A WORLD OF ADVENTURE

Printed in the National League South game v Truro City Tuesday 7th November 2023  We won 4-0 in front of 398

As we get older we tend to get less adventurous. Which is why supporting a football team is good for keeping you on your toes and out of those slippers. You just don’t know what’s going to happen next. You go to new places. You meet new people. And if you’re getting the train, you really have no idea if they will be running. You need to keep your wits about you.

I certainly had to summon all those wits the other day. The original plan was simple. A Small Boy deposited at Finsbury Park on the Brighton train like Paddington Bear, intercepted by me en route. But operational issues and signal failures meant it became a giant jigsaw on how to dodge the train cancellations and bring the little ‘un back home.

I finally got him at Haywards Heath, unflustered, but hungry with no marmalade sandwiches under his hat. When we reached Brighton, rather than heading home and staring at a screen, he set off to find his friends. Since secondary school he’s gone wandering, takes buses to estates he doesn’t know so he can explore. This will put him in good stead following Slough in the early rounds of the FA Cup trying to find grounds behind cemeteries, canals and abandoned sausage factories.

Half term and my eldest went wild camping with his friends. He borrowed a saw and a tarp, but forgot the tarp. One tent was broke, they ran out of water and food and camped a bit too near a footpath. They just told people it was part of their Duke of Edinburgh experience which it sort of was, cos covid had cancelled that. They cooked over a fire and went for walks. Only one angry man got cross with them, when really what he should have said is well done for camping and good to see teenagers getting some fresh air.

I used to have that wanderlust. One day bored in Slough, I decided to hitch to Devon like you do. I used to love hitching, where you got small snapshots of peoples life's that you would normally never meet. A bit like talking to opposition fans. The first guy was a lonely very rich businessman who bought me breakfast at some services, the second bought me lunch, the third was a lovely old bloke who bought me chips and a book about the history of the town I was camping near. I must have looked malnourished. I didn’t have a clue how to put up a tent, a trait I still hold onto today, and a family came and helped. I spent the next day hunting out coastal wildflowers before heading home.

Another time I decided to hitch to Glastonbury on the Monday. This was the days of sCant security and I slept under some plastic with a shoe for a pillow, ate bread a bloke made everyday using an oil drum and played football. By Friday it was getting to busy to have a kick-about so I went home just as the festival was starting.

The thought of doing any of that today feels me with dread. I don’t really like holidays. A day trip or over night stay to watch the Rebels at some far flung seaside resort is enough away from home fun now.

Infact it was Truro City away in 2009 that led to my longest football adventure as I decided I had to go and see Slough play a team from Cornwall. I woke at 4.30am and walked to Brighton train station. Clubbers sat shivering and disheveled waiting for the first train home. The train to Victoria was fine, but my tube broke down so at 6am I was hailing a taxi to Paddington, then jumping on a fast train to Slough to meet the supporters coach which was waiting at the station for me. Phil the Flag supplied the refreshments, old Pepe the chocolate and by early morning I felt like I had eaten half the daily output of the Mars factory. 
And then the coach broke down at Bristol. For two hours.

It limped to the services and Anil our trusty former coach-driver, became Anil the mechanic. He managed to fix it and then drove at speed and we arrived at Truro with 3 minutes to spare, joining about 50 Slough supporters. It was freezing with the cold Russian wind getting ready to bring the snow; we lost 2-1 and had loads of grief from some 1970’s skinheads. I finally got back to bed at 2.30am after an epic twenty two hour round trip. My missus was still nodding her head in disbelief the next day that I had gone all that way for 90 minutes of football. Perhaps she had a point. 

Grimsby certainly enjoyed their adventures in the FA Cup last season. With everyone willing them on, it was Southampton who played Laurel and Hardy football to let them reach the fifth round. They swarmed all over Brighton waving their plastic fish and confusing the seagulls, taking over the Pier and enjoying their best cup run since the 1930s.

Of course the big clubs want to put a stop to all this adventure, abolish replays from the third round as they complain they have too many games. We’ve already got VAR sucking the life out of spontaneity, ever onerous ground rules – at one point Southampton said Grimsby's inflatable haddocks were illegal. But just like Augustus Gloop in Willy Wonka, the footballing elite stuff their faces in the chocolate money tree but its never enough. Who cares that the FA Cup is one of the only financial lifelines left for lower league clubs, that can transform cash flows and bring in new supporters who probably didn’t even realise they had a home town football club they could cheer on.

Thanks to programme deadlines I don’t know if our football adventures have finished. Did we batter the haddocks? Did we reach the second round for a ninth time? And what if we got a replay? Kieran Wonderwall was planning on hiring a train to Grimsby. It would be rude not to join him. Especially if he’s driving.

Whatever happened, the FA Cup has once again been an adventure and one of the only ones I take part in anymore. Now where’s my slippers and TV remote.