It is the third Saturday in October, which as any footballing anorak will know, means the Third Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, or as the BBC insist on calling it , ‘the World’s Oldest and Best Football Tournament, Steeped in 130 years of Knockout Tradition’. Propelled by an almost primeval urge to stand on a terrace somewhere windy and watch football, I jump on a tram outside of Manchester Central Library, and 20 minutes later arrive in Altrincham, a town in Cheshire with the following three claims to fame:
1- it is the last station on the Metrolink line, therefore the place you are likely to wake up if you fall asleep drunk on your way home to somewhere like Stretford or Eccles. This happened once, as a matter of fact, to indecisive Declan; at least he thinks it did. What he actually said was ‘I came out of the pub and the next thing I was walking along the street in a strange town at three o’clock in the morning- I think it might have been Altrincham’)
2- being situated slap-bang sod in the middle of the Cheshire stockbroker belt, alongside places like Wilmslow and Alderley Edge where you are likely to see members of the Manchester United first team in Tesco’s, it is quite posh. Certainly a lot posher than Stretford or Eccles, and in fact I am surprised that indecisive Declan was not arrested for vagrancy and slammed up in the cells for the night during his unscheduled visit. Of course, it is equally possible that this did happen, but Declan just can’t remember
3-it is the home of Altrincham FC, who during their glory years of the 70s and 80s were acknowledged as the leading non-professional club in the country, and would regularly attract thousands to their tidy stadium, which was known as ‘the Wembley of non-league’. It is no longer accorded this moniker, as, while other ambitious amateur outfits have invested in newly-built, soulless, identikit all-seater, miniature-Premiership-style stadia, Altrincham’s Moss Lane home has retained the character of a football ground, with terracing on all four sides (plenty of it fully exposed to the elements for that added 1970s-style catch-pneumonia-while-watching the-game experience), and just one wooden seating area, oddly reminiscent of a dolls house, and plonked with a pleasing sense of asymetry just one side of the half-way line.
It is the perfect place to watch football, in other words, and as I take my place behind a crash barrier, having negotiated the turnstiles (crash-barriers! Turnstiles! It is all so Old-School!) to see the footballers of Altrincham and Hucknall Town limbering up in front of a crowd of maybe 500 hardy souls, I am feeling very happy indeed. But of course the match hasn’t kicked off yet, and I know what will happen next, according to the script: the players will efficiently dispel my sense of well-being with a 45-minute display of artless, bone-headed clogging, and leave me questioning my decision to come all this way on the tram, and sometimes even the value of life itself, over my half-time bovril. However it appears this week the teams have not read the script, and in an exhibition of the finer arts of the game, enlivened (as the game at this level invariably will be) by a smattering of hilarious defensive errors, have shared 5 goals by half-time, with the home side bagging three of them. The entertainment has been so good, in fact, that the huddle of grumbly old men in overcoats behind me (there is a sub-species of small-town codgers in their fifties and sixties whose purpose in life is to gather on windswept terraces for 90 minutes each fortnight and loudly harangue young men in football kit) have found precious little to grumble about. The best one of them has managed has been a muttered ‘about bloody time and all!’ when the home centre forward rose majestically to put his team 2-0 up- after 12 minutes of play.
Of course, this unheard-of excitement cannot go on, and in the second half the game slows down a bit. With goals no longer flowing like fine wine, the grumblers get really into their stride with a constant stream of bellowed advice- usually followed by an even louder groan when the unheeding home player mysteriously fails to suit their actions to the wise counsel from the sidelines:
‘Give it inside, give it inside- oooooh!’
‘Keep a hold of it, keep it there- aaaaah!’
‘Get it out of there- get it up- dooohhhhh, bloody hell, Alty’.
After twenty minutes of this cacophony of dissaproval I am starting to question the value of existence again. But then my mood is lifted by the unmistakeable sound of The Nyinger-Nyanger Man. This character is a regular fixture at Moss Lane and in fact forms a perfectly good justification on his own for shelling out on trams and turnstiles to get here. Also of pensionable age, but the opposite of a grumbler, The Nyinger Nyanger Man considers it his duty to encourage the team at all times, and to encourage those around him to follow his example. This he does by sidling up to the edge of the vocal group of young supporters under the the cow-shed roof of the covered terrace and emitting his pneumatic-drill-like cry of
‘Nyinger Nyanger Nyinger Nyanger’
to which the terrace chorus will respond, immediately and in unison
‘ALTRINCHAM!’
to which our man will respond with a repeat of his cry, receiving the same response, and then back and forth again, three, four or five times with increasing volume, until the whole ritual dissolves in a smattering of laughter and applause. As anthems go, it is not quite 20000 scousers belting out ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ on a packed Kop on European night, but the quaint song of the Nyinger Nyanger Man, which I imagine has resounded across the Moss Lane terraces for the last thirty years or so, is just as affecting in its own way.
Anyway, back to the game, in which Hucknall, having squandered a trio of gilt-edged chances (apologies for the cliché there but any report of a match, even if it is largely concerned with the eccentricities displayed by the supporters, must contain its cliché quota by law or I would risk having my football-writer cards taken off me), manage to equalise late on with a fortuitous own-goal following a goalmouth scramble (there that should do us now for the quota, we can all relax and get on with the story).
As the goal goes in, the travelling supporters (there are about 60 behind the goal, which for all I know may be the entire population of Hucknall, which I think may be a former mining town somewhere in Notttinghamshire) go delirious with joy, cavorting around on the open terrace oblivious to the biting wind. Behind me, the grumbly old codgers are happy too, in their own way. After all, they have at last found something worthwile to groan about. They launch into a short burst of complaint that sounds almost pre-arranged, and is certainly a perfect example of its genre:
‘Well that was bloody coming, wasn’t it?’
‘Saw it a mile off- a mile off!’
‘Same every bloody time- every bloody time, Alty!’.
‘Dia-bloody-bolical!’
With their work done, the grumbly old men do up their overcoats and sidle off, away from the crash barriers and out of the ground. Following them are the rest of the crowd; the little kids in Manchester United shirts with their dads, the smartly-dressed lady and her husband who look like they have dropped by on the way from the boutiques on Alderley Edge High Street, the terrace chorus of young lads, some in replica red-and-white striped Altrincham kit. And last of all a shabby-looking bloke in a cheap jacket. He is off to rejoin his no-doubt workaday existence, but in two weeks’ time he will be back, to become for 90 minutes more a legendary figure in this quaint old place, once known as the ‘Wembley of the Non-League’, but now just another ramshackle old football ground, at odds with its affluent surroundings. The old man takes one last look around him and wanders out into the by-now-deserted suburban streets: The Famous ‘Nyinger-Nyanger Man’ of Altrincham FC has made his mark on this season's FA Cup.
Ah, a great read. Almost made me feel homesick reading that. The emphasis being very much on almost!
I think it's a lack characters like the "Nyinger-Nyanger Man" that makes going to watch football over here not quite as entertaining as it should be. There is the odd "shouty bloke", but nothing comparable with some of the people I've seen watching games in England.
Perhaps it's a lack of alcohol or passion, I don't know. But however Nyinger-nyanger translates into Japanese, I wish somebody would start shouting it.
Posted by: Lee | October 20, 2004 at 02:23 PM
I think maybe the people in the stand think he is shouting in Japanese, Lee!
Posted by: jonathan | October 21, 2004 at 10:43 AM
He he, that's funny!!
Posted by: Lee | October 21, 2004 at 01:23 PM
When I used to live in Hong Kong, there was a wizened old Chinese chap who came to every year's Rugby Sevens tournament (of international reputation and fame) and used to stand at the sidelines yelling "Ayaaah! AyaAAAAAAAAH!!!" in an apparent fit of rage, every time a try or conversion went over. He was something of an unofficial tournament mascot, and may possibly have been related to the Nyinger Nyanger man. Sadly he has now passed on to that great Touchline in the Sky, but his memory remains. Great days. (wipes away solitary tear)
Posted by: pastamasta | October 22, 2004 at 02:40 PM
Cool story! Who needs troupes of young female cheerleaders with matching outfits and pom-poms when we have old men with idiosyncratic shouts to urge us on...
Now then. The Nyinger Nyanger Man with pom-poms. There's an image.
Posted by: jonathan | October 22, 2004 at 04:13 PM
Hahaha. Great stuff. I am strongly tempted to visit Altrincham to witness this phenomenon. Great use of the phrase 'rose majestically' as well...
Posted by: Jamie | October 27, 2004 at 07:33 PM
A little bit late in the day to comment, perhaps, but I just wanted to say that (back in the mid-to-late 80's, at least) Oldham Athletic had their own version of the Nyinger-Nyanger thing: it went "Zigger-Zagger-Zigger-Zagger-ATH-LE-TIC". So now you know ;-)
Posted by: Iain | February 23, 2005 at 01:15 PM