Crinklybee

Short interlude of a black-and-white nature

I'm back at work- but not quite functioning at optimum capacity yet, as was evidenced by this morning, when I suddenly realised I had been sitting at my desk nearly until lunchtime with my shirt on back-to-front.  Actually I thought the visible hemlines and dangling label stating 'machine wash at 40 degrees' combined to achieve a pleasing avant-garde look (and also the office attire guidelines just say that shirts should be worn, and do not specify which way round) so I briefly considered trying to pass the whole incident off as a daring new year fashion statement- and I certainly performed a series of twirls for my assembled colleagues before making an unscheduled trip to the privacy of the shower room to effect the necessary adjustments.  Tomorrow maybe I will reprise my 'stayed up all night and woke up in the wrong house' look whose last outing came during my mid-1990s British Gas tenure, and which one Saturday morning (they were very big on dress code at British Gas, even on Saturday mornings) featured one of Charlotte's frillier blouses and a pair of dress shoes three sizes too small belonging to my short Scottish friend Fraser.  It was an edgy look which had a certain compelling 'je ne sais quoi', as I seem to remember Dean from accounts remarking as I tottered to my station stinking of cheap corner-shop whisky and kebabs.  At least that's what I think he said.

Anyway that is a cautionary tale for those of you who may be getting dressed in the dark these cold winter mornings and you are getting it for nowt as it's not really what I came here to tell you.  What I came here to tell you is that during my short festive absence from these pages I have been guesting over at Ben and Paul's excellent Newcastle United blog Black and White and Read All Over (do you see what they have done there?), where I have so far posted two match reports on what I believe we sports writers are obliged to call the 'Bumper Holiday Fixture List'.  This one concerns a 2-1 defeat at Bolton and has a few mistakes in, which I am attributing to gin and tonic, while this one from yesterday is much better, even though I say so myself (it is the only football match report you will ever read containing the words 'the moustachioed Belgian's unscheduled valedictory circuit' and if that doesn't make you go and read it then I suppose nothing will), and concerns a 2-2 draw at home to Manchster United.  Owing to what I take to be the conventions of Ben and Paul's blog I have sort-of pretended to have been in the stands at both games, when in reality I only saw highlights on Match of the Day, and in fact spent the whole second half of the United game stationary on the M56 attempting to tune the radio in to Five Live while Frankie attempted to drown out the dulcet tones of the match commentators by asking 'are we there yet?' at ever-increasing volumes and freezing hailstones bounced sideways off the window-panes.  I don't think Desmond Lynam ever had such trouble, I can tell you.

Anyway those of you of a footballing persuasion (and especially those of you of a black-and-white one) may be tempted to call in- oh, and while I have got your attention I should also draw your attention to The American Geordie (yes that is his real name)'s equally excellent Newcastle United blog 'The Daily Hairdryer', which features erudite match reports from the American Geordie himself (he seems to travel about an awful lot, I think with his work, and follows the games from sports bars in exotic locations such as Japan and Argentina) and, more often than not, half-drunk late-night comments from me in the comment box saying things like 'Ah haway man hadawayandshite man yer bleedy beggeryer wor Ameobi's aal reet man he's from Fenham yer knaah'.  You don't actually have to be a fully-affililated Greggs-Pastie- carrying member of the Geordie nation to gain entry to the Daily Hairdryer, but I suppose it does help.

Right then- I'll be back properly next week, possibly with my shirt on the right way round, although I'm making no promises, that's for damn sure.  In the meantime Happy New Year and the finest compliments of the season, whatever they are, to you all.  Now hadawayandshite yer bleedy beggers, yers I'm off to get mesel at Greggs pastie for my lunch.

The Case For Zizou

So it's all over and we can get back to our normal lives, or at least try to remember what exactly it was that they involved, and then take things from there, let's not try to run before we can walk, shall we?  In the end I made a last ditch attempt to salvage some dignity from what has been a punishing World Cup campaign, logging onto the internet betting account with ten minutes to spare before kick-off to throw a last desperate virtual fiver at the first outcome that came into my head, which was 2-1 to Italy in 90 minutes.    I was throwing good money after bad, of course; as we now know, the smart money was on 1-1 after extra time, the Italians to conquer their long-standing aversion to the penalty shoot-out to emerge victorious, and, as a bonus double, the French captain and talisman Zinedine Zidane to open the scoring with a cheeky penalty then get sent off for headbutting an Italian in the chest after he called his mother a whore in Spanish.  I would imagine you would have got about 35000-1. 

Just five minutes had elapsed since the World Cup reached that dramatic denouement, and the pitch was still awash with delirious Italians acting in what you have to say was a most unitalian manner. Left-back Grosso was parading along the touchline in a giant foam tricolour hat, while the bearded midfielder Gattuso had stripped down to his underpants (giant white Y-fronts that looked like they could have come from British Home Stores) and was dancing around the centre-circle like a demented garden gnome.  Back in the BBC studio, however, the mood was altogether more sombre.  A Gary Lineker-led inquest had begun, with furrowed brows all round- and a universally damning verdict on the red-carded French playmaker:

'He must be absolutely ashamed of himself in the dressing room there- the loneliest man in the world'

'A sad stain on a glorious career- what a shame it has to end like that!'

'He's let the team down, the fans down- but most importantly, he's let himself down'.

Well, I suppose they had a point.  And I suppose the BBC can't exactly be seen to condone foul play, so it would have been too much to hope for one of the panellists to come up with the idea that entertained us at work this afternoon- namely that the disgraced playmaker, instead of trooping disconsolately past the gleaming trophy on his way to the dressing room, should have realised he had by now nothing to lose and snaffled the thing up off its trestle table, stuffed it up his shirt, and ran really quickly out of the stadium.  I'm sure it would have taken a good twenty minutes for any of the 68000 witnesses to realise that what they had just seen had really happened- by which time the ever-elusive Zizou, taking advantage of the enviably uber-efficient German public transport system, could have been safely aboard a fast train to Marseilles, from where he could have boarded a boat and gone into hiding in his grandma's house in deepest Algeria, where of course nobody would think of looking.  Now that would have been a way to end a career in style.

Where was I going with this, again? Oh yes- I don't think we should be too hard on Zizou, and would like to counter the sanctimonious bleatings of Lineker and his ilk by offering the following five-point plea in his defence:

1- You would think the World Cup until extra-time in the final had been conducted in an atmosphere of unparallelled fair play.  In fact the opposite was true.  Ever since Thierry Henry reacted to Puyol of Spain's slight push in the chest by throwing himself to the ground and writhing in agony holding his face for the best part of ten minutes, this tournament has offered an unappetising spectacle of pampered players diving, elbowing, and flinging themselves to the floor like tantrumming toddlers at bed-time.  Any tournament where the thuggish Wayne Rooney can stamp on an opposing player's bollocks and still be held up as some kind of Corinthian role model (even if admittedly only by the Daily Mirror) has got to have plunged to a new low where sportsmanship is concerned.  If we're going to damn Zidane for his actions we should at least be consistent, and damn the lot of them.   

2- The Italian called his mother a whore, for God's sake.  In Spanish.  And then reacted to Zidane's really quite charmingly amateurish so-called headbutt (as Glasgow kisses go, this was a mere peck on the cheek, far from the declarations of undying passion to be witnessed along Sauchiehall Street at closing time) by launching himself into a treble backwards somersault and then lying immobile and wailing on the pitch until he was quite sure the officials had noticed his predicament.  I wish they hadn't done, in which case Materazzo would have just had to stand up, dust himself down, and try to get on with the game as if nothing had happened.  Which is, of course, what he should have done in the first place.    

3- The match needed livening up just around then.  I mean come on, nothing of note had happened for the preceding twenty minutes.  As the spectre of penalties loomed, the French players were wandering around the pitch at walking pace, and if someone had placed a nice comfy sofa in the centre-circle the entire Italian midfield would have raced to curl up on it with a good book.  This is not what you want from a World Cup final.  You want passion.  You want incident.  You want the French captain to walk up to the nearest Italian and strike him clumsily in the chest with his head.

4 - You've got to say our man took his punishment with good grace.  You know, unlike our brave boy Rooney, who is seen by 70000 people and fifty high-definition cameras kicking a prone Portuguese defender in the bollocks, then still tries to claim it was all an accident.  I don't think Zizou thought for a moment he was going to escape unpunished- when the red card came he maintained his dignity, put his head down and walked.  He really should have got a hold of that cup on the way past and stuck it up his shirt, but you know, you can't have everything.

5- This is Zizou we're talking about, for God's sake.  The same man who single-handedly dismantled the Brazilians in the quarter-finals, at one point lobbing the ball quite calmly over the head of a fast-approaching hatchet man, collecting it as it dropped into space behind this bemused opponent, then sliding a geometrically perfect blindside through-ball into the path of an onrushing forward.  And that's just the highlight of this week; the guy has been pullling moves like that for fifteen years.  I think we can forgive him one moment of madness, don't you?

One moment of madness, after a decade and more of expressive virtuosity bordering on genius.  Let's remember that in a footballing age increasingly dominated by identikit players lined up in rigid formations and coached by faceless timeserving functionaries to within an inch of their lives, here was a rare, ungovernable talent, capable at any moment of picking the lock of the stubbornest defense with a shimmy and a delicately-chipped killer pass into a space no-one else had seen open up.  Let's remember Zizou for the good times- because we may not see his like again for a damn good while yet.   

Flixton- football inside and out

A Saturday lunchtime at the wrong end of the month, and my dwindling finances will not stretch to £16 to watch my nearest team- the resurgent Stockport County- continue their battle to retain League status in a home derby against Bury.  So I scan the local fixtures for budget football options, and my eye alights on another derby- Flixton Town versus Ashton United, in the North West Counties League (Division Two).  I make a call to make sure the fixture has beaten the Manchester drizzle, and a chirpy female voice answers.  At first, though, she doesn't seem sure which game I am wanting to see:

'Is the game on?  You mean, inside or out?'

'Er, out, I suppose.  You know, the Ashton game'.

'Oh, Flixton!  That's on all right.   Three o'clock kick off, love.'

By twenty to three I am standing in the still sparsely-populated clubroom bar of Flixton FC- opened in 1995, a plaque above the door reminds us, by none other than Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.  A giant screen on one wall is tuned in to an Arabic station with the sound turned down, showing adverts for Pepsi Cola and Snickers bars. The phone rings. 

'Inside or out?.... Yes we've got it on the big screen, love.'

The chirpy barmaid/ club secretary fields four more such calls during the next fifteen minutes, and soon the bar is filling up with 'big screen football supporters'- the type of people who will sit in a darkened room to watch illicit transmission of Bolton Wanderers against Manchester United in Arabic, while their local team plays a top-of-the-league derby in the flesh, just outside the bar-room door.  As three o'clock strikes I drain my pint- pointedly, in a way designed to express my disdain for these so called 'fans'- and stride out into the windy afternoon to take up my position, along with a smattering of like-minded diehards, on the touchline.

I suppose at this point I should make an admission- in a gesture not entirely in keeping with this stance of Saturday afternoon solidarity with grassroots football, I had just tried to get into the match without paying.  You see, the turnstile bloke had let me come into the ground via a side gate, so I could bring my bike in- and he didn't seem in any hurry to get any money off me, and... well, like I was saying, it is the end of the month, and, you know, maybe my support for non-league football would be better expressed by spending a fiver in this convivial-looking  barroom here than at the turnstiles... I mean, it amounts to the same thing, doesn't it- er, yes, I'll have a pint of Grolsch please, thanks very much- what's that you got on the big screen, Bolton v United is it, fair enough...

A tap on my shoulder interrupts my train of thought.  It is the stern-looking  old codger with the blazer and moustache who had accompanied me through the turnstiles.  Well, he had gone through the turnstiles while I nipped round the side.

'Excuse me son.  You haven't paid, have you?'

'Oh!  I'm sorry, you're right. I was confused by having to lock the bike up, you see, and-'

'Aye, nice try son.  Turnstile is back out that door'.

Of course, on the windy touchline, I find myself alongside the gruff old codger again.  Maybe he has identified me as a potential troublemaker, and decided to keep an eye on me, in the manner of a wily old full-back keeping tabs on a pacy visiting winger.  As the game kicks off I decide to keep my head down for a bit, and not indulge in any racy terrace banter during the opening exchanges.  I've made an arduous journey across Greater Manchester via train and bicycle to take in this one- the last thing I want is to be thrown out into the streets of Flixton for general cheekiness before a ball has even been kicked.

As the match gets underway I am beginning to question the value of that reluctant five pound outlay.  The wind swirls, and the ball spends more time in sky than on the unreliably bobbly surface.  The Flixton right-back is a nervy-looking young lad of maybe seventeen.  Every time he gets the ball his centre-back, a stout non-league yeoman twice his age, yells 'Just relax!', and of course the youngster panics, and slices his clearance straight over the main stand and out into the street.  For a good fifteen minutes this looks to be about the sum of the entertainment we are going to get for our fivers- but then, somewhat surprisingly- a football match breaks out.

The protagonist is the home right winger.  His name, I gather from the terrace diehards, is Kieron somethingorother, and he has a look of Kieron Dyer, the Newcaslte wideman, about him- as well as the same abililty to torment defenders with sheer pace.  On twenty minutes he scores the opener -a blistering cross-shot following an arrow-like run into the box ('Geronimo!', shout the locals, somewhat confusingly).  As half-time approaches the home team's balding, paunchy centre-forward, who looks like he would be more at home on an allotment than a football pitch, adds a second- and when this wily old campaigner is again on hand to convert a close range chance with an hour on the clock, it seems the match is over as a contest.

However the visitors are made of stern stuff, and, despite playing against the swirling wind for the second half, they mount a spirited late comeback which is rewarded by two goals, both close-range bouncing rebounds snaffled with aplomb by onrushing forwards.  Somewhere along the way the Ashton goalie gets in on the act, too- diving to his right to parry a harshly-awarded penalty.  Now things are really getting interesting, and with the tackles flying in thick and fast, and the coaches on the far-side rising enraged from their benches it seems for a moment we are going to rouind the afternoon off with a brawl.  The referee, though, has other ideas, and brings proceedings to a close with a short sharp blow on the whistle that says 'enough is enough'.  The crowd murmurs appreciatively for a moment, then turns its back on the departing players and heads for the clubroom to take in the last moments of Bolton v Manchester United in Arabic.

Myself, I've got a train to catch, so I detach the bike from its railings, and, still avoiding the gaze of the old codger with the the blazer and moustache (although he mellowed towards me in the second half and told me a story about how the Flixton goalie once scored a last-minute cup-tie equaliser with his head), I get on the bike and race back through the suburban streets to the deserted Saturday tea-time branchline station.  Fifteen minutes later I am back at Oxford Road.  There is a bloke coming down the stairs in a Stockport County shirt.

'How did they get on this afternoon?

'Lost- one-nil.  We were bloody dire.  Bloody dire!'

Sixteen pounds for 'bloody dire', or less than a third of that for a five-goal thriller, in a little ground nestled between the Old Trafford and the Manchester Ship Canal, with a saved penalty, an encounter with a bona-fide non-league codger, and just the suggestion of a late brawl thrown in for good measure.  I even got to catch the last five minutes of Bolton v United on the big screen, and marvel at the Arabic commentators heroic attempts to master the pronunciation of 'Wayne Rooney'. 

His best effort was something like 'Huwayne Huroonary', which I would say is worth a fiver on its own, at any time of the month.  You know what?  I may return to leafy Flixton one day- and next time I might even pay quite willingly to get in.  I certainly don't want to risk the wrath again of the scariest old codger in the whole of the North Western Counties League (Division Two).  Something tells me he's got my card marked.

The Geordie Chronicles- FA Cup Special Late Edition!

Ben at Black and White and Read All Over (NUFC-centric sister-blog of the same writer's Silent Words Speak Loudest) has been serialising some pieces I originally wrote for The Mag, and which later appeared over at Abby's Bonkworld, where they were collectively dubbed 'The Geordie Chronicles'.  Today's offering is timed to coincide with tonight's potentially very scary indeed quarter-final tie away at Chelsea (live on BBC1, 8:00PM, watch from behind the sofa armed with plentiful supplies of canned lager) and is the story of the twenty-three years of heartbreak inflicted on me by Newcastle's floundering travails in the FA Cup.  At least it was twenty-three years when the article first hit the Tyneside newstands.  It is now twenty-eight and counting.  A couple more and I will be able to hold the FA Cup personally responsible for the loss of all my hair, but that's another story.

Anyway, the story can be found here.  Go and read it- it's worth it, I promise (why my series of articles in the Mag never led to a lucrative broadsheet career as a prominent Gonzo journalist I will never know).  And hey- wish the lads well for tonight- something tells me we are going to need all the luck we can get this time out....

Twee teapots at the Imperial Hotel- a day out in Accrington

The trickiest part of a match report for me to come up with is often the bit concerning what actually happens on the pitch.  I leave the house full of good intentions to take diligent notes of the players' movements during the 90 minutes of action, but invariably by kick-off time have a good couple of pints inside of me (read: at least four pints, and probably a bag of pork scratchings) and am enjoying the match-day experience far too much to step back from it and start scribbling in a note book, for Christ's sake.  So, I will spend the next two hours singing and wailing at the top of my voice, sometimes paying more attention to the fat bloke in the away end with the big drum than to the intricate tactical manoevres/ mudbound clogfest thinly disguised as a football match being served up by the twenty-two players I have supposedly paid good money to watch ply their trade.  On the way home I will retrieve the soggy notebook from my pocket and find that my 'notes' for the game read, in their entireity, '4 mins.  Bramble.  Big hoof.  10 mins.  Bloke in funny hat calls linesman 'poofter'.  The next day I will cobble together a 'match report' including detailed analysis of the half-time pies, interspersed with some cursory reference to events on the pitch (dazzing wing-play, 19-man brawl, full-back running length of pitch to smash thirty-yard last-minute winner into top corner) lifted wholesale from some other, more reputable source and added almost as an afterthought.

So now you know. Anyway, this is all by way of telling you that on Sunday, when I despatched myself to the wilds of Lancashire to take in FC United's away fixture versus Great Harwood,  I had no such difficulties.  We'll come back to that in a bit.  First of all however, a lengthy digression concerning my journey to the ground.

It all started very bright and breezy.  The kick-off was set for 2PM, and I arrived at Victoria Station in good time for the 11:06 to Preston, from where I was due to take a connection across to the venue for the game, the ground of Accrington Stanley FC.  Most of the thirty or so FC United fans in attendance were forming a queue for overpriced victuals from the Java coffee stand.  I marched straight past them, up unfashionable Shudehill, and into the Abergeldie cafe, where for £2.75 a waitress brought delicious bacon on toast and coffee made in one of those vintage hissing 1960s machines directly to my formica table with slashed red leatherette seats.  1-0 to me, I thought. slurping the last of the coffee before making my way back down the slope to Platform Three. 

The train was standing ready to leave, but it wasn't going anywhere yet.  At 11:03 a harassed-looking employee of Northern Rail came running down the platform.  'We'll be a bit late getting off this morning, lads', he announced to the huddle of FC fans waiting to climb aboard.  'The driver's taxi hasn't turned up- he'll be here in ten minutes'.   Sure enough, a short fat man with uniform and suitcase (what do train drivers keep in those battered suitcases?  Their sandwiches?) presently came wheezing along the platform to ironic cheers from colleagues and supporters alike.  After a further short delay caused by a technical issue with the sliding doors- they were stuck fast so nobody could get in- we trundled off.  It was 11:22- we should still just have time to make our onward connection.

'Just' was the word, all right. At Preston I sprinted the length of the platform and made the 12:09 stopping service for Colne as the doors slid shut.  Surprisingly the bulk of the travelling support seemed to have drifted away, though; apart from a gaggle of excited teenagers off to the icerink at Blackburn, the carriage was nearly deserted.  They must have all gone for a pint at Preston, I thought.  As I would later find out, it was more likely they had been advised by mobile phone that a late pitch inspection was due, and with the overnight frost showing a reluctance to clear out in the wilds of Lancashire, there was some doubt the match would be going ahead.

Blissfully unaware of these troubling developments I alighted at Accrington, which at lunchtime on a Sunday was almost deserted.  The only sign of life came from the taxi rank, where bearded Asian drivers leant gossipping on the bonnets of their Toyota Carinas.  Pausing only to make a payphone rendezvous with my companion for the afternoon (a non-league football aficionado from the office who lives a stone's throw from the ground), I decamped to the nearest licenced establishment, the Imperial Hotel.

There was precious little imperial about it in there, let's say that for a start.  There was a notice on the wall warning any troublemakers that the establishment was wired straight through to the Police station, a pool table covered with bulky Karaoke apparatus, and giant signs scrawled in marker pen advertising Exeter City versus Accrington Stanley on Monday night Sky .  Behind the bar a regulation issue small-town fiftysomething hardman pored over the News of the World crossword, while in the darkness of a recess his only lunchtime customer- a bedgraggled, eccentric-looking pensioner with frightening teeth- carefully poured small helpings of Guinness out of a bottle into a half-pint glass.  Behind him, an array of variously-shaped tea-pots- the sort you see advertised in the Sunday supplements as limited collectors editions, decorated with twee drawings of kittens and roses- lined every available surface.  The disconcerting aura was topped off by the satellite TV, which for no apparent good reason was tuned into the London station Capital Gold.  On the news, Ken Livingstone was enthusing over the Chinese New Year celebrations in Leicester Square.  The clientele of the Imperial Hotel nodded in agreement with the Mayor's call for cultural enlightenment, then poured himself another helping of stout. 

Leaving the Imperial, which would surely be discarded as a set for a League of Gentlemen sketch for being overly outlandish, I met up with Pete, and we made our way, by car and foot, to Accrington Stanley's ground, situated in a leafy suburb a mile or so from the town centre.  We were within touching distance of the floodlights when we met a supporter coming the other way:

'You off to the game, lads?'

'Aye'

'Well you can forget about it- it's off!

Down by the turnstiles (well, we weren't about to turn back- we had come a long way, or at least I had) variations on this exchange were being repeated, in tones varying between hope, desperation and resignation.  The word 'off' reverberated among supporters gathered in the narrow alleyway:

'Is it really off?

'Aye, it's off all right'

'Off?  Did someone say off?

'He's never called it off?  Off?  You saying he's called it off?'

It was the frost, apparently- the referee had taken one look at the thin strip of white under the main stand and declared the surface unfit for play.  As the news sank in, a lad with a cardboard tray sidled among us.

'Pies! A pound your pies now!' 

But nobody was in the mood for discounted savouries.  Gradually the crowd thinned, leaving us standing on the side terrace (Pete had given a nod and a wink to the turnstile feller), casting our expert eyes over the pitch:

'There's nowt bloody wrong with it, is there?'

'Nowt at all- come on, let's go and get a pint'.

Well there was nothing else for it, was there?  So we headed back into the car, and across to the other side of town, where we stood gazing at another patch of grass, where until the 1960s had stood the ground of the original Accrington Stanley club, who were expelled from the League after falling into financial trouble.  Not that you would know now they had ever been there; this grass was more fit for walking the dog than playing League football, and of the ground itself, only a single brick wall remained; apparently this had once formed the back of the dressing rooms, built into the main stand.  You could still make out a faded inscription half way up:

'Erected by Supporters of Accrington Stanley FC, 1932'

Thankfully the neighbouring Peel Arms pub was still standing, and what's more, it was a damn sight more welcoming than the Imperial Hotel.  A couple of choice real ales and some animated conversation restored the faith in human nature that had been rocked by the bungling referee's contentious late postponement, and by four o'clock I was being dropped off back at the train station. All was well with the world again. 

There was a little bit of football in the end.  The train wasn't due for another 45 minutes (read: there was a train due in two minutes, but I had developed a thirst and wasn't in any hurry to get going) so, resisting the temptation of a return visit to the Imperial, I nipped into the slightly-less-scary Nags Head and took in the first half of Wolves against Manchester United in the cup.  On the way home the train was deserted again, except for that same gaggle of teenagers, now on the way back from the ice rink.  Presumably their entertainment hadn't been curtailed by the frost- but you know what, I didn't envy them.  After all who needs an actual match to watch when you can inspect two pitches, one of them disused for the best part of forty years, and sample the full range of pubs a Lancashire mill town has to offer?  Oh yes, it had been a great day out at the football, even if there was precious little football to be had.  I may return to Accrington Stanley one day- although perhaps I might give the Imperial Arms a miss next time out.  I'm really not that keen on those collector's edition tea pots.

We Hate Blackpool Mechanics; When Punk Football Came To Stockport

It was lunchtime at Levenshulme station when I realised this first footballing Saturday following the death of George Best would be an extraordinary one indeed.  The silence on Platform Two was broken by an high-pitched voice chanting 'Red Army', and seconds later a child of nine or so emerged from the stairwell accompanied by his father.  Both wore football scarves- the traditional 'bar' style,with no lettering disfiguring the red, white, and black stripes- and an unmistakeable sense of Saturday afternoon purpose.  I sidled over to make enquiries as to the kick-off time, and in the process revealed this was my first visit of the season to watch 'this lot'.  The dad shot me a conspirational glance:

'Oh, you'll enjoy it', he said.  'You'll enjoy it, all right'.

The father-and-son matching scarves were in the colours of Manchester United, but the 13:03 train was not bound for the Theatre of Dreams but for a more modest venue: Stockport County's Edgeley Park, where FC United of Manchester- the club formed by militant United fans in protest at the hostile takeover of their club by the American tycoon and baseball club owner Malcolm Glazer-were due to play their 'away' fixture versus Cheadle Town in the Second Division of the North West Counties League.

The term 'away' is used here advisedly.  The fixture was originally scheduled to take place at Cheadle's tiny ground, but, in common with most of FC United's away fixtures this season, has had to be moved to a larger venue in order to accommodate the visitors' phenomenal support; in a league where average crowds struggle to reach triple figures, 'FC' are regularly arriving accompanied by upwards of 2000 travelling supporters.  Backwater footballing towns like Leek and Winsford have never seen the like; this afternoon it will be Stockport's turn to witness what is already being called 'Punk Football'.   

After a short train ride and a couple of refreshment stops I find myself at the turnstiles- or rather, about forty yards from them.  There are just five minutes till kick-off, but the queue of red-and-white clad humanity is stretched right around the residential block skirting Edgeley Park.  It's pay-on-the-turnstile, you see, just like the old days- except, it is already apparent, without so much of  that old-fashioned nastiness.  As three-o-clock approaches with the queue showing no great signs of shortening there is none of the anger, pushing and shoving, and sudden intervention of police horses veterans of the terrace era will associate with such moments- just a good-humoured impatience to get in and join the massed ranks inside.  Sure enough, our good humour is rewarded with good sense on the part of the Edgeley Park staff-as I am clinking through turnstile 19, a  supervisor appears to instruct the operator 'never mind tickets, son- just get seven quid of each of them and get them in!'

It's supposedly all-seater in the Cheadle End, but as I climb the steps all are standing to carry out the one minute of applause for George Best, and nobody sits down when it finishes.  I find a place high up behind the goal, just on the edge of a tightly-packed row.  A harassed steward in a day-glo jacket moves among us, parading up and down the slither of yellow concrete that remains of the walkway.  'Keep this area clear, now.  No standing on the pathway', he intones.  Nobody takes a blind bit of notice.  Eventually the young functionary dissappears, muttering darkly to himself- something about it never being like this when Sale Sharks are in town, I fondly imagine.  Down below us, a football match has sprung into action. 

On the terrace the play is being followed, of course- but without, at this early stage, the kick-by-kick intensity- all plaintive, individual shouts of 'come off it. linesman!', and 'Man On!'- that you will find at a league game. The truth is everybody is too busy singing to get worked up in an unseemly manner over the odd misplaced pass.  And make no mistake, the variety of songs on offer here more than makes up for the occasional lack of quality on the pitch.  Within twenty minutes I take part in more terrace ditties than in the last five seasons of sitting in sometimes libraryesque Premiership stands.    There are old time numbers- including, of course an anthem to the departed Best- and Old Trafford favourites of a more recent vintage, including one which, as a Newcastle fan, I pointedly don't join in with, as it extols the comparitive value for money offered by Ole Gunnar Solksjaer over one-time United transfer target Alan Shearer.  But the numbers belted out with most gusto of all are a whole raft of newly-composed protest songs targeting the hated Glazer regime.

It's not just the American tycoon who comes in for some stick, though.  Among ditties making unflattering comparison between the facial features of the new chairman and those of a garden gnome, the massed ranks of the Cheadle find time to make the surprising claim that FC's rather, er, uncomplicated centre-back is 'better than Rio', and also to show a healthy lack of respect for that one-time socialist firebrand turned corporate apologist Sir Alex Ferguson.  Notably, that pre-season jibe in which Fergie said fans may as well 'go watch Chelsea' as follow this upstart, no-hope rabble of a Fan's team is remembered with no little glee.

Oh, and the football: I had nearly forgotten. Cheadle, who earlier in the season came out of a cup-tie between the teams on the wrong end of a 5-1 hiding, score first through Lindon, but find themselves 2-1 behind by the break courtesy of strikes by Torpey and Carden.  They keep plugging away, though, and to the obvious astonishment of their fifty-strong support huddled together for warmth in the main stand, find themselves 3-2 up with just five minutes remaining- Brain and Martin having upended the scoreboard with a well-worked strike apiece.  It seems this will be the end of matters- until the visitors are awarded a late, and slightly contentious, penalty. 

The outstanding FC performer of the day, a subistute winger named Paterson, steps forward to take- a trifle too confidently for my liking. As he waits for the protests of the Cheadle players to subside, the fellow is actually playing keepy-uppy with the ball on the penalty spot.  I seem to recall the young Ryan Giggs putting on a similar exhibition prior to missing a vital shoot-out kick against Southampton in the cup, and express fears of a repeat.  'Oh, this guy's more like Cantona', says the bloke behind me.  'Never misses.'  Sure enough, he does- smashing the twelve-yarder off the inside of the post and back into play. 

Surely now, it seems FC are set for only their second defeat of this barnstorming first season- but we are not finished yet.  As the first signs of anxiety start to creep across the away end (and not before time, we are in the ninety-third minute now) a far-post cross is nodded exultantly home by Chadwick (no, not that one) triggering scenes of mass jubilation; it may be the North Western Counties League in 2005 but it could be a balmy, balmy summer's night in Barcelona six years ago for all these lot seem to care. As we move towards the exits a song goes up that seems to sum it all up (you will recognise the tune):

'We Hate Blackpool Mechanics, we Hate Cheadle Town Too (and Flixton). We Hate Manchester City, but United We Love You'.

And it really does seem, as we stream back out into the tightly-packed Edgeley sidestreets, that FC United of Manchester is beginning to mean as much to these displaced Stretford Enders as the original footballing love of their lives ever did.  This impression is confirmed afterwards in the Armoury (I've had to go for a post-match pint just to calm down), when I get talking to a couple of them.  Andy from Heaton Moor is a Stockport fan who had been dragged along by his mate Tim from Didsbury, a Old Trafford  season-ticket holder of fifteen years's standing.  Tim says he won't buy official United merchandise- or pay for the likes of MUTV- any more, and the only thing stopping him giving up the season ticket altogether is 'the emotional connection'.  Other fans- especially those who never had season tickets to start with- have deserted Old Trafford altogther in favour of following the 'Fans' Team'.

And don't think it's all down to Glazer, either- the gnome-lookalike's takeover may have been the catalyst for the FC phenomenon, but Tim is typical when he talks of tickets at £50 a shot to get into Stamford Bridge, and the exhorbitant contract demands of the errant Ferdinand as issues which first caused him to question a lifetime of unswerving loyalty to the Old Trafford cause.  There is more here than meets the eye.

Myself, I have no troublesome matters of historical allegiance to wrestle with- at least until my team, Newcastle United, forms a Punk Football Fan's Club to rival this one in ambition.  Today, I'm just a football fan who came for a day out and found himself transported to some alternative universe- a sort of joyful, hooligan-free version of the 1980s, before seats, Sky and sponsor-friendly sanitisation started to suck the last remaining drops of fun from the Saturday afternoon footballing experience. 

Remember fun?  Something tells me I may be back for more of it- and that regardless of the outcome of the Old Trafford power-struggle, so will thousands of disenfranchised football supporters like me.  FC United of Manchester play home games at Bury's Gigg Lane every fortnight, and on alternate Saturdays, travel to footballing outposts the length and breadth of the North-West and Midlands.  People of Flixton, Blackpool, or Glossop, be prepared: punk football- and some rather uncomplimentary songs about Rio Ferdinand- are coming your way soon.

Saturday Afternoon Safari- Part 2

The goalkeeper's mother-in-law was right- it really is only a five-minute walk from the Star boozer to the HQ of Glossop North End FC, who I have travelled from the suburbs of Manchester to watch this afternoon in action against Romulus (whoever they may turn out to be) in the First Round Proper of the FA Vase.  However I still have time to bump into another acquaintance of the home team's playing staff.  Ambling up Surrey Street I ask final directions of a young teenage boy who has just emerged from a terraced house followed by a fierce-looking pit bull terrier.  'Oh, are they at home this afternoon?', he replies.  'My brother might be playing.  Hey, Brian!'.  These last two words are accompanied by a stern point of the forefinger towards the inside of the house, in response to which the dog whimpers in disappointment before turning on its heels.  The boy slams the door shut behind it and follows me up Surrey Street to the turnstiles.  It is five minutes to three- we should be just in time for kick-off.    

At first sight it looks as though we could have done with bringing Brian the Pit Bull Terrier with us, if only in order to swell the crowd to that staple if cliched attendance figure of non-league football, two men and a dog.  The railings around the touchline are all but deserted, and on the far side of the pitch, prospective FA Vase spectators are comfortably outnumbered by grazing sheep.  Just as I am preparing mysef for a long, windswept and lonely afternoon on the crumbling terraces, a peel of laughter in the middle distance alerts me to the whereabouts of the crowd- they are all still in the club bar, soaking up the last few moments of Chelsea versus Arsenal on Sky TV- and maybe one last pint of best bitter- before braving the unseasonal chill outside.

In the Gents I get talking to a man in his sixties whose Chelsea baseball cap reveals he has more excuse than most to stay with the televised action until the last possible moment.  In the twenty seconds it takes us to reach the side of the pitch I am provided with a cheerful rundown of this elderly supporter's recent medical history ('They reckon it's an ulcer- right on the lining of me stomach!') as well as an assertion as to his true loyalties.  'Glossop's my team,', he announces, the accent veering alarmingly between Chas n Dave and Little 'n' Large.  'Glossop through and through, mate!'.

We have arrived pitchside just in time to see the eleven men of North End- clad Chelsea-style in all-blue- emerging from the Portakabins serving as changing facilities.  I take a place on the covered terracing just one-side of half-way, on the edge of a vocal group made up of the displaced Chelsea fan and a half-dozen of his fellow die-hards, who, it is immediately apparent, have all been coming for years and enjoy a status here akin to that of the feared Ultra Sur of Real Madrid.  Together they form a similarly intimidating sight for the away support- or at least they would if there was any away support, and if they weren't all old enough to be the Ultra Sur's grandads.  As it is, my presence brings the average age of the North End Bovver Boys down to about fifty-eight.

As I am completing this mental calculation I realise the match is underway.  The action on the pitch is fast and furious but in true non-league fashion the supporters are cheerfully ignoring the football in favour of taking every opportunity to heap loud abuse on the match officials.  In the first fifteen minutes the linesman nearest to us- a young, timid-looking great beanpole of a man who looks like he would rather be at home washing his car- has given four throw-ins, flagged for offside twice, and been called 'a useless lanky bastard' on approximately sixteen occasions. 

While near-anarchy reigns on the terraces, the match settles into a comfortably familiar pattern of aimless helter-skelter scurrying.  And then, disconcertingly, a football match breaks out.  Glossop win a penalty which is converted with aplomb by a young blond centre-forward.  'He's our darling, that one!', the Chelsea fan advises me- a comment which is notable for being the first time all day a local has referred to one of the players without claiming some close family connection.   Just as I am reeling from this shock, Romulus go up the other end and score- twice.  The second is actually scored for them by a Glossop defender, who somehow contrives to meet an away corner with the side of his head and send it ricocheting into the top of the net.  'Hellfire, Blues!, shouts one of the aged Ultras, amid an outbreak of mumbling.  Discontent is short-lived, however.  The pacy blond darling of the side terracing is clear again, and plants a firm finish under the advancing Romulus goalie.  Two-two at half-time then, which means I have already had one goal for each pound of my turnstile admission.  Along with what looks like the entire crowd (with the possible exception of Brian the Pit Bull's young owner) I retire to the club bar to celebrate this happy turn of events.

The second half passes in a haze of further goals, blustery rain and Embassy Regal fumes.  Glossop have the upper hand and lead 6-2 with ten minutes to go.  The denizens of the side terrace are at pains to let me know they don't always get it so good.  'You should have been here last Tuesday night mate', one of them shouts across.  'Lost three-one to Maine Road in driving sleet- bloody diabolical, they were!'.  I demur gracefully, happy to accept that I will need at least thirty years more service to the all-blue cause before hoping to be accepted as a true fanatic.  The die-hard in the Chelsea hat sounds like he has been coming for nearly that long, and until last week I imagine he was viewed by the true-born locals as some kind of dangerous dilettante.

Back on the pitch the visitors Romulus, roared on by their impressive away support of absolutely nobody at all (they're from the outskirts of Sutton Coldfield, which I suppose is some excuse), rouse themselves for the last ten minutes of play and launch a spirited comeback which is only curtailed by the referee's final whistle ('and about bloody time too, you daft useless old bugger!') with the home team hanging on perilously to a 6-4 winning margin.  North End are safely through to the second round- sorry, the second round proper, whatever that means- of the FA Vase. 

Six-four, though!  The meter has stopped at just forty pence a goal, so I am duty-bound to celebrate with one last pint back at The Star.  The goalkeeper's mother-in-law is still behind the bar.  'How did he get on?', she asks.  'Well' I start, 'the bad news is he let in four.  Do you want the good news?'  I take a bag of peanuts for good measure and settle down to give any other interested parties a full and unbiased account of an enjoyable afternoon spent in the grip of that frighteningly virulent malady, FA Vase fever.  By the time I have finished I quite fancy coming back for another dose in a few weeks' time.  Hell, they already know my face in The Star; in just a few short decades I could be accepted as one of the wizened Ultras of the side terracing.  Glossop through and through, indeed.

Saturday Afternoon Safari

For the seasoned football supporter, the concourse of a mainline train station late on Saturday morning holds much the same fascination as the African savannah must do for a trained naturalist at the height of the migration season.   This thought comes to me as, bringing a plastic pint of lager to my lips with the same practiced movement as David Attenborough employs to focus his field binoculars, I peer out over the balcony of the Yates Wine Lodge at Manchester Piccadilly and take in the colourful array of 'wildlife' on the move. 

Down in front of the departure board, for example, that herd of creatures with unmistakeable blue-and-white quartered torsoes must be Bristol Rovers supporters on their way north to Preston.  And in the queue at Costa Coffee, a flash of red alerts me to what looks like a mating pair of exiled Liverpool fans, taking a short rest before the last short leg of their flight to Anfield for the fixture versus Crystal Palace.  And that lone red-and-white striped beast chomping meditatively on a cornish pastie at the entrance to WH Smiths?  That's a tricky one- but a quick perusal of the Daily Mirror fixture guide rules out Sunderland, who make the short trip south to Middlesbrough this afternoon, and places the smart money on this being an example of a rarer species, an aficionado of Lincoln City, caught half-way into the arduous journey West to Blackpool.

I could stand here all afternoon indulging in this Saturday afternoon safari, but I've got a train to catch.  Not for me, mind you, the bright lights of the Premiership, or even the dimly-lit backstreets of League Division 2.  I am taking a trip to the real grass-roots of the game this afternoon- I'm off to Glossop, a market town just across the Derbyshire border, to watch the town's North End FC take on Romulus (whoever they may turn out to be) in the First Round Proper of the FA Vase.

This short trip- just half-a-dozen local stops out of Piccadilly-hadn't been my intention at all twenty-four hours earlier.  All week I have been telling anyone who would listen that I am off to Carlisle to watch my 'second' league team Stockport County.  But a combination of the early morning start and the extortionate train fare has caused me to reconsider, and after a brief flirtation with the heady allure of Hyde United against Redditch in the Nationwide Conference, the promise of knockout football a couple of stations further East has won the day.  I board the 13:02 for Hadfield positively brimming with that little-reported ailment, FA Vase fever.

Arriving at my destination with an hour and a half to go to kick-off, I decamp across the road to The Star, which I recall from a visit a decade ago to be a rare friendly boozer in a town, despite its comparative prosperity, notorious for drinking dens that wouldn't be out of place in the Wild West.  The cheery landlady, who seems only a little surprised that anyone would be interested enough in the fortunes of Glossop North End to travel from the suburbs of Manchester to watch them in a cup-tie, remarks in passing that her son-in-law will probably be in goal for the home team this afternoon.  Now that's something you won't get in the Premiership.

There is plenty of time for a pint or two (the goalkeeper's mother-in-law has assured me that the distance from the town centre to its 'north end' can be measured in yards, not miles) so I settle into a quiet corner of the bar with the Glossop Chronicle.  It has been a busy week out here, apparently.  The shocking news of a toaster catching fire at the hospital (loss to life was averted when an alert canteen assistant pounced with a damp tea-towel) has been relegated to page two by the startling discovery of an escaped pet boa constrictor in the grounds of the secondary school.   This momentous development is given the in-depth treatment one would expect from a serious publication such as the Glossop Chronicle; there are interviews with the children who discovered the errant (but harmless) snake; their teacher; the relieved pet-owners; and finally, with the snake itself, who reveals it was attempting to make a break from the tedium of small-town life and start a new life in Droylsden.

For a moment I wonder whether the excitement of Glossop might prove too much for a simple Manchester lad like myself.  But no, I have a football match to go to- and so, fortified by a further pint of best bitter, I step out of The Star and begin the short journey to Surrey Street, home of Glossop North End FC.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Those County stories in full

Possibly a bit late for this I know, but those of you who have been arriving here via Martin and Caz's Peels On Wheels may be wondering where all the County stories are.  So to save you trawling around here they are, all in one place:

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2004/08/edgy_in_edgeley.html

(the first game of last season, Huddersfield at home, a 2-3 defeat after being briefly in front- it didn't get a lot better, did it?)

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2004/10/so_heres_to_you.html

(oh I had forgotten this one; again it starts in the Unity pub on the A6 but ends up this time with Oldham at home, a 1-2 defeat)

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2004/11/were_not_waving.html

(Sheffield Wednesday at home, 0-3- the results are getting worse, but hopefully the stories are at least keeping you entertained...)

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2004/11/a_loan_star_nam.html

(Huddersfield again, this time in the cup.  Some bloke called Smith comes on loan and brghtens up a freezing afternoon in front of a sparse crowd.  And County win! 3-1!!)

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2004/11/the_genius_of_p.html

(Walsall at home- Paul Merson comes to town and entertains us all with a series of comedy walks... unfortunately County seem determined to respond with a display of comedy football, so it is back to the familiar scoreline- 0-1)

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2005/03/across_the_penn.html

(My first trip to watch County away- and it's Huddersfield again- again!.  The departing Feeney notches a hat-trick, but under the admiring gaze of a giant statue of Harold Wilson the Terriers run out victorious from an 8 goal thriller).

and finally for now....

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2005/08/across_the_penn.html

and

http://crinklybee.typepad.com/crinklybee/2005/09/across_the_penn.html

(the story- in two parts- of the recent trip to Boston, for a game that ended 2-2. Of course all of County's games end level nowadays- do they think it is 3 points for a draw?.

So there you are.  Eight County stories so far, which is more than I thought there were.   There will be more as the season progresses, from home, and maybe the odd few more away...).  Until then, up the Hatters...

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....