Last on MOTD: I’m psychic
23rd September, 2007
WELL, OK, maybe not psychic. A monkey with a typewriter could have predicted that Reading v Wigan would be the final game on this week’s Match Of The Day (which, if nothing else, perhaps gives you an insight into how this blog is written).
But seven days ago, I suggested that the Latics would be on last for the second week running, and it turned out I was right, despite the best efforts of Liverpool and Birmingham to displace them with an appalling goalless draw at Anfield.
But even if the game at Anfield had consisted solely of Steven Gerrard and Cameron Jerome re-enacting the Stare-Out Championship sketch from Big Train in the centre circle, it would not have been on last. That is because Reading and Wigan had an ace up their sleeve. Reading and Wigan had Tony Gubba.
Last night’s final match: Reading 2 Wigan 1. Commentator: Tony Gubba
There’s an article in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes on Wigan’s 1-1 draw at West Ham a month ago, a game that itself featured last on Match Of The Day. (Believe it or not, the article was headed ‘Match Of The Month’, a regular feature in WSC that makes a virtue of entertaining, insightful writing about terrible football matches.)
In the piece, amid observations about West Ham’s sunburnt fans and tatty stadium, Barney Ronay notes: “This is a Wigan team so inoffensive you can forget you’re even watching them.”
The Latics do seem to have steered their way through the opening six weeks of the Premier League season without anyone noticing. No crises, no managerial upheavals; no publicity. Everyone expected them to fall flat on their face this season. Even after today’s defeat, they are comfortable in mid-table. Wigan doing OK: that’s not a story.
Manager Chris Hutchings’ sartorial idiosyncracies have brightened things up a little, but yesterday he passed on the mantle to goalkeeper Chris Kirkland, who decided to wear a cap even though it wasn’t sunny, and promptly gifted an opening goal to Dave Kitson by spilling the ball at his feet.
Marcus Bent equalised with a superb header, but James Harper won it for Reading late on. “Is that the winner? It surely is,” said Gubba. Ceefax described Harper’s goal as “stunning”, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration.
Reading, who have had a terrible start, won’t care how good the winning goal was. The win was all that mattered, as it lifted them out of the Premier League’s bottom three. The only league position to improve for Wigan this weekend is the one below.
Gubbometer
1. Wigan – 4
2. Gubba – 2
3. Fulham – 2
4. Bolton – 1 (Gubba difference: +1)
4. Reading – 1 (Gubba difference: +1)
6. Everton – 1
6. Newcastle – 1
6. Aston Villa – 1
6. West Ham – 1
6. Middlesbrough – 1
6. Birmingham – 1
(NB. Where teams are level, positions are decided by Gubba difference: the number of times a team is on MOTD last with Tony Gubba commentating.)
I’m taking a couple of weeks off, so there will be no Gubbometer update next weekend. But sleep easy in your beds, Wigan and Fulham fans; I will keep a tally of who is last on MOTD in the meantime, and give you a full update two weeks today.
