Torch FC v Pennsylvania Classics, Sunday 5th June 2022, 6pm

June 7, 2022

After spending a couple of nights in a hut on top of a hill in Kempton Jen and I moved on to the nearby town of Buckingham. It’s another small place and less than sixty miles from Newark Airport where we’ll need to swap hire cars.

Jen had noticed that there was a heritage railway on the way and so we stopped to take a ride. The conductor was an friendly fella to chat to and despite having worked there since ’76, a relative new boy compared to some of the other volunteers. There was an old bloke sat near to us who spoke just like Paulie Walnuts. I made sure that I did nothing to upset him.

Buckingham has a nearby nature reserve and so we spent a couple of hours following some of the trails. I’d been hoping to stumble across bears and snakes like our last visit to the states, but the most we saw were squirrels and a heron. It was still a worthwhile wander about though and with plenty of tree cover we managed to spend most of our time in the shade.

One of the other advantages of Buckingham was that there was a fourth tier fixture scheduled for the evening of our arrival and as it was only twenty-minutes down the road we popped along. Torch FC were taking on Pennsylvania Classics in the Keystone Conference of the National Premier Soccer League. It’s a short competition with the eleven teams in the league playing each other just the once and all within a seven week period.

The game took place at Pennridge High School. There wasn’t a fixed price for admission but a suggested donation of ten dollars a head. Whilst it struck me as expensive for a fourth-tier game, we’d paid twice that for third-tier Richmond a few days earlier and so I coughed up. We were given a free programme which was a pleasant surprise.

Refreshments were better value with Jen getting a one dollar pretzel whilst I went big on a two dollar hot-dog.

I learned from the programme that Torch FC are a sort of Christian missionary project, a ministry through sport. Prior to the national anthem, which was sung by the club president from the commentary box, there was a prayer thanking God for providing a sunny day suitable for football. I’m sure there are plenty of football fans that will offer up a prayer during a game, more likely in respect of the result rather than the weather, but I’ve always thought that if there were any gods listening they’d have better things to do than get caught up in sporting events, particularly obscure ones.

Having said that, I’ve probably got better things to do most of the time than attending lower tier fixtures, so who’s to say that gods don’t have a similar mindset and are happy to prioritise prayers for minor leagues over major pandemics.

Once again, the pitch was cluttered with markings for a variety of sports in different colours. I reckon that six different activities took place on the pitch, including lacrosse. One benefit, I suppose, was that the ref was able to avoid pacing out ten yards at a free-kick and instead simply referred the players to the American Football one-yard markings to determine the placing of the wall.

Torch were in white with an orange trim, whilst Pennsylvania Classiscs were in a dark blue and teal kit. The players were all very polite, some of them referring to the ref as ‘sir’. We should adopt that in England.

Not a lot happened for most of the first half. Torch rattled a post a few minutes from the break before opening the scoring a couple of minutes into added time when the keeper flapped at a cross and someone tapped home from close range.

Torch doubled their lead on the hour before Classics notched a couple of goals to level the scores with fifteen minutes remaining. The points went Torch’s way though with a disputed late penalty that led to off the ball head-butting and a distinctly un-Christian reluctance from those involved to turn the other cheek.

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Reading United AC Reserves v Ocean City Nor’easters Reserves, Saturday 4th June 2022, 2pm

June 6, 2022

After our stay at Richmond Jen and I headed further north. The two hundred and eighty-five mile drive to Kempton in Pennsylvania seemed like nothing after the nine hour stint from Bryant to Richmond and the shorter trip meant that we had time to break the journey at Gettysfield.

There’s a museum there which is mainly outdoors. If you wanted to do it justice you’d have to drive around the twenty-four mile suggested route, but as we only had a couple of hours we limited our involvement to wandering around the cemetery where Lincoln made his famous address and having a look at a couple of the battlefield sites.

There was a lot of interesting info and with it following on from a visit to the Civil War Museum in Richmond I’m starting to get a better understanding of what went on in the 1860s over here.

Kempton is pretty quiet and we’d picked a remote place to stay in the countryside. Our cabin was off-grid in that it had no electricity or running water but all of that was available at the bottom of the hill.

We had a firepit though and once it got dark, a fantastic view of the stars.

I was hoping to see some wildlife and we weren’t disappointed. A deer paid a visit early morning and then returned at dusk. I regretted not buying the deer corn advertised at many of the petrol stations that we’d passed as we might have been able to tempt it closer in.

As ever, I looked to see what games were going on locally and there was one forty minutes away in Reading. The town sounded familiar and when I checked I discovered that it was the town where John Updike grew up and was thinly disguised as Harry Angstrom’s Brewer in the Rabbit novels.

Even better, Updike’s childhood house in the suburb of Shillington has been turned into a museum and we called in for a mooch around pre-match. It was well-presented and restored to the way it looked in his childhood with lots of photographs and memorabilia. Nearby was Updike’s old school and the inspiration for Rabbit’s High School basketball career. I’d have liked to have seen a game there and imagined it in the fifties.

After the house visit, we headed for the game at Alvernia University Stadium. The fixture was between the reserve sides of Reading United and Ocean City Nor’easters. Both of the regular sides play in the fourth tier USL League 2 and this game was a curtain raiser to the full fixture later in the evening.

Reading were in yellow and black with Ocean City in light and dark blue. The standard wasn’t too good but if it’s players who can’t quite make the fourth tier then that’s not unexpected.

I spent some time watching three buzzards circling the pitch. If I were a player, I doubt I’d go down easily and then play dead. There might be consequences that you wouldn’t get elsewhere.

The Alvernia University Stadium holds around five thousand with uncovered seating down one side of an artificial pitch. Once again, the pitch was marked for a variety of sports and this time the American Football posts were still in position with the soccer goals fitting beneath.

Jen and I found a table with a parasol to the edge of one of the stands. It wasn’t the best view in that I had to look through railings and had no sight of the far goal, but you can’t turn down a spot out of the sun.

My groundhopping rules were put to the test when I noticed that there were no linesmen. In the past I’ve not counted games in those circumstances. However, it was clearly a ‘proper’ match and on the basis that if something as important as the Ministerial Code can be revised or ignored when it proves inconvenient then I’m happy to change my no linesman rule to being just something to take into account when deciding the status of a game rather than an absolute deal-breaker.

The visitors went three up in the first half. Whilst I saw the crosses going in, I didn’t see any of them put into the net due to my poor view.

Nor’easters continued to dominate in the second half and added a fourth goal fifteen minutes from time after a break down the left. A fifth came soon afterwards with a calm finish from around ten yards out. With the goals coming at ‘my’ end, I was able to see them both in full.

On the drive out through Reading I tried to imagine it as Brewer. The area that we passed through had a more suburban feel than I’d imagined in Rabbit, Run, but fitted the later novels much better. I’d like to return sometime and take a longer look around.

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Richmond Kickers v Chattanooga Red Wolves, Wednesday 1st June 2022, 6.30pm

June 6, 2022

After leaving Alabama we drove up to Richmond, the state capital of Virginia. It’s a fair distance between the two and the five hundred and sixty odd miles drive took the best part of nine hours.

We stayed in a quiet district, where a lot of the houses were more than a century old. That, as the janitor mentioned to me, is a big deal over here. I told him that St Mary’s church at Norton is around a thousand years old, but graciously highlighted that we rarely get hurricanes twirling their way across the Green.

There wasn’t a great deal that we wanted to do in Richmond, but we did call into a civil war museum that had some interesting exhibits. After our epic drive north, I was surprised to learn that Virginia fought with the South but as in England I suppose that your perception of where north changes to south depends on where you are from.

One of the reasons that I’d picked Richmond was that there was a football game scheduled for the time that we were there. Richmond Kickers were taking on Chattanooga Red Wolves in the third-tier USL League One.

The Kickers claim to be the longest continually existing football club in the US. I’ve no idea if that’s true or what qualifiers might apply to it, but a quick check suggests that their history goes back to the nineties rather than the seventies and what might be regarded as the golden era for US soccer.

It was $20 dollars to get in, although we could have paid less if we had booked in advance of the matchday. As the City Stadium was only a half-hour walk from where we were staying we were able to have a drink. Jen got wine in a can whilst I had a couple of pints of IPA. Unlike at the supermarket, we weren’t asked for ID. Presumably I look over twenty-one when outdoors.

Our general admission tickets entitled us to sit in the shade up against the back wall. I was pleased to see that it was a grass pitch with no markings other than those necessary for a proper football game. There were two main uncovered stands, but only one was open, restricting the potential capacity from around twenty-two thousand to nine thousand.

Pre-match announcements included a description of the ref as the ‘Head Referee’ and adverts for partners such as the Official Pest and Termite Control Affiliate. I wonder if the likes of Man United have one of those.

Kickers were in white with Red Wolves in red. I think the policy in this league might be that in the event of a clash, the home team is the one to switch kits. There were probably around four hundred people watching including a lively group with drummers and flares.

It was a fairly even contest until around ten minutes from half-time when Kickers went one up with a header from a corner. A couple of minutes later they repeated the move to double their lead. A curler from outside the box made it three before the break and effectively sealed the points.

At half-time I toured the food trucks and got us some pulled pork and tater tots, which are a sort of chicken nugget sized hash brown. I also had a different IPA from one of the stalls. There was certainly a much better choice of beers than I’m used to at the Boro.

Both teams had the odd chance in the second half but with Kickers happy to keep it tight and Red Wolves keen to avoid a hammering there were no more goals and it finished up three-nil.

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Chattanooga Lookouts v Birmingham Barons, Sunday 29th May 2022, 2.15pm

June 2, 2022

Bryant, Alabama was an enjoyable place to stay, and we spent four nights in a hut by a small fishing lake. There were plenty of opportunities to cook on an open fire and for watching squirrels and birds. At dusk and dawn I kept an eye out for the family of deer that we had been told would visit the lake. If they did show up then they managed to keep out of sight.

There were a couple of options for things to do nearby, one of which was Rock City, a park where you could walk through caves and between giant boulders. There was a view from the top of a hill that took in seven different states. Nearer to Bryant was a cave that was home to thousands of bats. We turned up at dusk to watch them exit one evening and it was a constant stream from both sides of the cave. Many of the bats flew over our heads but they didn’t hang around. It was interesting to see but not as good as the bigger fruit bats that we would watch at dusk in Darwin a few years ago.

Bryant is also handy for Chattanooga and it wasn’t much more than a half hour drive to the A T & T Stadium for some third-tier AA baseball between the Chattanooga Lookouts and the Birmingham Barons.

Top price seats were $14 for the lower box seats. We went for the next section up at $12 on the basis that it was more likely to have some shade. What we should have done is bought the $10 General Admission seats as they provided the best shade of all. If we’d done so we could have got in for free as Jen is an ex-soldier. They were also free to anyone making a foodbank contribution and at a reduced price to over fifty-fives like me.

As you would expect there were lots of food options. Jen got a pulled pork sandwich whilst I went for ‘bacon on a stick’. It was a single streaky rasher in a barbecue type sauce. I don’t see it catching on. If I hadn’t been driving, I could have chosen from a wide selection of beers.

Our seats in the upper box section were in the sunshine so we moved back to the unreserved General Admission seats higher in the stand. The stadium was small enough to provide a good view from just about everywhere and so we watched from under the shade provided by the roof.

We stood for a rendition of the national anthem that sounded like the strangling of a cat and then applauded those who had served in the military. I think it was just for US personnel rather than the likes of the Taliban. Jen gets a bit embarrassed to stand up for this sort of thing, perhaps because she didn’t ever get shot at, but it’s commonplace to make a fuss of service veterans over here.

I think that one of the best things about baseball is the variety of entertainment that takes place at the end of each innings. We started off with a bloke having to decide whether to swap a bobble head doll for a mystery prize. Apparently it might have been a million dollars but turned out to be a baseball cap. There was a contest where kids had to put on a tee shirt that was handed to them as a frozen block, a dizzy bat race, a ‘find the lady’ style cap shuffle, guess the crowd and a kid taking over as the stadium announcer.

There were a number of cam events too. We had a jump cam where people would leap in the air and a dance cam that seemed popular with the grannies. There was a smile cam, sponsored by a dentist, and an air guitar cam with a bloke on a podium who looked like he was grating cheese.

Highlight of the day was a Barons home run in the seventh that cleared the stand and ended up outside somewhere. The fielder didn’t even move. That one contributed to a seven-three lead for the visitors as the Lookouts started their ninth.

They managed to load the bases and threaten an epic comeback but couldn’t quite pull it off at the death and the score remained at seven-three to the Barons.

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Chattanooga v Bay Cities, Saturday 28th May 2022, 7.30pm

May 29, 2022

A trip to the US had been in my diary for over a year as there were a couple of family celebrations going on that fitted nicely into a month or so driving around. We were meant to start and finish in New York but as Jen had been stuck in the South since January waiting for a UK visa I decided to head out early and add another couple of weeks to the front end.

We met up in New Orleans and spent a couple of nights in and around the French Quarter. The days were reasonably quiet whilst the evenings, as you might expect, were a lot livelier. There weren’t any sporting activities going on, but I did drive past the Superdome where Ali fought Spinks in ’78.

After New Orleans we travelled on to Mississippi and stayed at Jen’s Dad’s house for a few days. It’s out in the country and I didn’t do a great deal other than lounge about and walk the dog, Roscoe. I hope he is named after the Dukes of Hazard character.

The parts of the trip that had already been booked meant that we had to be up in New York a couple of weeks after I arrived to pick up a hire car and begin the original itinerary. The first stop on the way there was Bryant, Alabama, which is around half an hour from Chattanooga. It had been partly selected because of a game in Chattanooga at the Finley Stadium.

Parking initially seemed difficult until I realised that the metered spots only charged up until 6pm. That saved me from having to download and register Apps that invariably asked me for details that I couldn’t supply.

There was a lengthy queue for tickets, but I found a small window where a fella printed them for me without any fuss. I think that they were just under fifteen dollars each once the various taxes and fees had been added.

Getting into the ground proved to be slightly more problematic, or at least it did for Jen. She had a small handbag with her that apparently contravened the requirements to either be see-through or as small as an ‘index-card’. I went in whilst she nipped back to the car to drop it off.

Finley Stadium has large open seated stands down each side of the pitch. There’s some sort of hospitality area behind one goal and a grassy bank behind the other, complete with a couple of ice cream vans for whenever the small kids needed a break from rolling down the hill. Only one stand was open, and I found a space towards the back well away from most of the other people there.

The stadium is shared with an American football team and so both sets of markings were present on the artificial turf. I hadn’t realised before how narrow an American football pitch is and it easily fitted inside the real football markings.

Directly ahead of us was the singing section of the stand. There were around a hundred or so supporters standing, jumping and twirling their scarves to the beat of three or four drums. There was also a trombone in there although it seemed to be more waved in the air than played.

Proceedings were directed by what I’ve recently learned is known as a ‘Capo’ who spent the game facing his fellow supporters rather than the pitch and making sure that the noise levels didn’t drop. There was one song, as you might expect, about a Chattanooga Choo Choo, complete with railroad tooting arm signals.

The game was in the third tier NISA League with Chattanooga in dark blue and opponents Bay Cities in white. The home side had most of the possession in the first half and took the lead early on. They looked to have added a second just before half-time but the header was ruled out.

I’d forgotten how much of a big deal a caution is over here, with each one being greeted with glee by the stadium announcer. There were also lengthy adverts during play where the announcer would extol the merits of a local car dealership or a brand of hot sauce. It’s something that is creeping in at the Boro with substitutions sponsored by someone or other. I’m not a fan, but then again I don’t have to fund the club to the same extent as Gibbo does.

At half-time I popped downstairs for a coke. There were plenty of options for eating and drinking, meaning that nobody had to queue for too long. Although maybe the low attendance of just under three thousand helped with that too.

Chattanooga doubled their lead five minutes into the second half from a penalty and then added a third soon after. At that point the game looked to be over with Bay Cities dead and buried.

The visitors were back in the game on the hour with a shot that crept into the corner and should probably have been kept out. They scored a second a few minutes later and with twenty minutes to go I was hoping for a frantic finish.

Chattanooga killed the game off with their fourth though ten minutes from time to take the points. There was a firework display to conclude the evening, but we left them to it and watched from a distance as we headed along the highway back to Bryant.

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Spartans U15 v Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic U15, Sunday 15th May 2022, 3.30pm

May 28, 2022

When I’d headed up to Edinburgh that morning, I’d no idea that I’d get to see three fixtures in the same day. This bonus game was on the adjoining pitch at Ainslie Park, and I stumbled upon it when I went for a half-time slash. Spartans, in white and red, were the home side and entertaining Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic in an under fifteens game.

I didn’t ask anyone the score but saw one Spartans goal whilst stood pitch side. There were around forty people watching, presumably mainly parents although with the main game wanting eight quid to get in perhaps some were just waiting for half-time when they could go in for free.

I later watched some of the game from the embankment in the main stadium, casting an eye over whenever the cup final action slowed for injury treatment, but I didn’t see any further goals. It’s another ground to add to the list though, taking my total of new grounds to three that day and four hundred and thirty-seven in total.

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East Kilbride v Bo’ness United, Sunday 15th May 2022, 3pm

May 27, 2022

The second game of the day was the Lowland League Cup Final, or to give it it’s full title the FC United To Prevent Suicide Lowland League Cup Final. It was held at Ainslie Park which is home of The Spartans from the Lowland League and currently shared with League Two team Edinburgh City.

It took me around half an hour to drive from Easter Road and so I got there with plenty of time to spare to kick-off. Although I just missed out on getting into the car park and had to park up on the street outside.

It was eight quid admission and another two for a programme. Ainslie Park is a relatively new ground dating from 2008 and with an artificial pitch. It has a covered stand that seats around five hundred and can accommodate another couple of thousand along the perimeter railing and up on raised embankments.

As I was early enough for my pick of the seats I started off in the covered stand. It soon filled up and the early entertainment came from an incredibly sweary young lad in a wheelchair. Eventually someone told him to pipe down and when he could no longer punctuate with effin’ and jeffin’ he struggled to speak at all.

The competition was for teams in the fifth tier Lowland League. I imagine that East Kilbride who had finished third in the table probably went into the game as favourites over mid-table opponents Bo’ness United. It’s getting easier to gauge the standard of the Lowland League now that there is an opportunity for progression to the Scottish Football League and just that week league champions Bonnyrigg Rose had replaced Cowdenbeath in League Two after their play-off win.

East Kilbride were in navy and gold, with Bo’ness United in white with blue trim. East Kilbride looked the better side early on and took the lead a few minutes from half-time when a ball slid in behind the defence was well-finished. I joined the queue for food at the break but was too slow. Anything worth eating was long gone and I had to settle for a Snickers. It wasn’t even deep-fried.

Bo’ness came out fired up and soon equalised with a shot that looped up and over the keeper. Maybe there was a deflection in there somewhere. A spell of three goals in ten minutes settled the tie in favour of East Kilbride though with a couple of curlers from the edge of the box and a header where the striker was rewarded for his bravery in getting his head to the ball milliseconds before the keeper’s fist arrived.

Bo’ness pulled one back with five minutes to go but by that time the ribbons were already on the cup. I had a three hour plus drive back to Teesside so didn’t hang around for the presentation and celebrations. Not many other people seemed to do so either.

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Hibernian v St. Johnstone, Sunday 15th May 2022, 12 noon.

May 26, 2022

I didn’t have much planned for this day and when I saw that there were a couple of games going on in Edinburgh that I could attend I thought I’d have a drive up. The first match was a lunchtime kick-off at Easter Road for the final game in the Premier League for Hibs and St. Johnstone.

I’d bought a ticket online for a central position in the East Stand for twenty-eight quid. The streets around were designated for disabled matchday parking but I was able to find somewhere around ten minute’s walk away.

I’d stopped for a bacon sandwich on the way up so settled for a pre-match coffee. The food options were varied and if I’d wanted, I could have had a macaroni pie followed by a doughnut.

Prior to kick-off there was a tribute on the big screens to the Hibs fans and former players who had died over the course of the season. There must have been a hundred of them and living in Leith struck me as being riskier than spending time in Midsomer. Maybe it’s the macaroni pie and doughnut diet.

When the line-ups were announced I realised that St. Johnstone were fielding an ex-Boro player, Jacob Butterfield. He only played the one season for us. Mogga signed him then got bagged a month or so later and Karanka swapped him for Adam Clayton the following summer. I was away in South Africa for most of that campaign but saw a couple of his early games for us. I can remember elements of both matches but nothing at all about Mr. Butterfield.

He did ok in this game, sitting deep and playing mainly short passes. The very definition of tidy, I suppose.

There wasn’t anything at stake in this game and I got the impression that a lot of Hibs fans had just taken the day off. Those that had turned up made it a priority to say their seasonal goodbyes to those around them and to look forward to seeing them again in August.

I was transfixed by a bloke a couple of rows down from me with an elaborate comb-over. It was aimed at disguising the bald spot on his crown and included a parting halfway down the back of his head with hair swept upwards. He played safe by brushing his fringe backwards for double coverage. It’s a style that requires assistance and he had used enough hairspray for it to resemble a Coco Coir doormat.

Hibs were the better side and ran out four-nil winners with man of the match James Scott getting three of them. It wasn’t as one sided as the score would suggest though with St. Johnstone having plenty of opportunities and more of the ball. The contest wasn’t really over until Hibs got their third just after the hour.

As the game petered out Hibs emptied their bench and gave debuts to what seemed like most of their Academy. It’s not easy to tell whether young players will go on to have a decent career but if it doesn’t pan out for them at this level, they will have had an enjoyable few minutes in a first team shirt to look back on.

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Rothbury v West Moor & Jesmond, Saturday 14th May 2022, 2.30pm

May 24, 2022

The Boro’s season is over, but there is still the odd game taking place. This one was the final fixture for both sides in the twelfth-tier Division One of the Northern Alliance League. It was pretty much a dead game in that neither side were involved in matters at either end of the table and West Moor were guaranteed a sixth-place finish regardless of the result. Rothbury had a little more to play for in that if results elsewhere went their way, then they might move up from ninth position to seventh. I doubt that it kept them awake the night before.

The drive up to Armstrong Park was a scenic as it gets. I think that it just about borders the Northumberland National Park. It’s a fair distance though, around seventy-five minutes from Teesside, although as I didn’t have anything planned for the afternoon it was no big deal.

That morning Isla and I had been to have another look at the racehorse. We watched him on the gallops and had a chat with some of the stable staff. Apparently, he’s not one for the minimum distances so won’t make his debut until later in the season when the races get longer. Oddly enough, he doesn’t like carrots. Weirdo horse.

There was a clubhouse, I think, at Armstrong Park or maybe it was just the changing rooms. A few people were stood in front of it, but most were sat along one side of the pitch on a raised embankment area. The smart folks had brought camping chairs with them but most, like me, had found a spot where a level piece of ground met the slope so that there was somewhere to angle your legs downwards. As usual there were dogs in attendance including a spaniel and an enormous Dalmatian.

Rothbury were in red, with West Moor in blue and white. They each had to volunteer a sub to run the line, although the Rothbury lad was so biased that after a while the ref, who rarely strayed from the centre circle, just ignored him. The lack of exertion from the man in the middle wasn’t only limited to covering ground, but extended to whistle blowing. If he could let play go on he did do and on the occasions when forced to blow his whistle he did it so quietly that it undermined any authority that he may have had.

The visitors went two up in the first half, with Rothbury pulling one back early in the second half before West Moor rattled in another two to make the game safe. There was a late consolation for Rothbury and it finished four-two.

At the end the ref continued his minimal effort approach by blowing just twice to bring the game and the Northern Alliance season to an end.

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Preston North End v Middlesbrough, Saturday 7th May 2022, 12.30pm

May 12, 2022

Once Harry started getting into following the Boro, I began looking at away games for us to go to. This one was always on my radar as it might very well have been the game that clinched a play-off spot or, at one stage, maybe even promotion.

The problem though was that I didn’t think that we would be able to get tickets. Our half-season cards put us a long way down the priority list and so back in February I decided to try and get something in hospitality directly from Preston. They were very good about it and despite me admitting that I was a Boro fan they sold us tickets for the Sir Tom Finney Lounge.

The Boro’s allocation turned out to be 5,600 tickets and as they reached general sale, we would have been ok, but it’s always nice to see a game in a bit of comfort so I wasn’t too disappointed that I’d shelled out more than I needed to.

The sat nav took us over the A66 and then down the M6. That’s a much more pleasant drive than the M62. There were a lot of dead badgers though. If I’d had a spade in the boot, I might have stopped and got one of their heads as I’ve often fancied having a badger skull. Harry thought that would be an odd thing to do despite him seeming happy enough with a sheep skull that I gave him a few years ago. Apparently, it’s different if you just stumble across them as opposed to deliberately carrying and using a dismembering tool. Whatever, it sparked a decent discussion over the merits of maggots v worms for removing the flesh.

We arrived about an hour before kick-off and our car park pass was waiting for us at the gate. There was time for brunch and a chat with some Preston fans on the same table. They weren’t at all hopeful of taking anything from the game and whilst they thought that there would be some players looking for new contracts, they reckoned that their team would already be ‘on the beach’.

They were wrong and Preston turned in a decent performance. With results from elsewhere not going our way the defeat didn’t make any difference to our play-off hopes and some of the players efforts might well have been useful to Wilder in helping him to make his plans for next season.

Despite the result I enjoyed the day out. It’s good to chat to the fans of the other side and Preston managed the hospitality very well. We didn’t even get kept back in the car park afterwards to let the crowds clear and were soon on the M6. That’s it for the Boro until July when I’m hoping for another season challenging at the top end of the table.

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