Why I hate Coventry

So it was FA cup weekend. And yet somehow I managed to avoided hearing all the usual cliques that get churned out every FA cup weekend like- ‘The Romance of the FA cup’ and ‘that’s the magic of the FA cup.'

My best and worst FA cup memories- The best is no doubt being at Wemberly stadium in 1991 seeing Tottenham beat the scum 3-1.
The worst was a game that I didn’t see live or even watch live on TV. 1987 I was ten years old, Tottenham got to the FA cup final against Coventry City. I remember my dad calling up to me in my room. I went to the top of the staircase and looked down to my dad at the bottom of the stairs. He had the biggest smile on his face.
“We got them, we got them!” He shouts with joy as he waves a pair of tickets.
I couldn’t believe it, I was going to the FA cup final!
But me and my dads joy was to be short lived.
“When is it?” my mum asked.
“16th of May,” my dad said.
“Well you can’t go then.”
We look at her like she’s mad. Like the last sentence that came from her mouth was in some alien language.
“Well that’s the day we’re going on holiday isn’t it?.” she says.
A feeling went through the pit of my stomach, a similar feeling in my stomach that I would feel a few years later when my first girlfriend dumped me.
Our pleas to change the flight for the day later fell flat.
“Sorry can’t change it, non refundable,” were the words my mum kept saying.
I was gutted.

Come the day of the final and of course the day of the holiday to Spain. The match kicked off when we were flying somewhere over France.
“What do you think the score is?” I kept asking my dad.
When we landed the match was over but we had no idea what the score was.
On the coach to the hotel we still didn’t know.
When we got to the hotel, checked in and took the bags up to the room the suspense was killing us. I went for a wander around the hotel in the hope of somehow finding out the score [it might seem weird now to let a ten year old just wander around a hotel but I guess it wasn’t back then].
So I walk around, then in the lobby I see a group of blokes walking towards me. They’re cheering and singing and I notice what shirts a couple of them are wearing. I check again as I don’t believe it. No, no please no! They spot me in my Tottenham shirt and a loud roar goes up. “Losers,! 3-2, 3-2, aargggrhhh,” and they point at me. I walk past them, run up to the hotel room, lie face down on the bed and burst into tears.
“The holiday is ruined, it's ruined. They might of won if me and dad were there,” I cried.
The holiday wasn’t ruined, I soon got over it. But when Coventry got relegated a few years back I laughed. I laughed as I remembered them blokes laughing at the ten year old me.
Bitter, me? Yes, yes I am.