Ground: Reading, Madejski Stadium
Competition: Sky Bet Championship 2016/17
Result: Reading P-P  Fulham
Pie: Steak and Ale
Price: £3.80
Comments: Match ticket £20. Parking £5. Programme £3. Tea £2.20. Pie £3.80. Cost of 45 minutes of misty covered football? £34. Certainly not priceless. Yes, this game was of course the one infamously abandoned at half time due to fog. It would be easy to blame the fog for the premature conclusion to the play-off contender clash, after all fog has taken some serious stick over the years; killing the Victorians of London, covering the rest of the map in Red Alert, bringing an alien holocaust in Stephen King’s The Mist, causing ships to run aground, and helping name that rooster Foghorn Leghron from Looney Tunes who sounds like Corrie’s Fred Elliot. However, in this case fog wasn’t to blame. Instead it was the totally incompetent ref who, rather than checking to see the subsiding mist at half time, fancied an early night and called it a day as if fate had declared him to do so. Bellend. He made the Grinch’s attempts at ruining Christmas look trivial.

Anyway, enough on the inclement weather – what about the pie? Initial signs were promising through a combination of the fact the pie was ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE, and it had Fulham’s embarrassing wank crest plonked on top of its craggy terrain. The crest was a nice personal touch, reminiscent of Milton Keynes best efforts to infuse life into their modernist mass, and was coupled with Fulham highlights pottered around the concourse – lest we forget Simon Davies’ magic volleys. Once the Fulham flattery wore off it was on to the pie. From above the pie looked strikingly like Gordon Ramsey’s cavernous forehead which indicated a dry, craggy pastry capable of smashing teeth and jaw. Despite some novelty pepper sprinkled randomly on top, it was like chewing a cinder block marooned in the Sahara desert. The pie’s wide spread made for a substantial filling, but unfortunately the fairly generous helping of steak and gravy wasn’t enough to overcome the increasingly barren piescape. Had the pie not been frazzled to a charred Frisbee in the oven there was potential for Reading to have a real top effort on the hands, but alas, like the football, all was lost at half time.

Rating: 4/10