Reading.0.Palace.2.Coventry.1.

After the high of beating the Champions elect, came the comedown of tuesday against the form team in the league.
Reading came to Glanford Park on top of the form table.We knew that anything against them could leave us with a chance to get out of the botom three with a win against Palace at Selhurst.
We played well for the first 45 minutes,only we couldn't break down a stuborn defence and the sucker punch came after the withdrawl of the fantastic Michael O'Connor at half time. Josh Wright again struggled to play at the same level as the ever improving Northern Irishman. A quick breakaway saw Shane Long sweep home a Jimmy Kebe cross and when Shane Long went down easily over the leg of Michael Nelson, Ian Harte showed his class from the spot putting the pen high into the top corner. Murphy was a little unlucky with the pen, almost getting his hand to the ball and looking gutted that he couldn't keep it out. Nelson reacted angrily at the final whistle with Referee Andy Woolmer, clearly showing his frustration at the penalty decision. Long did seem to go down a little easily and the Iron skipper rightly looked annoyed that a result had slipped from his teams grasp.
The disappointment of that night was wiped away only four days later.
Saturday 16th April.Palace Away.
The last time we rocked up here we played them off the park and rightfully left with a 4-0 win.Jon Forte had one of his rare good games (funnily he nearly fell over me on the touchline as he celebrated putting us 1-0 up early on) and we got an early season boost in our fight against the drop. Surely we couldn't go there again and get the victory?
Its funny but seeing a man with a real life, full sized eagle on his shoulder outside the ground as we picked up our Press tickets from a portakabin outside the ground makes you look twice.The pre match cheer leaders got a few heads turning on the Iron bench as well, but sadly for them that was as good as it got for the Palace fans. When a few scantily clad ladies and a giant bird is the highlight of your match day you know your team has had a bad day at the office !
Even though the noise from the Palace fans was deafening as the belted out the White Stripes Seven Nation Army, you knew that they could easily turn on their team if the game was going against them. Against them it did, as from the first minute we looked the most likely winners. Ramon Nunez tested out the reflexes of Palace keeper Speroni. Nunez has quickly become a favourite with the Scunny fans and rightly so. He's unpredictable, not scared to take players on and looks like he may score a few screamers before his career is over. We had a few decent chances before Mark Duffy's corner was brilliantly headed in at the far post by David Mirfin.If i'm honest i thought he'd hit the side netting, as did the Iron fans at the other end of Selhurst Park. Only when i saw Duffy running away to celebrate did i realise it had gone in.The Palace fans quickly started to turn on their team, the drum stopped drumming and the few fans who were still making noise were only getting on the backs of their players. As well as the ref. It was fair to see that the game would not end up 11 vs 11. Jo Garner was running a good battle with Palace skipper Paddy McCarthy, but the Iron striker always looked like boiling over one time too many. Anyone who witnesed the recent Leicester game at Glanford Park will know what i mean. Kyle Naughton kicked Garner up in the air, a bad tackle to be fair, but if Eddie Nolan hadn't got a firm hold on Garners shirt i think the forward would have been nursing an aching hand and Naughton an aching face as they both sat in the early bath ! Anyway, we set ourselves up the right way, Dagnall and Garner hassled the Palace back four, Duffy and Nunez got forward and used the ball sensibly trying to cause as much danger as possible as they swapped wings. Michael Collins slotted in well alongside Sam Togwell, we didn't really miss the injured Michael O'Connor as much as i thought we would, Collins had possibly the best game i've seen from him in an Iron shirt. Michael Nelson and David Mirfin look as solid at the back as Andy Crosby and Steve Foster a few years back. They are both no-nonsense centre backs, they get the ball away from danger before anyone can capitalise. Marcus Williams slotted back i n at left back like he'd never been away, his time at Reading may only have been short and he looked like he'd never been away. Andy Hughes busts his gutts for the team, at times he loses his concentration as we would see later in the game. Joe Murphy has been a different players since the arrival of Knill and keeping coach Neil Cutler. He looks like the keeper that won the League One Golden Gloves award a short while back.
Half time was met with a corus of boos for the ref from the Palace fans.
The second half started the same as the first. We pressed and Palace tried their best to hit us on the break. It didn't take long for Nunez to put us 2-0 up.The Little Prince had to long to control a Duffy cross. Given time he took a touch to control the ball and still had time to smash it past Speroni at his near post. I was a bit gutted that both Nunez and Mirfin earlier had celebrated on the other side of the pitch from where the photographers ahve to sit. My saving grace was the 500 Iron fans sat behind me. There was a young kid sat near the front. I recognised him as the same kid who was close to tears last year as Preston beat us late on away from home. Toay he had possibly the biggest smile i've ever seen on his face. That soon turned to a worried look.
Andy Hughes was beaten all to easily on the edge of the box by Sean Scannell. The Palace man rifled a great shot past Murphy. The game ebbed to a conclusion, only lit up by red cards for Garner and Palace scorer Scannell, and 8 minutes of added time. 8 minutes. 8 minutes we'd never hold on for 8 minutes more. But no this is Knill's team. I felt a little bit proud that we held on for that long.The "we are staying up" chant started as soon as the whistle was blown. It was about then that i realised my prediction that we might be able to do it, staving off relegation for a second season was more than possible, it was actually a real possibility and we could stay up.

We had to hope that the Palace heads would hopefully be down when they travelled to a Billy Sharp-less Doncaster on Good Friday and at least a draw at Coventry would put us in the driving seat, we knew we'd probably need at least two wins and two draws in the last 4 games.
To get a 1-1 draw with the Sky Blues after going 1-0 down to a Marlon King thunder bolt early on was a bit of a shock. The Iron came back strong though. Mark Duffy, Michael Collins and Chris Dagnall all had good chances to get the winner for us after Ramon had again scored a cracking goal, this time with the help of a deflection. Happily for me i was in the right place this time to get a fantastic picture of the little Honduran International  enjoying his moment. We've not seen the old sliding on your knees celebration for a while from one of our own players, so to see the Nunez loves it is cracking. He looks like a player who will only get better the more games he plays after spending most of the season in Leeds' reserves. Quickly he is showing that if some way we could sign the liile guy in the summer we should do all we can to make it happen.
I felt a little bit sad for the near 1000 Iron fans, that they didn't see a victory that would have pulled us to within one win of overtaking Palace, who played out what sounded like a limp 0-0 draw with Donny,but i hope that it won't stop some of those fans from travelling to the City Ground next weekend. They really looked like they were enjoying themselves with numerous inflatables flying around the away end. They even spotted former Iron keeper coach Kevin Pressman in amongst the Cov fans and gave him a good cheer as a few of the Iron's non playing squad players talked to the former keeping legend. After that game it was good to see that Manager Alan Knill has quickly been taken into the hearts of the Iron faithful, he looks a little bit more pleased with his team with every game and i think he'll be as good a boss as Nigel Adkins proved he was before he moved on to pastures new down on the South Coast, they cheered him as he made his way around every one of his players to shake their hands and say well done. It can't have been easy in that heat. I know i was more than a little bit sweaty at the end so can only imagine how the players must have felt.
We now head into a game with a Milwall team on a massive high, after a 4-0 demolition of the Preston team sitting one place and two points behind us, without their first choice strike force. We need to take three points from that game and hope that Palace get nothing from their game with Leeds. I get the feeling that this battle against the drop will go right down to the last minute of the last game against Pompey. Will we see scenes similar to those after beating Reading last year and the draw the year before against Tranmere that got us back on the road to the Championship. I think a few people might be on that Glanford Park pitch at the end of 90 minutes against Portsmouth.
Three good results against Milwall, Forest and Pompey could keep up this Championship adventure. Same ship, different Captain. But with Captain Knill at the helm, if we do go down, a play off push should be on the cards, if we stay up we might still have a trip to Wembley next year. The Premier League could do with some Iron in it....well we can all dream can't we !

As i'm not allowed to post my pictures due to Football League rules here'a few links to some of my pictures from the Scunthorpe Telegraph Galleries section, hope you get time to look over them !

SCUNNY 4-1QPR
http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/galleries/Scunthorpe-v-Queens-Park-Rangers-gallery-3432683-detail/gallery.html

SCUNNY 0-2 READING
http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/galleries/Scunthorpe-United-v-Reading-gallery-3459962-detail/gallery.html

PALACE 1-2 SCUNNY
http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/galleries/Crystal-Palace-v-Scunthorpe-gallery-3459979-detail/gallery.html