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.
Trail of the Lion King 