The Warky Premier Report: Once in a Blue Moon (A) by Warkystache 9 Mar 11:02
I lived in South London in the early 1990's. Tooting Broadway to be precise, in a student hovel that was as dirty and as hectic as it was cheap. A bay-windowed house down an avenue of nondescript other bay windowed houses, converted into two fair-sized flats, each as mouldering as the next. A Pakistani landlord, Sumid (pronounced Soo-mit) who liked to be called Sammy, and smilingly ignored our requests for new boilers and new appliances. He collected the rent on a Friday. Someone had to be in to pay him or he'd wake us up at the unearthly hour of ten a.m on a Saturday.

Student life was great in the 1990's. My fellow flatmates (three blokes, their on-off girlfriends who moaned about the cleanliness and made noises like Pinky and Perky during sex) were an engineering MA, a Theology undergraduate who was on a doss for three years, away from the parental yoke only as much as his overdraft would allow and a bluff Yorkshire 20 year old Business and Economics undergraduate who supported York City.

Amidst the oft-related tales of cheap beer, missed lectures and primitive sexual liaisons was the footy. We both worked part-time jobs, me and the lad from York, him in retail for some 'cheap-as-chips' food retailer, me at St George's Hospital as a temporary admin assistant, which paid really well. Town were in the Premier League and I returned home about as often as I needed clean clothing, but home was still miles from Ipswich and I saw precisely one game, the home win over Spurs when Alun Armstrong scored two.

I went to Spurs away (Dozzell had just moved there) and Arsenal away and Chelsea away and Wimbledon away. Selhurst Park was an easy bus journey from Tooting. It was a dump as well. Thornton Heath was always just that bit rougher than home.

The York lad accompanied me on these trips. Starved of our fix, we started watching Fulham, then in the old fourth division and attended by drips and drabs of support. It cost eight quid to stand on the Cottage Terrace. We would drink in Putney at the Wetherspoons before walking down. We once met Dennis Waterman, the actor, in his sunnies on a grey November morning in the pub on the river whose name I've forgotten (edit: the Star and Garter) near Putney Bridge. He was drunk. He was off to watch Chelsea away at Wimbledon. His driver was a nice bloke, sat in a corner reading the Mirror and smoking, a barely-touched tonic water in front of him.

I say all this because I've done my time at Selhurst. We rarely ever won there. It was a rubbish ground. Tel didn't fancy it (he doesn't fancy Forest at home next Saturday either but he'll be there. Already paid, innee?). So I spent yesterday enjoying the pre-spring sunshine on a walk between home and Wrabness, all along the seafront, stopping at pubs for a quencher along the way.

Terry, like nearly all of us if we're being honest (and those of us who still think we'll be OK aren't being honest, are you?) thinks we're down. Home games therefore lose that bit of urgency. He's up for West Ham and Wolves and Arsenal, but it's the Forest and Brentford games he's lost appetite for. It seems inconceivable given that a few years ago he came and watched us play Fleetwood and Lincoln. Perhaps he too has been spoilt by our sudden and joyous rise to the rare climes?

Once in a blue moon as my grandad used to say whenever he got a bit of luck, like a Premium Bond coming good or a pools coupon getting over 24 points (Littlewoods paid him £150 - he was truly content for a week after. Now, Tel wins £400 on a footy or horse bet and sounds neutral when he tells me). Once in a blue moon do we win games like yesterday, 0-0 for a large portion but, oh b*gger they scored a late one just as the shadows lengthened and I was purchasing a pint in the local and chatting to the old boys at the bar.

It's a blow upon a bruise, now. I expect us to lose. In fact, I'm as unfussed about defeats as I was when we had Lambert here and went on winless runs in League One against sides who are now in League Two and not exactly setting the world alight there. It takes something to admit this but I miss the Championship. True the teams are rougher, the quality is much less and we'll probably lose the negligible delights of Delap and Greaves and Phillips and Cajuste and possibly Jack Clarke if Sunderland fluke promotion via the play-offs or one of Leeds or Burnley raid us in the summer. Can't say I'll miss 'em much though. And it's strange that I think like that. Spoiled I reckon. It certainly has been.