I’d done the Uni stuff that was of interest to me in Chelmsford and so skipped the final session of the day. That meant that I had time to call in at Barnston on the way home to see some action in the eleventh tier Essex and Suffolk Border League Premier Division. It’s a game that I very much doubt I’d have known about before the advent of the Futbology App.
It was free entry to the High Easter ground and I was able to get into the car park outside the clubhouse. There were around twenty people watching, most of them with a pint in their hand. I started off leaning against the perimeter fence along one side and gradually worked my way around the pitch. There weren’t any seated areas.
Barnston were in blue with Lawford Lads in white and light blue. The standard was well below the equivalent Wearside league with lots of fat lads stumbling around and falling over as if they’d had a pre-match pint or three. Despite, or maybe because of the lack of talent on show, there was plenty of stick dished out to teammates, opposition, and the ref alike. I don’t think I’d appreciate criticism from someone who struggled to run ten yards without tripping over his own feet.
For what it’s worth, Barnston took the lead in the first half and then added two more after the break for a three-nil victory.
For the past four years I’ve been doing some college stuff in Chelmsford and so usually head down there for some chit-chat every few months. Whilst I’ve still not managed to see Chelmsford City play, I usually try and tag a game onto the weekend either on the way down or when coming back.
On this occasion I targeted a Friday night FA Trophy Qualification game in Potters Bar, which although around an hour’s drive from Chelmsford, made it an easy journey the following morning for those ten o’clock starts that are the norm in the academic world.
The other attraction of that game was the opportunity to stay at the Comet Hotel in Hatfield. It’s somewhere that I’d last stayed back in 1981 after leaving home as a sixteen year old following a house party that resulted in all sorts of damage including a toilet bowl with a sheared off front section.
It’s all a long story, that if I got into, I’d be here all day. Anyway, those of you who were around in those days will know how it all panned out. Pun intended. Suffice to say, the nerd in me found the idea of revisiting the Comet Hotel forty-two years on an interesting prospect.
It was of less interest to the receptionist, whose eyes glazed over as she came to regret asking me if I’d stayed with them before. I cut the tale short there as well and headed for the match at the LA Construction Stadium.
I’d not had time to eat before leaving the hotel and so called into a chippy on the row of shops outside the ground. It was nearly twelve quid for fish and chips. How can that be? They were southern style as well, with the skin left on the fish. Dirty bastards. We should start selling jellied eels up our way and top them with breadcrumbs and bechamel sauce to see how they like that.
It was thirteen quid in for a game between sides in the seventh tier. Something which I should have been more outraged about than the fish and chips, but as Mogga would say, it is what it is. I took a seat in a three-row covered stand along one side. There was another one a little further along as well as three covered standing areas in other parts of the ground. I like it when grounds evolve like that, with an additional space to sit or stand appearing every few years, perhaps as ground improvement requirements after promotion.
Potters Bar Town had a lot of debutants, suggesting that either they weren’t prioritising the FA Trophy or perhaps they were suffering from an injury crisis. At this level it’s also possible that there had been a management change and the outgoing boss had taken his players with him like a pied piper. They were in a maroon kit with Berkhamsted in white and black, so imagine Hearts v Darlo.
The ref seemed familiar, but I soon concluded that was because he was a dead ringer for that posh army major who was rattling Lady Di back in the day.
It started badly for the home side when a Berkhamsted striker who was miles offside and ambling back towards his own half had the good fortune to be played onside by a Potters Bar defender who inexplicably headed the ball towards his keeper. The attacker swivelled and whacked it past the goalie who, on his debut, must have been wondering just what shitshow he had got himself into.
It turned out ok in the end though with Potters Bar taking control and running out four-one winners. I headed back to the Comet Hotel, where nothing except part of the building façade seemed to be as I remembered it. Maybe I’ll come back in another forty-two year’s time. I doubt it though.
After the wins against Southampton and Watford, I was hoping that we could continue the run against play-off placed Cardiff. Alistair was available to come along with Harry and I and we were there early enough for him to have a go on one of the game consoles in the Generation Red area of the ground where we sit.
I watched him for a while, playing Manchester United against Manchester United. It was the same players on either side and therefore a fairly well-matched contest. So much so that it ended up nil-nil. Thankfully he didn’t opt for a replay, and we were able to let some other kid have a crack at it.
There was a better outcome on the real pitch. After a quiet first half Cardiff had the chance to go ahead when hitting the woodwork, before Jones tapped in a cross from close range for us. We scored a second goal towards the end when Latte-Lath broke at pace, checked his run with a trip and then recovered to finish with the coolness of someone who hadn’t just fell over his own feet in front of twenty-odd thousand people.
That was enough to clinch the points and move us up from the edge of the relegation area to the dizzy heights of sixteenth place in the table.
Vicarage Road is one of two Championship grounds that I’d not yet been to and so when I found myself back in the UK it was an easy decision to head south for a couple of nights. I had thought about staying in London but as I’ve never knowingly been to Watford thought we might as well see what it had to offer.
There’s a busy town centre where we ate and drank in a Spanish bar on the Friday night. They served draught Estrella Galica which took me back to my Ferrol days, although I suspect that it’s probably now brewed in Tadcaster or somewhere.
London has its attractions though and on the Saturday morning we took a Metropolitan Line train into the city for the Paul McCartney photo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was the final weekend before it moved on to the US.
It was worth a visit to see the two hundred and fifty or so photos that he taken around the world in 1963 and ’64. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of seeing or hearing new Beatles stuff.
We were staying in the Watford Travelodge and so it was only a fifteen minute or so walk to Vicarage Road. I was able to just follow the crowd through the backstreets to the ground. I was hoping that we might have turned the corner after our poor early season form, with wins in the League Cup against Bradford and over recently relegated Southampton in the League.
It was an end-to-end game that could have gone either way. Riley McGree scored twice for us in the opening twelve minutes, before Watford quickly pulled one back. When Watford levelled in the second half my expectations of taking anything from the game were minimal. I was wrong though, with Josh Coburn beating their keeper in a one-on-one and then the bar coming to our rescue in added time.
The win lifted us out of the relegation area on goal difference and Jen and I celebrated in a Romanian restaurant. It was decorated in a way that our house may end up one day if we don’t tone down impulse eBay purchases. I think we might have been the only non-Romanians in there but from what I can remember of the rest of the evening it was as enjoyable as the match had been.
Trail of the Lion King 