Parades and Local Radio: Southend Away

Saturday 15^th August

Home.

Coincidence eh? Serendipity?

Today we are celebrating the seventieth anniversary of VJ day. In London – and I have been absorbed in watching marvellous BBC TV coverage there is a flypast (Dakota transport plane, followed by a lump-in-the-throat Hawker Hurricane followed amazingly slowly by a Typhoon Eurofighter (magical contrasting silhouettes)).

A drum head service on Horse Guards parade and a final informal celebration to be held in Dean’s Yard (where I was last weekend – and which I mistakenly named Dean’s Court – apologies to all offended). I recognised so many points of interest as the cameras followed form the rigorous ceremonial to the wonderfully friendly march/ walk out of Horse Guards, down Whitehall, past the Cenotaph, Parliament Square, the frontage of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Fitting too that so much is being made of Empire and Commonwealth troops and the magnificent part they played in the conflict and how much they too suffered in captivity: different cultures, different religions.

  

As British we are good at pomp and pageantry: it feels understated and ingrained and is the better for it; we have so much history after all – and should be proud of it.

But, while away that weekend I found a book I had been looking for (actually dropping big hints that it might make a good Christmas/birthday present – nothing doing): Unbroken, the story of U.S. airman Louie Zamperini who was imprisoned in Japanese POW camps. And, this weekend, the very day I finish reading it is VJ Day.

So, I missed the kick-off of the Saddlers game at faraway Southend, but checking with the radio (sometimes trite but usually good value BBC WM) at half time I find that Tom Bradshaw put us one nil up after seven minutes – and the goal horn has just sounded and Sam Mantom has got us a second.

It is quite thrilling: the new season after what seems like a long (very productive and relaxing) summer/close season. And the fact that Bradshaw is still popping the goals in. But also that we seem – as, to be fair had been promised by Ginger Mourinho (a.k.a. manager Dean Smith) – to be going forward even after going into a lead. This didn’t happen often last season. I like this attitude – a lot. It must make the games more exciting – and puts goals into the statistics in case needed for the end of the season. This is a good start!

I am still considering the service provided by this Saturday commentary/up-date tradition. It helps fans follow a team say, if money is tight, if attendance is impossible, if you are driving. Well worth it. We are not featured as the commentary game as often as I would like and I would like to know how the decisions are made as to which games/teams to prioritise.

League One this season consists of mainly Midlands teams: Walsall fans it appears have the fewest miles to drive to see every league game of the season. This is also interesting: money allowing of course.

Southend, promoted from League two at the end of last season cannot match – on the day – our efforts and we win two nil; this puts us fifth in the league (although there are – TV schedules demanding – teams with games in hand. But Bradshaw with four goals is substituted (hopefully not crocked) and Sawyers has already got two goals.

Meanwhile the sport with a different shaped ball (rugby union) is in the news: the World Cup finals will be played in England and Wales, kicking off in mid-September. The Webb-Ellis trophy meanwhile (he who introduced the whole rugby concept by – effectively – cheating during a football game) has been on public display around our nations. It is currently in Rugby where the whole thing started, allegedly back in 1832.

 

Nineteen … and Twenty! Oldham at home.

Funny how your mind works. Standing on the raised decking at Landywood Railway Station (en route for London) I notice the little unmanaged patches of “benign wilderness beside and alongside the track and platforms. But also the rubbish that accrues there, dropped mainly by passengers and “swept” by the wind into neat little piles. It reminds me (as I watch a pair of courting goldfinches) of a time when Cully and I were at an away match, and he pointed out similar, but larger, stacks of chip papers, crisp packets, old tickets and posters underneath the seating areas. A time, coincidentally when football grandstands and seating were largely of wooden construction – and painted. He said something about a fire risk and we went on watching the game.

This weekend is actually the thirtieth anniversary (if that is an appropriate word to use) of the Bradford Fire Disaster (when that same stadium did actually catch fire, fencing and unmanned, locked exit gates prevented safe exit for the fans and fifty six lives were lost.

But we’re on the train, passing what is now Morrison’s supermarket but was once Fellows Park: former home ground of Walsall. Past Bescot Stadium. Change at New Street and into reserved seats for the comfortable ride to the capital.

Oyster cards and tube to Gloucester Road to meet, for the first time in a long time, Cornelia.

After a coffee  we decide to walk the sights, eventually reaching (via a wandering snail route that took in Harrods’, Knightsbridge, Green Park, the Wellington Arch,  Downing Street (massive security in evidence there), the Cenotaph, St James’ park (the BIrdkeeper’s Cottage traditional garden and pelicans), Buckingham Palace,  Horse Guard’s Parade, Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, that impressive statue of Boudicca and the Thames Embankment).

 

Too soon we are struggling with rush hour commuters on the busy, impersonal underground again and bidding Cornelia a fond farewell. We make our connections all the way back to Landywood, sharing this train with what I guess is a typical Friday night mixture of types.

Saturday morning and I turn on the TV and there on the screen are the places we walked around yesterday: the Cenotaph. The Queen is laying a wreath and there are processions of soldiers and veterans commemorating the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War. The campaign which ended the dominance in that area of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and, arguably set up the Middle East in almost its current form (Israel/Palestine being the notable exception). So that’s what all of the cameras were setting up for: that and Sunday’s London Marathon.

Saturday morning: our last home game of the season (and only Bristol City away to go) for the first team. For this fixture last year another teacher and her “team” are coming to the game (see https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/not-with-a-bang-colchester-home/) but today is today: Oldham, managed by Dean Holden who earlier this season was one of our player coaches are the visitors.

It is warmer than predicted and we are having showers, but I get parked up and make that familiar walk. Cully and Andy are already seated and the scout from Wigan is back. May be a bit worrying. We have decent players who are soon to be out of contract (Tom Bradshaw, Richard O’Donnell and Kieron Morris).  Wigan might just manage to hang on in the Championship, they have Wolves at home today.

By the looks of it, this is Oldham’s last away game: that tradition of “fancy-dress-for-the-last-away game” has pirates, Where’s Wally characters, clowns, Bedouins and ghosts in the away stand. Credit to these supporters: sticking by their team to the end. Faith doesn’t come into it sometimes, you just grit your teeth and get on the bus!

Before kick-off (and this is happening at all League and Premiership games this weekend, there is a respectful minutes silence in memory of those killed in the Bradford Fire. Nobody expects to go into a football ground and not get home. Oldham fans properly join in – as they should.

But their team lack ideas, while we have seemed like a different team recently. We are far more positive, playing into and keeping the ball in the attacking end of the field. A new system?  Certainly Kieron Morris has made a difference.

O’Donnell is on the bench today, reserve keeper Craig McGillivray getting a well-deserved debut.

We look purposeful. Bradshaw who has publicly revised his goals-for-the-season tally to twenty, is on the prowl. He has bulked up and retains pace and is skilful when he has the ball. But we are not pumping long balls up for him to chase. We place passes, long and short, make ground steadily. Hiwula and Morris playing well, linking up well. At left back we are playing Mal Benning. He’s fast, and always looking to go forward, but can be quite manic at times.

After eighteen minutes we break out of defence, good understanding in midfield, ball out to Hiwula and a long, confident ball into the path of Super Tom, who, clinically measures the gentle pass into the net. His nineteenth goal!

“Pay no attention to him, “ I tell the scout, wishing I had Jedi powers, “he’s just been lucky nineteen times!”

Still on the attack (Oldham are doing little to prevent it) Benning zooms forward, exchanges neat passes with Bradshaw and is tackled in the box. Looks fairly innocuous but, surprise, surprise the referee points at the spot. Penalty? We confer, deciding that this is the first penalty we have had at Bescot this season.

Bradshaw has the ball in his hands before the whistle has dropped form the ref’s lips. He’s after that twentieth!

Short run up: goal. This is Tom Bradshaw, was there ever a question?

He is subbed in the second half and we control the game, seeing out the time.

At the final whistle fans ignore the P.A. request to stay off the grass … but I am heading for the car.

Sunday morning: a gentle lie in and watching the superb BBC coverage of the London Marathon. Every participant is  a hero, running for charities and causes and there is Jane Sutton, mother of local teenage hero (in every sense of the word) Stephen Sutton (see https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/youre-only-supposed-to-blow-the-bly-doors-off/).  Like her son a resourceful and inspiring role model. Mentally I wish her luck. Blind Dave Heeley, from the Black Country, not content with running the gruelling Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert is also in the 38,000 runners somewhere.

The wheelchair racers likewise are inspirational, but credit to all the runners, whatever their times, whether or not they complete the course and whatever wacky get-ups they choose to carry on their frames.