The shortest journey of the year for us meant that the one o’clock kick off was less of an irritation than it would have been for the North-East based lads and lasses. Most of the North Herts SAFCSA members live over the Stevenage side of Hertfordshire so a pub coming in from that way had been chosen as the rendezvous point. Said pub had agreed to open up at 9 which was jolly nice of them – Guinness is a welcome accompaniment to Sunday breakfast. After a quite superb big fry up at the greasy spoon café over the road to the pub we headed on into town to meet the lad who had our allocation of tickets for the home end. With those safely in our hands we made our way to the ground.
I had given my away end ticket to my nephew so I was going in the home end with my brother. There had been suggestions during the week that police would be asking questions about Luton Town at the turnstiles to flush out insurgents. As we knew that there was no question about Luton Town to which the answer was anything other than “Eric Morecambe” we felt fairly safe. As we wandered along the Bury Park Road wondering how to get to the home stand, someone (cunningly pretending to be helpful) asked us “which stand are you in?”. Without thinking we replied “the Kenilworth Road”. D’oh!! All the locals must call it the “Eric Morecambe Stand”. Our cover was blown already.
In the stand it was fairly obvious that a very high proportion of the people in there were not Eric Morecambe – or even people who supported the same club. They had a weird system whereby instead of continuing on sequentially the numbers start again at each block. So, while we thought we’d done the trick by finding Row B, seats 10 and 11 we were soon informed by the person who had a season ticket there that there were in fact seven seats each of 10 and 11, in row B. Fortunately the locals were more amused than annoyed at the hundreds of mackems wandering backwards and forwards saying “ow man, how does this werk?”. Although few wore colours our accents are very hard to confuse. For a start we operate a 26 letter alphabet. The South East mostly dispenses with the 21 consonants and operate nearly exclusively with the vowels. So for example while we would say we were playing Luton, they would claim they were Lu’o’. An amusing illustration of this was in the strange diagonal stand over to our right. They had a banner with “Were support you ever more”. You have to say it with a cockney (or quasi-cockney) accent to understand what the message was.
I was disappointed at the kick off. We seem to have done so many minute silences for tragedies that they become meaningless and routine. However, we have all seen the sad demise of Leeds United this season. There had been rumours that there would be a minute’s laughing before every game this week-end to mark the event but it was not to be. Instead could I ask each of you to mark their passing from the top two flights of English football in private in whatever way you think best.
The match? I hate that bloody Soccer AM “Easy” chant but it would have been appropriate for this game. Fortunately, most of us didn’t come here to gloat at the opposition. Sunderland supporters have seen too many relegations to get any joy out of watching it happen to other clubs with whom we have no axe to grind. After just four minutes an excellent passing move saw Stokes stroke the ball into the net. Although most of us behind the goal continued to be reasonably discreet throughout the game (different afterwards like) the number of people who jumped up when the ball hit the back of the net (my brother and I included) gave you an indication of how many of us were in that end. The proportion of SAFC supporters in the main stand seemed even greater.
Two minutes later Murphy curled an excellent shot into the far corner from outside of the box and the match was over as a contest. We went on to score three more goals in the second half in front of the grateful away end. We already looked like two teams that were two leagues apart.
Our attention moved North West to goings on at Deepdale. In all the nail biting end of season games I’ve been to I have never taken a radio to the match. However, I’m grateful to those who do. We were well aware that the score was still 0-0 as quarter to five approached. Our second half had kicked off remarkably late for no reason that I could see. We hoped that Preston v Birmingham had got started more promptly. Then suddenly the ground erupted – in two parts, first the SAFC supporters with radios, followed a millisecond later by the rest of us who realised there was only one reason our fellow supporters could be jumping around like crazies. A few minutes later and their final whistle went while our game was still on. I am sure our players were being totally professional – but I am equally sure they fully understood what both cheers were about.
The final whistle and all inhibitions were gone. What seemed like close to a majority of the ground were singing for the champions. After the celebrations down at the away end it was nice that the players came round and acknowledged the hundreds (probably into thousands I guess – certainly more than one thousand) of SAFC supporters in the other stands. This was followed by the charge back down the pitch with the fizzy pop banner that you’ll have seen on the telly pictures.
The celebrations went on long and loud. The noise from the opposite end was still at a crescendo as we headed out of the the Kenilworth Road end. For reasons that make sense only in the mind of a dull bureaucrat we weren’t allowed to have the trophy. The alleged reason? “Safety concerns”. I fear someone has been watching too many government Public Service Announcements. Were they worried that Ross Wallace might get his head stuck in it? Does it have sharp edges that are only exposed on away soil? The excuse later turned to “well, it would have been at Deepdale in any case”. Hmm, some sort of replica arrangement might have been in order perhaps? The Premiership manages it – admittedly it is a bigger trophy so Ross Wallace getting stuck in it is less of a danger. It is hard to imagine that players and fans could have celebrated any more if there had been a piece of silver coloured metal (or safety approved man made material) in their hands.
So, back to the same pub to see Arsenal hand the title to Man U and to laugh at the fact that £500 million of dirty money not only doesn’t buy you a soul for your soulless (8,000 unsold semi-final tickets) club – it doesn’t even guarantee success. And to wonder if we’ll ever be in the same category as those sort of clubs. We suffered badly from our financial scandal in the fifties. To this day we have never recovered from our first ever relegation in 1958 and we’ve never scaled the sort of heights we thought were the norm before Hitler invaded Poland. Despite that, the opening of the SoL coupled with our best team in fifty years seemed to offer us a chance back into seeing the likes of Tottenham and Everton as teams we should finish above more often than not rather than clubs we look up to in envy. We blew that chance. Lots of clubs with histories as grand as ours have never had one chance to make it big again. With Quinn/Drumaville/Keane we might well be getting a second chance. Are we going to grasp this one and see an SAFC that our grandfathers (or great grandfathers in many cases) saw? Or are we going to blow it again? We don’t know – but it is going to be great finding out and playing what part we can to make sure we do grab the opportunity. Sing your hearts out for the lads.
See you in Dublin in July.
John aka Herts