked up the ball and started running towards the Wasps try line, only to stop next to the ref to hand him a brown envelope, the ref having been distracted then watched along with the entire Wasps team, T Ojo head off in a 45 degree angle to the try line, having run out of puff (he was running up the pitch after all) he passed to his outside where a waiting S Tagicakibau scored. Score 13 – 19, game on.

04:44pm another penalty, his fifth by D Walder made the score 13 – 22.

04:48pm an E Hickey penalty closed the gap slightly. Score 16 – 22.

4:49pm the full time whistle Score 16 - 22. Irish pick up one losing bonus point and Wasps pick up four points. With the other results to day both teams stay in the same league positions but Wasps move onto 42 points and Irish to 37.

The ref and his team had a slightly less impressive performance than the first half.

Overall the better team won, failing to hold onto the ball at crucial times cost Irish the game.

05:00pm it’s back outside for the next instalment of Minty.

05:26pm the third and final band of the day are Bible Code Sundays a large numbered traditional Irish beat combo known to most at London Irish and pubs throughout the land. No Stereolab numbers expected as Stereolab they are an Anglo-French Marxist moog and brass based band.

06:21pm yes, it’s your host but not mine, Minty, I joined the queue for the shuttle bus.

06:52 caught the train to Paddington which stopped at Langley International at 07:20pm, work men on tracks one and two, so they may be putting in some more platforms.

08:00pm watched Sundays tape episode of Time Team what joy it is to see stuff that was just called recent history when I was young and is now called archaeology.

11:00pm to bed, after explaining to teddy that it was a sell out and I left it too late to get him a ticket, I hope he can’t read. The day came to an end.

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