Dead dreams: The Mighty versus Reading.

There are times when life weighs on you, the crushing force of mundanity and routine threatening to squash you like a beetle under a jackbooted foot.

It's at times like this when you need the world's greatest ever football team, clad in beautiful tangerine, under the lights, on fresh cut turf.

There was a storm promised. Yet here we are, under a dark sky for sure but with not much more than a breath of wind. The pitch will be sodden, our breath will steam in the air, there'll be slipping and sliding but we should have a match on our hands. 

And whisper it, but he might be playing. We might see him again. He was a magician in a long line of magicians, a history of Matthews, Green, Suddick, to name but a few. His name will go alongside them. He scored *that goal* (and that goal and that goal and that goal and so on) and we will never forget. 

Even if it's just off the bench. He might be here.

And so might some of our new heroes, Grant Ward, Jordan Thorniley, who knows what the future in tangerine holds for them... Perfect back stories to be Blackpool players. One needs a comeback, the other needs a chance. We ended the last game I was at, sighing ruefully that we needed new faces - and here are a few. New faces, new hope.   

And so, we can forget, for 90 minutes, the lead boots of life and instead, dream of Wembley, of what just might be, if everything goes out way and we play out our skins for tonight and a few games more, the road opens up before us and we can take it to who knows where. Just for the hell of it. 

We can forget spreadsheets, bank balances, key targets, shopping lists, dark mornings with the sadistic electric shock buzz of the alarm and the gnawing feeling that one day, we'll be found out and it'll all collapse around us. Tonight, instead, this is the FA CUP and its slick green grass under bright, bright, lights 100,% sold gold, fucking magic. Who even are Reading anyway? It's the sort of place you forget has a football team. We are going ALL THE WAY.

Walking to ground a black cat streaks across the road in front of me. I'm not sure if it's close enough to count as in my path and I can't remember if it's a curse or a blessing. Lucky for it, it times the run to perfection. 

At the ground, it's confirmed. He is here. On the bench. 

We go with a team that shows few surprises and new faces remain on the bench.

The atmosphere is flat before kick off. It feels more like a theatre auditorium than a football ground and then finally the crowd kick in and we're off, on our feet, welcoming onto the pitch... 'the Seasiders!' 

We're having a good opening, getting the ball wide, as we do and crossing, from both left and right, which we don't always. Virtue heads just over, Guy shapes a lovely ball in and it's all Pool for a while. 

They have a right winger with pace to burn, he gets away from Husband to collective insightful muttering of 'fucking hell, he's a bit fast' 

They're coming into it now. They move it quickly, they have good touch. This is what a Premier League legacy is supposed to leave. An academy that coaches young players to work the ball around like this. It's hard not to think of £11 million quid sometimes. 

They favour working the ball around in the middle and get 3 shots off from about 18 yards in quick succession.

They get some decent wide positions and it feels lucky they don't cross well, everything looping out of danger. 

We're on edge...CMON POOL! We're breaking, but we look a bit ponderous, every pass half a second slower than it could have been. Fonz is being watched, a quick lad hangs close to his every move. They've clearly been told to shut him down. 

Husband runs right across the face of the box despite being implored to shooooot. Not for the only time in the game he seems to want to shift the ball onto the other foot, but needs about ten yards to do so. Feeney swings in a cross, just behind Ganduillet who jackknifes like a big truck to no avail and its wide. 

I'm sat at the side, which I'm normally not and I notice the subs warming up. Sean Scannell trots past, clapping the crowd very gently, when he receives a smattering of applause in return his grin is one of such gratitude, my hard heart melts. 

I notice the way Jordan Thompson keeps encroaching on the pitch to warm up.  

Then HE gets up to jog up and down and do a few stretches. If Sean Scannell got the same reception I think he'd probably burst into tears. 

Spearing touches one off for Callum Guy to shoot low and hard and not quite into the bottom corner.

We are doing OK.

Then the clown car falls apart, and we're left sitting on the pitch holding the steering wheel looking at the ruins around us.

Tilt gives the ball away in the way only Tilt can. He hares back, retrieves it and Heneghan tidies up. Only he doesn't, he make it worse by playing his clearance straight to them. 

We survive this mistake, only for them to finally whip in a dangerous ball and Jay Spearing to inexplicably take a touch to control it and have it whipped from him and buried by one of their interchangeable fast and skillful young players.

The half ends after Gnanduillet flashes a header over and opinion around me ranges from 'that's was shit' and 'sort it out Grayson' to 'we had a lot of pressure, we just didn't score' 

We come out and there's an irritable few minutes. I'm getting tetchy as I wanted to see a change at half time. We're once again asking James Husband to be a left winger and a left back, but without playing him as a wing back and I don't understand why. Feeney is having one of those games where he can't beat his man. Things are turning a bit grey...

But it doesn't take much to have the crowd roaring and as Matty Virtue throws himself at a loose ball in the six yard and draws a good stop.

There's a chance for Fonz.

Then we sort of run out of ideas. Gnanduillet chases a few down, tries a shot from the edge of the box that's always going over but he gets a round of applause for trying. We just haven't got the snap and zip they have. They seem to be defending high and we, when we get the ball always appear to turn away from goal. We seem more scared of being offside than of not scoring.

I'm glancing at the clock and it's ticking down. The dream is dying as they always do. We always wake up and face reality.

Grant Ward comes on and seems to run quite quickly, which is useful, in a team who don't always run very quickly. Jordan Thompson comes off, for Spearing who is on a yellow after a scything challenge in the first half.

Thompson is not on form - He stubs a perfect crossing chance along the ground. He leaps at a cross in the box and manages to kind of head it with his legs towards the corner flag. He looked so good in the half time warm up.

Then they score. Howard saves an effort, it's hard to tell whether it's a good save or whether he should have held it or pushed it around the post and they pop the ball in. The dream is dead.

The dream is dead, long live Joe Nuttall.

Enough words have been said about Big Joe, but I think it should be said that he does little wrong and throws himself at a cross in the box that squirms over the top. It would have been too little, too late anyway, but it might have been something.

And anyway, he's coming on. No 26, Charlie Adam.

He has Bloomfield spellbound for his 3 minute cameo. Yes, he might look like an average bloke, moderately fit, instead of superhuman, but oh, that left foot and that brain. He's also tangerine and he hates Preston.

He make exactly one pass, a neat drilled ball out to the flank. But he buzzes and shows for the ball, moving, finding space wanting it and even has time to applaud the North whilst the game is going on.

The cries of 'sign him up' are deafening. A grumpy bastard near me says 'well, he could have come to us, but he chose a few thousand quid a week instead' and a serial realist mutters 'I don't know why they're chanting - we DID try to sign him'

I wonder if these people have souls.

At the final whistle, it's all about Charlie. How could it not be? There's a moment of comic agony, where Callum Guy (who made one of the worst passes I've ever seen towards the end of the game, trying to switch play and nearly missing the stadium, but has, to be fair shown some nice touches and endeavour) turns to applaud the north and is oblivious to the fact Charlie is behind him, for a second he looks touched by the warmth afforded to him. He realises soon enough what is happening and melts away whilst Charlie takes the adoration.

Someone else will come along soon. We'll fall in love again. It was worth it just to see that one pass.

Charlie Adam's Tangerine. 

Some bloke stealing Callum Guy's applause