Sheffield Wednesday 2 Charlton 4
Yes, I know my self-imposed obligation to use the title of a Christmas carol has now expired, but during my searches for useful titles, I never once encountered this one, nor thought of it myself, not that it would have been much use after the Everton game, anyway.
But it is eminently suitable for yesterday's stirring cup win at Hillsborough, provided, in accordance with the dictats of the eminent, and by now extremely well-off, writer,
Ms Lynne Truss, due account is taken of the comma.
For the meaning of the title of the carol is not, as many people think, an exhortation to a bunch of characters who have drunk too much, suggesting that they go and have a lie-down for half an hour. Not at all. The actual meaning of "God rest ye merry, gentlemen" is one of reassurance, the 'rest' bit being closer in meaning to the French
rester, meaning 'to stay, remain': there is nothing to fret about; "let nothing you dismay", as the second line has it. In fact the general meaning is much the same as that of the more modern ditty,
Don't Worry, Be Happy.
Anyway, when I saw Lawro's belated predictions for the weekend, and noted that in his view the score would be 1-1 (as indeed it he thought it would be in more than half the matches in the Third Round of the Cup), but that Charlton would get through in the replay, there was a fair bit for me to be dismayed about, especially now that
Frankie Valley has also started in on the predictions lark, and with about as much success as the absurd Lawro. He announced that he also thought that 1-1 would be a likely outcome, and that he was dreading the whole thing, and would be locking himself in his shed and praying while the game was on. By now my dismay was rapidly turning into a desire to be merry, in the more modern sense of the word, i.e. plastered.
And yet, when I looked in on
Livescore after half an hour, Charlton were 2-1 up, and then 3-1 by half time. So I began to hope for a fourth and maybe even a fifth, but in fact the score went to 2-3 after 63 minutes, and those usual creeping doubts started again; remember the
Tottenham game?
But Wednesday failed to improve on their two goals, and anyway Darren Bent, pictured above being congratulated by his good mate Darren Ambrose, hit the fourth goal not long before the end.
So dismay did not have to be the order of the day; nor was there any need to resort to merriment, either, which, considering that I had only returned home at 4.45 that morning after an extremely merry night out, was just as well.