The Gardeners' World Blog

The events at Reading on Saturday reminded us all of the importance of keeping football in perspective. First and foremost, horrific though the injuries sustained by the two goalkeepers were, it's a huge relief to see that both appear to be on the road to recovery.

Petr Cech is clearly going to be out of football for a long time, but the initial reports on Saturday were more frightening still. Miraculously, despite a blow and fall reminscent of a boxer walking onto a haymaker, Carlo Cudicini appears set to return next Saturday.

As a result Saturday's Match Of The Day was one of our more subdued programmes, particularly since we had little more information about the welfare of the two players as we went on the air.

We led the programme with that game, and relaxed our normal rules about the preceding news bulletin having access to the action. The story had clearly moved onto the news agenda during the course of the evening.