Harrogate isn’t too far away and I’d had a trip in mind for a while. My intention had been to supplement a game with some tea and cake at Betty’s or maybe have a drink of sulfurous spa water. In the end though I didn’t bother with any of the add-ons and just drove straight to Harrogate Railway Athletic’s Station View ground for a Northern Counties East League Cup game with Ilkley Town.
The ground was buried deep inside a housing estate, and I had to do a couple of laps of the perimeter before I found the entrance. It was just as hard to find a parking space, but fortunately I made it just before kick-off.
It was five quid admission. I bought a programme and was given a team sheet. I’d estimate that there were around a hundred spectators, mainly leaning against the barrier on one side of the ground. There were a few people and a couple of spaniels on the opposite side on an elevated standing. I got myself a sausage sandwich and took up a seat in a five-row covered stand behind one of the goals.
Tony Dorigo sat a few seats along from me. A lot of the locals were pestering him, not Shearer in Newcastle levels, but enough that it would piss me off if I were him. I kept my distance. Maybe his winning goal in the Zenith Data final still rankles. Some bloke sold me a fiver’s worth of raffle tickets and then revealed that the prize was a bottle of wine. I suspect that I could have bought the prize for not much more than that.
A few kids were winding up the Ilkley keeper and earned a telling off from an old bloke who looked like he thought he was important. He threatened to have them thrown out if they crossed his path again.
It was goalless at half-time and I went for a slash. I was warned that the toilets were in a sorry state. It looked like there had been a gangland shooting in one of the cubicles, but it was nothing more than ketchup squirted from sachets all over the walls, bowl and floor.
Whilst I don’t envy whoever had to clean it up, I had a wry smile at the prospect of the officious bloke finding out. Not surprisingly there was no sign anywhere of the young kids that he had been berating earlier. It’s what kids do. I remember super glueing dead moles to the ceiling of a toilet block as a kid, as if they were defying gravity to walk around upside down. I doubt I’d do it nowadays, being a grown-up and all, particularly a grown-up without ready access to mole corpses.
There were no goals in the second half either and the tie went straight to pens. By this time, I was stood near the dugouts and overheard one of the Harrogate coaching staff asking his players ‘does anyone want to go first?’
The distinct lack of penalty planning wasn’t an issue though as Harrogate prevailed to take their place in the next round.
Tags: dead moles, gangland ketchup wars, nasty tasting water, Zenith Data Systems Cup Final
Trail of the Lion King 
Leave a comment