Across the Pennines with County-Extreme Version- Part 2

...and so, to the match itself.  I take my place among what looks like a decent County turn-out on the covered away terrace, but for fifty minutes little happens to justify the long journey East.  Matters even take a turn for the worse, as early in the second half Boston's Julian Joachim, reminding us of why he was once considered as promising a youth international as his contemporary Michael Owen, puts the home side ahead with a flying volley.  Soon afterwards I brave the rain (and a chorus of 'we can see you sneaking out' from the exultant Boston support) to get hold of a restorative coffee- and County choose just the moment I am behind the stand piling in the third sugar to score an equaliser.  Just as it seems I have come 200 miles on slow trains just for a polystyrene cup of Nescafe and a thorough soaking, County midfielder Hamshaw takes pity on me and scores with a thirty yard strike.   It is just like watching Brazil (even if the coffee tastes of Lincolnshire drizzle) and on the away terrace we leap around like carefeee salmons.  With just minutes left to play the arduous journey suddenly seems worthwile.

But of course there are minutes left, and this is the eternally hapless County, who on the last time I followed them away contrived to grasp defeat from the jaws of certain victory at Huddersfield.  And sure enough in injury time that man Joachim, mistaking himself for the second time in ninety minutes for Real Madrid's Michael Owen, snaffles an equaliser after some all-too-familiar hesitancy in the visiting defence.  As the final whistle sounds, we give our battling Hatters a brief but heartfelt clap, then filter out of the terrace exits muttering darkly.  'Always the same, County.  Always the bloody same'.

An hour later I am rattling back towards Manchester, having remained in Boston just long enough to shelter in WH Smiths from the incessant storms, and to get talking to a bloke in the station bar who reckoned he played billiards every morning with the home side's two-goal hero- 'a great lad, our Julian'.  Sighing at relief at the absence of tiny holidaymakers on the return journey I open the book I had hastily purchased in Smiths- 'A Star Called Henry' by the celebrated Irish storyteller Roddy Doyle.

Half an hour later I am ready to throw myself off the train in abject despair.  The combination of a lack of sleep, an hour and a half of (let's face it) mostly bad football, twelve hours of rain, a few too many pints of Guinness, and last but not least sixty pages of Roddy Doyle in his darkest form, have taken their toll.  In just two chapters of 'A Star Called Henry' there have been a half-dozen infant deaths, twice as many gangland murders, several rapes and an outbreak of cholera in the backstreets of Dublin.  The potato famine hasn't even started yet, and we are still some miles east of Nottingham.  I surrreptitiously place the Doyle masterpiece on an adjacent seat and hope it isn't taken by a borderline depressive, then settle down to spend the rest of the journey home doing what I do best on trains- gazing vacantly out of the window at the passing countryside while the Saturday night light recedes.

Time passes surprisingly quickly and I am back at home in Levenshulme, courtesy of a bus pretending to be a train because the local trains don't run at weekends, in time for Match of the Day.  But like I said at the start, I am growing tired of the Premiership bandwagon so don't even stay up to watch Gary Lineker and his scripted wisecracks.  Instead I go to bed and dream of the North Sea squall drifting across the pitch, a cup of scalding hot coffee, and my new County hero Matt Hamshaw bending, just like Beckham, a thirty yard screamer into the top corner of the Boston net. 

A couple of days later the whole Boston experience already feels like some sort of dream itself, set in a flat, windmill-strewn moonscape where the rain never stops and everyone plays billiards with Julian Joachim.  But on Tuesday a letter arrives with a Stockport postmark.  Inside is the Terrace songbook- the unofficial head of the County chorus, for whom I scribbled my address on a beer mat in the Ship Hotel, has been as good as his word. 

I study the words of some of the thirty years's worth of Cheadle End terrace anthems contained in the pages of the songbook (there are a disturbing number referring to a mysterious loathing for Burnley FC, and several about chasing supporters of West Ham through the Edgeley backstreets), and feel, really for the first time, like an honorary member of the Hatters faithful.  Next time I get to an away game, I think to myself, I will be able to join in with a couple of these.  Next time!  If and when it happens, you can be sure to read about it here first.

....

Stop Press late Friday night as I finish this report, and a late result is coming in.... Grimsby Town 1 Stockport County 3.  And no, I didn't go.... Boston is far enough towards the North Sea for one month, but these people were there as ever, and I am sure a match report will appear in a day or two.  Oh, and there is an online version of the County songbook being put together n there as well.  Now, what was that one about West Ham again?  All together now.... 

Comments

[Ben]

Marvellous writing - Crinklybee goes Hobo Tread! Loved it - look forward to reading more of the same. Just don't abandon the Toon altogether, tempting though it very often is...

[jonathan]

Hobo Tread... now there's a place I don't go to often enough- and a man who makes most of us look like mere dilettantes when it comes to travelling away from home...

Oh and don't worry I'll always be black and white whether I like it or not- NUFC have this annoying habit, don't they, of stretching our collective patience almost to breaking point, then reining us back into the fold with something unexpected like this week's Owen signing (it was the same thing with Keegan, both times). Although you wouldn't have got me piling into St James on a non-matchday afternoon and chanting 'Sounness' for the benefit of the Sky cameras- that sort of thing can wait until little Michael has won us the FA Cup...

[abby]

ah yes, Roddy Doyle, what a depressing bastard! A dangerous writer.

This is all very well and good but I can barely concentrate as I am still waiting for your shocking fish expose about the cod and the haddock. Is it still coming?