A Trip Too Far: Fleetwood Away.

Still buzzing after the lift the season suddenly got with the win – and blistering performance and commitment – at Chesterfield the weekend gone.

But work is work – and my car needed to undergo its annual Ministry of Transport test. Duly booked in for the day we play at Fleetwood. Enough time to do a day’s work, pick it up and get to the Highbury Stadium just north of Blackpool?

 

So concerned with the M.O.T. that I left my lunch time sarnies at home, the canteen food does not appeal to me and, dammit I was unable to get out because a) I was too busy and b) honestly, I just couldn’t be bothered to go through the rigmarole of keys and going off-site.

So made do with a few chocolate biscuits, some birthday cake (a tradition where I am working) and coffee. Great, but neither healthy nor enough to fill a belly that grumbled all afternoon.

Some work – a back spring was needed to get the car its roadworthiness certificate. The garage managed it, and I arrived to get the car at around 5.30. My time to get to Fleetwood? Two hours and five minutes said my sat-nav gadget.

But there’ll be speed restrictions between here and Stoke, queues around Manchester … so, a little chicken headed, and still needing food, I decided to stay home, find a way to keep up with the scores, if nothing else while typing.

I check out the official web-site: there’s something called Saddler’s Player (but it costs money I haven’t got) but BBC WM are covering the full match. So I pile up the cushions, and listen to a very positive, energetic pre-match build-up. What a refreshing change: no patronising, simple fast-paced segues of past goals, interviews and some latest news, interspersed with humour.

“it wasn’t broken, somebody tried to fix it … didn’t do a very good job,” says one presenter about our playing style.

The cliché from Sam Mantom is a cliché only because it is correct, but, even as he says it, I am wincing (his turn-around performance was, after all, key to our success on Saturday

https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/here-comes-the-new-boss/). Even so …

The teams are unchanged: pleasing news.

Heads down and trust in the Lord, it’s almost time.

Half time and the enthusiastic energy of the commentators is flagging. There are no goals and there are only so many ways, I guess, that you can describe passing about the pitch. There are no pundits “back in the studio” to share the load, although former goalkeeper and current Community manager, Mick Kearns gives a few sage words of uncompromising opinion at half time. I have always admired his no-nonsense honesty, even when it is harsh.

And, I am going to have to eat some of my earlier words here (or edit them out).

On forty nine minutes Hiwula and that man Mantom (with a back-heel) combine to work the ball to Tom Bradshaw who scoops the ball into the Fleetwood net.

“Goals change – er, ahem – games after all!”

This is our game in hand, being played at the third time of asking: postponed twice because of poor weather. And if we can hold on to those three points we are, at last, level with Wigan: second but for goal difference (that’ll be third then, I hear you thinking).

And I’m thinking it doesn’t seem so long ago that Stephen Pressley and his son were siting talking to us at Bescot, commenting on what a great job Dean Smith was doing at Walsall on a miniscule budget. Now he’s manager at Fleetwood – and losing so far.

Our “big-engine” leader by example Chambers is injured; left knee. Long term? Who knows, but is taken off and the willing Liam Kinsella comes on. And Etheridge keeps us in the game near the end with a couple of excellent saves.

Three hundred and thirty some Walsall fans managed to get to the game. I am satisfied. And am raring to go to the home game on Saturday: let’s get some more goals then: Colchester at home.

“VOTE PIES” Blackpool Away

30th August.

Home

 

Picked up some vouchers at the Brighton game. Fill ‘em in and get free tickets for the England under 17s game on Friday evening. England playing Turkey in the St George’s Trophy (yes, never heard of it before either). But if I’m doin’ a lot of nothing else on Friday, why not?

My brother is up for it.

And Saddlers Widow has never been to an international (well, come on it is an international isn’t it?) … and never seen a game at Bescot Stadium.

So we gang up, park, unnecessarily in the traditional place and walk the what quarter mile? More? To the ticket office. Presenting the vouchers there is a computer check. This is football in the twenty first century I guess. Getting data into the system, the chance to e-mail information/ opportunities/ junk to new contacts. I’m already in the system; the staff could probably tell you what I like for breakfast, my usual tipple and that I like sugar with my half time coffee.

We wander in, through the turnstiles. The lounges being for “corporate” but we’re near enough to spit into our usual seats. And there is a reasonable crowd. Big moon hangs in the still sunlit sky (perigee this weekend) as the teams line up and the flags are paraded.

 

England are sharper in the first half (only forty minutes long) and go two goals up. Second half Turkey shade it and the England goalkeeper is exceptional. Steady drive back, feeling patriotic and wondering what my Turkish friends would have thought. Perhaps they will read this (hey guys), nod quietly.

Saturday begins with family matters: mother, preparations for a wedding somewhere on the periphery, daughter and partner are at home when I get back and we saddle up for the Blackpool adventure. All of the Walsall tickets have been sold but it is not all ticket. M6 is queue after queue, one speed limit after the other. The matrix signs become boring: same old information – and really how necessary is it to tell people there is a queue when they are sitting in a queue. We wonder if maybe some wannabe comedian should be hired to write a running joke (maybe one of those knock-knock ones) on the signs. Be much more entertaining than the repetitive ones we are seeing. Maybe even a web-site where you could vote for your favourite joke. Crazy but marvellous the things you talk about on journeys eh?

Oh, that and the intriguing “VOTE PIES” graffiti on the side of one of the bridges. First noticed it on the way up to a match last season. What is it all about?

Big motorways and wide roads lined with hanging posters about the attractions of Blackpool (Legends on the Sands ( Leg Ends on the Sand?) Tommy, Elton John, Waxworks … and CATS!). But almost believing we are driving onto a commercial estate we have to pass through a ridiculously narrow railway arch before popping out into the warm, sunlit but tacky town itself. Find the nearest car park, impressed by the shining white stadium: my first visit and the lure of the prom. Easy enough to get tickets and cooked to order fish and chips. With enough time to wander to the wide expanses of promenade, the tram tracks, Cinderella carriages drawn by horses and the civilised gulls that wait to be fed rather than raid your hand held lunch.

The Tower, the Pleasure beach, the piers, expansive clean beach (low tide obviously) and throw back donkey rides. And the sun is friendly, beaming down. Never quite realised that the football club was so close to the town centre.

So we stroll casually towards the shining ground, past some random front garden party with middle aged-plus men wearing Rastafari hats and artificial dreadlocks, past the disinterested protests of the Blackpool fans making a fuss about owner Karl Oyston (some serious financial tomblaggery by all accounts – but, hey either give the club your money or ship out and support somebody else!

Seriously over-egged stewarding, passing through three ranks of hi-vis vested worthies all making the same request:

“Can I see your ticket mate?”

Seriously? First we’ve never met before so I am definitely NOT YOUR MATE and what is the point of having three layers of people asking the same damned fool question; presumably if I didn’t have a ticket I would not have got past the first line.

But once inside it is clear to see the extent of the boycott.

Walsall faithful rammed into two stands at the corner, floor to rafters: singing, waving, all the regular chants being aired. The rest of the tangerine seated stadium dotted with one or two random, stoical real Blackpool fans. My respect to them. The front four rows of chairs in the “home” stands covered with tarpaulin – to prevent fans sitting there and invading the pitch, apparently.

But, down to the game after riotous reception for saddlers. Lalkovic not starting. Slow paced beginning, but even after ten minutes, when a right wing Blackpool attack breaks down their players are pointing accusingly at one another. And (sorry Rico) tiny Walsall wing back henry is bending former Premier League centre half Emmerson Boyce every which way.

Twenty minutes or so gone and we get a break. Sawyers, free to run onto pass, casually turns it with a toe and it drifts oh-so-slowly into the goal. Honestly I thought it had missed and was going out: no desperate chasing back from a tangerine shirt to clear it off the line.

  

We have a good view of the field, although the goal is scored at the far end (our ticket says “Restricted View” but actually no more restricted than our standard Walsall seats).

Second half Walsall are genuinely in control. Henry running down the flank hooked a low Bradshaw bound cross into the box. It was intercepted by a defender, Aldred, who promptly nodded it into his own net.

Then on the opposite wing Demetriou who was energetic all game pulled a high cross to the back post where Sam Mantom powered a header in to the net. The Blackpool keeper just sat in despair on the ground.

It got worse for him; just as I was heading to the loo Romaine Sawyers – cracking game from him today -smacked a powerful shot-from-nowhere into the net. Four nil!

We are swiftly back in the car, pulling out across traffic and, pleasingly surprisingly home by 7 o’clock. Much faster getting home – the difference a 4-0 win and Bank Holiday queues make!

We are taking our eldest daughter out for a birthday meal. What do I order?

I vote pies of course: Guinness and steak pie: very tasty end to the day with a couple of pints of a pale ale whose name I cannot recall – so busy re-running the goals!

Morecambe away next (Johnstone’s Paint Trophy) – up the same old stretch of M6, but may not make that one.

“A Number of Players Back” (Johnstone’s Paint Trophy: Rochdale Away0

 

“What can I get you for your birthday?” my friend asked at the Bristol City game.

“Take me to the Rochdale game,” said I. Sounded like a great idea, especially as the said game was actually on my birthday. Then work commitments and a Sunday night feast, with some early presents (thanks people) interrupted the plans … and I chickened out.

Going to the games means a lot to me but I also want to be doing a proper job, which means putting in extra time – and, hey, it’s only one game right?

Besides my sister was coming over in the “early evening” and I could listen to the game on BBC Radio WM couldn’t I and weather forecasts were for (still more) heavy showers.

So I came home, did some work, waiting for my sister and brother in law. Who didn’t turn up until after I had started listening to the usually entertaining if not always strictly accurate commentary. Where it was mentioned that the M6 was due to be closed in many places on the route home, meaning the return journey would –at very best – be a greater adventure (know what I mean?).

I left the radio on, knowing that I would hear raised voices if there was a goal, but the talk was good and I suggested going “down the road” for a beer or two. Not the Oak (there’s that quiz there every Tuesday) https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/gurroles-in-pub-quiz-drama-southend-away/

So to the Wheatsheaf. Quite empty. Last time I was here I was drinking a local micro-brewery ale called Beowulf (was it Boxing day?). This evening I decided to try Mad Goose, but the barrel needed changing, so I settled for Wheatsheaf Blonde. It sound s like part of a stand-up routine I have to admit, but a tasty beer. My nephew jack admitted that he rarely drinks ale when he’s out (“What’s the Matter lager-Boy, scared you might taste something?” says the Hobgoblin advert as I remember).

Some talk at the table, then the “menfolk” drift away to the unoccupied pool table (fiver deposit for the cues and only the dartboard chalk). Modesty forbids me from revealing the result of the game. Suffice it to say I was not embarrassed (although the black did not go into the pocket I nominated!)

Got back home – and Walsall are through to the next round. Manset’s first (please let it be of many this season. For Walsall.)

 

 

Playing with six changes from the Bristol game we had enough to get through to the quarter final. I have to add that’s the Northern region quarter final to add grim reality. But it’s another momentum-building result –and we have injured players now queuing up to strengthen the efforts and reinforce the team.

Meanwhile, with over four hundred deaths in Africa as a result of an Ebola epidemic the first person to contract the disease in Europe is a nurse in Madrid who was treated missionaries in a hospital there.

This raises the question of if – or when – it will spread even further. And questions about the ability of our medical services to cope. Currently we are sending a number of servicemen to set up treatment and training bases in Africa (Sierra Leone is one of the countries suffering most at the moment). I certainly wish everybody dealing with this all the best – and find their bravery staggering.

Back to a sporting note and Coventry City Football Club, now playing back in their own city at the Ricoh Arena will be (let’s say) sharing the venue with Premiership Rugby Union team Wasps. Wasps are – or were a London based team and have bought Coventry City Council’s share of the Ricoh Arena. Interesting to think how the wasps fans might feel, being relocated some eighty or so miles north, especially bearing in mind the Sky Blues’ fans revolt (https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/coventry-away/) when being asked to support their own team playing at Northampton (about sixty miles south) … oh and those distances are one-way and approximate of course.

Good for Coventry – and so the midlands to have a top rugby club up here, joining Leicester Tigers and Gloucester of course. And worth a mention that the home of the game – Rugby of course – is not so far from Coventry.

Talking about “tigers” I should also add that Hull City Football Club’s chairman’s request to change the name to Hull Tigers has been turned down by the authorities. In a forthright TV interview he said he failed to understand the decision and, when asked what he would say to the fans who appreciated the “heritage” of the name he simply said:

“Pay for it then!”

Fair point perhaps?

Coventry ? Away?

5^th March, 2014

I’m standing by my allotment shed discussing allotment politics when my mobile phone blurts out its text-received beep-beep. “That’ll be Cully,” I think, “he’s getting back to me about going to the match tonight …”

Wrong! It’s my wife, letting me know she’s “going to Deb’s for  a coffee …”

I am, a little harshly I realise, jolted to think of our daughter’s observation about the facile nature of some social networking comments of the “feeling happy/eating a biscuit” variety. Largely pointless, except perhaps to reassure the individual “adding the comment that they have a value because they have posted something in the Ethernet. And the inevitable sadness that value is based on putting something out there that has very little real value. Like a blog? Like a self-published book ? More on that perhaps later.

I get a little stick about going to the game tonight. It’s not easy being a Walsall supporter. But then it never has been.

Eventually Cully rings. He can’t make it. Working in Solihull until, er probably 6.30. Ironically for a Coventry supporter. But this “supporter isn’t going either. And that’s another digression. Coventry City. Once one of the most successful teams in this part of the world are fallen a long way from grace these days. They were docked points at the beginning of this season for “financial irregularities last season (basically signing and playing players they could not afford: cheating perhaps by another, better dressed name), they no longer play in Coventry, but ground share with lowly (even compared with Walsall F.C.) Northampton Town. The mighty (and I’ve been there for a Bruce Springstein concert) Ricoh Arena management asked for more rent and Coventry couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay. For a while it was like a poker game, maybe it was  a bluff… but no. So Sky Blues home games (!) are no longer played in Coventry. “Exiled,” as Express and Star reporter Matt Maher has it, going on to say in this evening’s sports pages:

“ This isn’t the place to delve into the hows and whys of Coventry’s current plight, a classic modern football tale of moneymen putting their own self-interests ahead of a club’s well-being and where – as always – the biggest losers are the fans.”

So – just me and my brother then, tickets already purchased.

When I get to his house he’s on a call. He works for a massive multi-national company, usually from home and this happens a lot. At least I believe it does. I am sure he could tell me more but he would have to kill me.

We plan the route on the fly, avoiding what BBC Radio WM says is the M6 closed because of a serious accident and get to the “compact” Sixfields (is it a stadium (as per traditional football scuttlebutt) or Sixfields Leisure as the local, rather poor signs state?

Car parking is very close and at £4 quite reasonable. The ground is actually part of an out-of-town shopping and entertainments estate: there’s a multi-screen cinema, several universal supermarkets, a couple of U.S franchised eating places and, let’s say the other kind of places that you find in every out-of-town territory.

The youngsters selling the programmes, when asked confidently state that they are working for a company that works with the Cobblers (Northampton Town) and quite happily show us to the “away” supporter’s entrance. Seems to me, I am thinking, we are all away supporters in this game. And we probably followed each other down the M6/M1 route … and are probably
parking side by side here. Behind the goals and once ensconced in the ground, having been told by  a hi-viz vested official that you can “sit where you want” we look at the illuminations of the logos and signs from the outlets on the hill opposite. The hill on which allegedly a determined group of Coventry City supporters gather to watch a fraction of the pitch when Coventry play. It’s their version of a protest. They will not pay to go in, thus giving money to the owners because they want their team back in their city. But tonight ? Too dark to see if anyone is there or not. The seats are closely arranged, the one immediately behind me being taken by a tall guy and his knees, quite accidentally are in my shoulder blades for most of the first half … and when I’m catching up with the programme and the paper at half time I am unintentionally invading the space of the lady in front of me. Shame the seats are not off-set. Before kick-off we buy food – a generous hot dog, artistically patterned with mustard and coffee. The range of pies on offer includes steak and ale. The programme incidentally is a fine one: there are ten pages with Walsall information and it is a glossy high quality read. It is called PUSB but there is no explanation: an acronym something, something Sky Blues maybe.

The Guy on the public address is overly enthusiastic for such a small crowd: almost American and the gimmick of presenting ten footballs to the crowd during half time, which, somebody  near me suggests cruelly, means every Coventry fan gets a ball (such is Saddlers humour). I wonder whether it could be organised for all ten balls to be thrown onto the pitch during the second when play is over that side (such is my divergent thinking).

Apart from the chap with “Steward” on his hi-viz back, there are other staff. In their bright vests and for some reason I cannot quite explain they remind me of Lego characters. There’s one marked “Perimeter”, another a long-legged, black trousered blonde with “Stand Manager”. Mr Perimeter is chatting amicably with a Walsall fan and, it seems encouraging him to be standing. The P.A. reminds us that this is a no-smoking, all-seated venue and politely invites us to take our seats. Mr Perimeter and this animated fan continue to swap chatter.

 

Cannot remember the last time I was in a ground that has floodlights at each corner (like here): the old traditional arrangement. The quality of light on the pitch is noticeably unequal. Beyond the lights the new moon, bringing my grandfather to mind as always, is veiled by light cloud.

The first half is poor from our point of view. We are penned back by an efficient Coventry team and seem short of ideas and energy, a lot of passing, which we normally do so well, goes wrong. Refereeing decisions are, at best eccentric and – unsurprisingly become the butt of Walsall chanting. (Our “choir” is always inventive and usually topical). This evening we have the

“If you’ve paid your rent, stand up

If you’ve paid your rent stand up” among others.

We go in at half time a goal down.

But come out faster, slicker more aggressive.

There are no ball boys; at one stage a well wrapped up photographer has to hurdle wall and ranks of seats to retrieve the ball (no spectators in this stand). No ball boys Is that because tis is an evening kick off and they have school tomorrow, or because local kids will ball boy for Northampton, but not Coventry? Note to self: check at other evening games to see if there are ball boys.

Players who had  a quiet first half (Febian Brandy, Milan Lalkovic) are in the thick of the action more and more often and we go on the hunt, putting pressure on the Coventry defence. Which is sound. Mal Benning, our young full back came towards us on a steaming run, had a shot saved and put the rebound into the net.

We were on top and significantly so. Pushing up. But a couple of the team started to look tired. Lalkovic – on a season long loan from Chelsea, Craig Westcarr … and we’re missing Sam Mantom, suspended after being sent off against Preston on Saturday.

Couple of substitutions. Ngoo (on loan from Liverpool) a young, tall aggressively confident “giraffe” of a player coming on for Craig Westcarr and Troy Hewitt for Lalkovic.

But while we were pushing forward, wouldn’t you know it ? They crept up and scored the winner.

We kept on hammering away and there was a tremendous volley of shots one after the other in the final minutes. The sound of the boot hitting the ball carrying the short distance amazing. But, frankly well organised defending and luck meant we were going home 2- 1 losers. James Chambers has been sterling throughout, looking unruffled and fit, elegant yet determined.

M6 closed on the way home, so a lengthy diversion down the dependable A5, including a second diversion down the old A5.  The road we were taught at school built by the Romans; straight, efficient. My old route to work. The motorbike shop is still there, so is the Vauxhall garage; the one where, when I couldn’t pay for a routine service I was vouched for by the receptionist (who had been the “tea monitor” at a school nearby where I worked and could remember me (also perhaps that I rarely had money to pay my weekly tea fees!)

Tamworth was also once one of the most significant towns in England: capital of Mercia. We wondered how many people now learn about this. And talk drifted on to the rights and wrongs – as we see them – of Scottish independence (and what might happen to the Scottish Nationalist Party, a vote against Scottish independence would take away the key plank of SNP ambition of course … so what future ?), the events in the Ukraine (feted by our media as a “sovereign state” (what? I am thinking, they have no sovereign …) apparently invaded by Russia. The truth may be somewhat different, but I have two thoughts on the matter.

First: if all of the Spanish-speaking people in say, Texas made a fuss and expressed a wish to join Mexico (unlikely but bear with me eh?) what would Barak Obama’s reaction be? Probably to send troops in. Now I realise the situation is not exactly the same but it is worth thinking on. The uprising in Kiev deposed what, when all is said and done and whatever we feel about the situation, was a democratically elected government. So, to this way of thinking we in the west are supporting an undemocratic regime.

Secondly: I believe that Germany was able to “annexe” Sudatenland (then part of Czechoslovakia) because Hitler “proved” most of the subjects there were, essentially Germans, German speaking for example …

OK two opposite cases and each equally provocative …

We decide that the outcome is likely to be an annexation of the Crimean peninsular (strategically important to Russia) and a reduced Ukraine being adopted swiftly by the EU. We cannot afford to “annoy” Russia as they are the source of a lot of our oil (and so power) … and we seem to be back in the realms of the moneymen running things and the ordinary people getting hurt (or, indeed, killed).

Bring on Saturday, the Wolves and the sell-out crowd.