The first weekend in January and, as is customary, the nation's football supporters are gripped by FA Cup fever. At Old Trafford, arch rivals Manchester United and Liverpool lock horns in front of a baying crowd of 75000, while several million more follow the game live on national television.
I'm not one of them. My own football fix for the weekend had been administered 24 hours earlier, in the rather less high-octane environment of Edgeley Park, where Stockport County- 20th in league Division Four, are hosting Gillingham FC, ranked 12 places above them.
The idea of renewing my acquaintance with my nearest league football club (I used to go all the time, back in the day), had only occurred to me at 1 o'clock- but, half an hour later, due to the marvels of the 192 bus service, I'm leaning on the bar at the Union Inn on the A6, which despite being just 10 minutes's walk from the ground, contains maybe half a dozen lunchtime drinkers, including a Stella-supping bloke in a chest-length grey beard and a late 1980s Chelsea away shirt, with whom I spend an agreeable half-an-hour dissecting the finer tactical points of the Arsenal-Leeds early-kick-off FA Cup tie, which is being beamed live from a satellite-enabled TV perched high on corner shelving above the fruit machine.
Behind us, taking only a passing interest in the televised action, a lightly sozzled old-timer regular is engaging his mate in a rambling anecdote about the time a Blackpool FC line-up featuring the great England winger Stanley Matthews graced the Edgeley Park turf. 'It was back in '52- the year they won the cup', he declares. Resisting the temptation to correct his schoolboy error (it was Newcastle United who won the cup in 1952, as I'm sure you could all have pointed out), I drain the last of my pint of pre-match Robinsons Unicorn Ale and head for the door.
Two minutes later I am emerging from the rail station underpass into the suburb of Edgeley, an unprepossessing locale where streets of huddled terraced housing cower like a herd of terrified mammoths under the ravenous gaze of corner-flag floodlights resembling angular steel dinosaurs. Inside the ground, kick-off is imminent, and, as I quicken my pace for the turnstile, a chant of 'Peter Ward's Blue and White Army' is rising from the popular Cheadle End. As I take my seat, the cry metamorphosises into 'Wardy- give us a wave, Wardy, Wardy give us a wave'- and the new County caretaker boss, installed only in midweek at the expense of sacked erstwhile incumbent Paul Simpson, responds with a sweeping faux-papal gesture belying his as yet modest experience of touchline etiquette.
Little does he know, but this pre-match exchange of formal greetings with his new public is the best the afternoon is going to get for the new supremo. Within ten minutes a mood of sullen, grumbling acceptance has settled on the Cheadle End terracing, as the home team- despite featuring wholesale changes from the XI who typically took the pitch under the departed Simpson- patently fail to depart from the furrow of ineptitude that has left them anchored near the foot of the League's bottom divison. Against such malleable opposition red-and-black-striped Gillingham begin to resemble the similarly-attired Serie A big-hitters AC Milan rather more than one suspects they are customarily able to do except in their most aspirationally-themed dreams, and it is no surprise when, as a direct consequence of approximately the fourteenth misplaced County pass of the first half, the Gills forward McDonald ambles through on goal before slotting a clinical finish past the despairing sprawl of home keeper Glennon.
The opening strike briefly threatens to spark a home response, and County forward Fletcher comes within inches of sliding Tansey's driven cross into an unguarded net as the half-time whistle approaches. But by the hour mark hope is extinguished, Barcham and McDonald (again) having benefitted from further lapses of concentration in the hosts' defensive ranks to extend the visitors' lead to an unassailable 3-0.
The third goal is the cue for a sizeable contingent of the Cheadle End faithful to stand up as one man and form a quickstepping hands-in-pockets shuffle down the steep terracing and towards the exits- a verdict as eloquent on their favourite's shortcomings as the more vocal response offerred by the hitherto-stoical bloke behind me, who, as full-back Lynch slices a routine sideways pass ten yards behind its target and out for a throw-in level with the County penalty area, emits an anguished guttural bellow impressive enough to temporarily drown out the overhead roar of a passing 747 taking off from nearby Manchester Airport.
Myself, I stay to the end (I always do, it would take an Act of God to remove me from a football terrace before the last kick) and am rewarded by an entirely unforeseen consolation goal for County (Demontagnac, with a header), followed immediately, and rather more predictably, by a counter-strike from Gillingham's Weston, who by now evidently believes he really does play for AC Milan, and who can blame him when the entire left flank of County's defence react like frightened rabbits to his jinking advance down the touchline, scattering in all directions and allowing ample space to facilitate a leisurely dribble around the prostrate form of Glennon en route to an empty net. With seconds to go, McDonald even adds a fifth Gillingham goal, heading home a Rooney cross, almost apologetically, like a helpless alcoholic abusing the foolish generosity of trusting hosts by completing a mid-afternoon rout of the drinks cabinet.
As the final whistle sounds, those of us who remain funnel towards the exits, and the stadium announcer, with an admirable absence of evident sarcasm, announces that the next home game will take place on Tuesday night, when Rotherham (2nd in the table) will be the visitors. 'He didn't say this Tuesday did he?', says the woman behind me, in a tone that I don't instantly register as one of rapt anticipation.
She'll probably be back though, as will a good number of the 3573 hardy souls who were in attendance this afternoon, or at least for the first hour of it. On this evidence, County are going to need the support of every last one of them if they are going to avoid a bottom-two finish, and the fall through the trap-door into non-league football that would be the consequence. Do spare a thought for them, will you, as Winter turns to Spring over the huddled Edgeley back-to-backs, and the May-time day of reckoning draws near.
Oh bother... missed Morecambe's away game at Stockport again. Assuming both teams maintain their current level of mediocrity and are still in the Fourth Division next year I'll see if you're free.
"Demontagnac"? Sounds like he was found playing for a team in Aquitaine in his spare time when he wasn't making fine brandy.
Posted by: looby | January 11, 2011 at 01:48 PM