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I should be so lucky: Magic 8 ball By Julie MacTaggart So...there's nothing like a bit of drama in school holiday time to unlock the previously battened hatches of a teacher's brain (battened because during term time you really don't get a chance to realise properly what's going on outside the classroom and, no, I'm not complaining, just stating a fact...) and suddenly find yourself compelled to write several articles over a very short period.... We have a magic 8 ball at home. For anyone who doesn't know, you ask the magic 8 very specific questions like will Watford FC beat Plymouth Argyle in the Championship match on the 5th April 2005? You give it a shake and then wait for the answer to appear. The magic 8 ball said 'Yes' and, as my husband said, it's very rare that it gets it wrong. Hah! Having been to Plymouth, where not only did the magic 8 ball completely fail to tell the truth but also where we really did fail to come up with anything that convincing inside their penalty area, I really didn't hold out any hope of where any further points were going to come from this season. In fact, depressingly, on the way home (which inevitably seemed even more uphill than I ever remembered it) we even managed to work out exactly how we were incapable of getting any more points: Leeds had just had a thrashing, Rotherham were already down so would be in care-free mode, Sheffield United and West Ham were going for the play offs and Stoke seem to have the jinx sign over us ever since they signed Gifton. On Friday, my husband shook the magic 8 ball having very specifically asked it about the outcome of Saturday's game and the answer again was 'Yes'. Now, knowing that the magic 8 ball had rarely ever been wrong before, we both decided that it had, indeed, had a tiny blip and there was no way that it could possibly be wrong twice. So, we came up to Watford, desperately trying to convince ourselves that the magic 8 ball had got it right and we would indeed bag the three points. Unfortunately, neither Neil Sullivan nor the referee had read the script and between them managed to ensure that the magic 8 ball got it wrong again. Except that this was much better than Plymouth, the fact that Neil Sullivan was their man of the match proved that we had been so much better in the final third, had looked like we were capable of scoring goals and indeed did score one. In fact, if we hadn't been down to ten men for much of the second half, we might have won this one. Even so, I came away totally depressed, but on the long journey home, I began to feel a bit more optimistic. If we can work the keeper like this next week then surely Rotherham can be beaten. I don't think three points will be quite enough but a win would certainly lift everyone and who knows what might happen in the final three games. As for the magic 8 ball, it's obviously in need of replacement.... (12/04/05)
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