Krankenhaus was done for another year. It really is a wonderful festival and has grown from around three hundred attendees five years ago to twelve hundred or so this year, which is big enough for me. The very friendly vibe is probably enhanced by the number of dogs that come along. Plus, Sea Power aficionados tend to be some of the nicest people around. I don’t think I saw anyone being a dickhead the entire weekend.
The highlights were the Sea Power sets themselves and for their Sunday night performance we got a mellow rarities set, drawing heavily on Hamilton’s songs. All it would have needed for perfection would have been a rendition of Lovely Day Tomorrow.
I hope that the festival has started to turn a profit and that it helps to keep them going. I’d miss gigs like the two that we got from them this weekend.
As we were staying at Muncaster for the rest of the week, I had the opportunity to take in a match on the Bank Holiday Monday at Borough Park in Workington. It was a fixture in the seventh tier Premier Division of the Northern Premier League.
I can remember when Workington were a Football League club. It’s forty-seven years since they were replaced by Wimbledon in the penultimate season of the bottom four in Division Four having to apply for re-election. I don’t remember Bill Shankly managing them though, that was before my time. Visitors Hebburn Town are ex-Northern League and have done well to advance two steps since those days.
It was thirteen quid admission, which seems high for tier seven, but maybe that’s my age. Why can’t I still buy a car for a farthing? The turnstile was impressive in an old rickety way, as was almost all the ground. The dugouts seemed modern, which is a shame, as I’d hoped to have imagined Shankly sat in one of them. I still did, but had to put in the extra effort to imagine the dugout too.
The capacity of the ground was limited to three thousand, with seating for around five hundred in the old main stand. With time to spare before kick-off I got myself a programme and joined the queue for one of those curly sausages that always remind me of a particular style of dog turd. It came with mash and gravy and tasted better than it looked. It was announced before kick-off that Workington had signed Efe Ambrose who had turned out for Celtic in the past and who had more than fifty Nigerian caps. He wasn’t available for this game.
After watching from the seats for a while I toured the rest of Borough Park and had spells watching from behind each goal.
Hebburn had the best of the opening exchanges, blazing a shot over the bar early on and then taking a first half lead with a shot that the Workington goalie got a hand to and should probably have kept out. It looked as if that would be sufficient for Hebburn to see the game out but a break down the right ten minutes from time led to an equaliser. The move was repeated four minutes later and to the delight of all those around me, including a dog, Workington went ahead.
Hebburn understandably weren’t happy about the changed circumstances and their day deteriorated further when a fella picked up a second yellow soon afterwards. All Workington had to do after that was run down the clock and they managed it easily enough.
Trail of the Lion King 