Well hello there everybody peeps. How we diddling? Ready for the football to return are we? Chomping at the bit and hangry for some shit 5th tier action I bet. No? Yeah, I get you. After spending a couple months having long lie ins and not worrying about wasting another Saturday and god knows how many of her his majesty’s Pounds Stirling on underwhelming La Bastarda fare, it’s going to be tough giving up the easy life and getting back out on the road. What else is there to do on a Saturday really? Actually, don’t answer that. No don’t.
Last season? Meh. Done, move on. Life’s too short. And over the summer, Steve took that approach too by getting shot of a few more and bringing a few more in to freshen things up. We got dough for Will Davies heading to Fleetwood, Nadders joined permanently and we picked up another load of lads from down the pyramid to hopefully develop into world beaters to not only return us to our rightful place in the Great 92 72, but to also sell on for a nice few quid as well. Pre-season reports are promising, but as I only say Wycombe and Millwall at home, I’ll reserve judgement personally for the time being. However we do look a bit more pacey going forward and we didn’t let many into our own sac d’oignon in the pretend games (Millwall excepted), so we’ll see.
Of course, come fixtures day the Bastard League gave us a nice easy stroll in the park somewhere cheap to settle us into the new campaign. Oh no wait, they gave us York away in August. Twats. Now whilst the pubbage is, as we’ve mentioned here before, more than adequate for our needs on such occasions, this time of year is probably the least advisable for a trip to the old walled city with a large church. Mainly as every other fucker tends to be there too due to it being a massive tourist trap and it thus costs about the same as a week on the Costa as it does for an overnighter. A quick bit of research and some rudimentary maths suggested around 500 nicker personally, which I was not up for at all. Day trip please.
My main reason for baulking at this level of expenditure was twofold. First was just on fucking principle. York’s nice, but not THAT nice. Second was that this month is going to be pricey enough as it is. With a change of job looming in September, a final trip to see my colleagues in Oslo has been planned and the last thing I needed was to be laying out a monkey on 2 nights in York a fortnight beforehand. Still, this means that you’ll be getting more random shit on here about Norwegian football (it’s better than the National League Cup, you’re welcome) and also that Dr Bell wouldn’t be alone on his maiden visit to the city. Although this was tempered by the fact that it probably meant I was on carer duty for the day. Deep joy. We were however to be joined by 4Days as well, however only after he’d already booked a cheapie via Cross Country before realising. There was much yakky dah-ing and general daffodil & leek flavoured grumbling over that little episode as he’d assumed we’d all to a man be doing at least an overnighter. Still, turns out he can move that train to whenever, so it all worked out in the end.
Right? Any other business?? Ah yes, summer party at GGL which saw the new black away kit unveiled. And very smart it is too. Not that I got to see any of this as the useless American bell ends I work for caused an issue that meant I didn’t get home until almost 8pm, which made attending pointless. Remember that bit above about a new job? Yeah, that’s sort of why. They’re about as organised as we were defensively in the last L2 season and about as appealing too. Anyhoo, I digress. New shirt, nice, will probably get. Right, onto the fucking early alarm and all that shit.
You know the score. 6am wake up, shit, shower, shave, bus, East Croydon, Thameslink, St Pancs, Kings Cross. In that order. I stroll into the Cross and go looking for a way up to the Greggs for breakfast. By the escalators I spot 4Days & Dr Bell fresh from the Republic and with a quick flick of the v’s head up for some stodge. I time this perfectly as there’s no fecker in there when I arrive, other than some American tourists getting their first taste of real British cuisine and hundreds queueing out the door once I’ve been served. All downhill from here no doubt! Re-locating the others, we head for the train and settle in for the blissfully rapid transit north. It really is no surprise that York is so busy this time of year when you can bag a rattler and be north of fucking Donny in less than 2 hours. Couple with Britain actually getting something it could genuinely call ‘a summer’ weather wise and you’re onto a winner.
Everyone settles in for the duration and Dr Bell is soon professing his excitement at finally getting to break his duck here. For one reason or another, he’s the last remaining member of the posse not to have sampled the endless boozers in this part of the North. 4Days and I temper this by letting him know that if his ticker gives out before kick off, it definitely won’t count and proceed to dig him out a bit more on this front. “Poor Belly. At least he died doing what he loved. Missing York away”. If there’s one thing you can rely on in the Gandermonium collective is that we’re all immensely supportive of each other and are never afraid to lift each other’s spirits when needed. Ahem. On the WhatsApp thingy, the overnight “Couple of pints and a curry” crew are rousing from the actual “Make that 12 pints and we skipped the curry” reality that tends to accompany these sort of occasions. Greek in particular is front and centre of the joyful messages that are forthcoming. Something about a ‘murky swamp’.
We rock into York on time and thanks to the travel sec’s terrible planning, we’re left standing outside the Tap on the station a good 10 minutes before their 10am opening time, making us look like desperate sad sack drunks rather than the sporting event connoisseurs with a mild interest in malted adult beverages that we are. A stain on our reputation and no mistake. Of course, as soon as the nice lady unlocks the doors, we rush inside to take cover and prevent further damage to our otherwise spotless public image. We grab pints and sit up front in the morning sunshine and 2 minutes past 10, Rax walks in. “What fucking time do you call this?” enquires 4Days. Quite! He gets a pint and joins us before another of the “Couple of pints and a Curry” crew arrives. Indy is also reprimanded for this tardiness. And even worse, he’s clutching a bottle of water. “Is that the first time I’ve seen you with anything else but a pint in your hand?” I enquire.
We neck a couple here, with my second pint being the charmingly named ‘Jack Black on a Jet Pack’. Nope, no idea what that’s all about but it was half decent and at least gives me a weird title for this opening salvo of the season, so that’s something. We also notice some lads mooching about with high vis on and the legend ‘Eboracum’ on the back. Fucked if we know, and we’re definitely not asking! At this point, the rest of the mob are up and looking for meet up points. We choose the Market Cat where we all assembled hungover like dogs last season, but we also decide we’re going to do a sneaky stopover along the way and select the Ackhorne. Mainly as Mr X has just rocked up at the Cat, found us not present and started abusing us on WhatsApp. Walk more bitch!! We wander over the river and through some back streets to find the next stop and the Man of Mystery outside, hungover and sucking on a tab. “Fucking late again” he grumbles as we head in. Yeah yeah.
Dr Bell makes a pigs ear of the round and we then settle in the back yard to sup up. Meanwhile the Old White Swan is chosen as the next stop to catch up with the rest of the party. Apparently this is selected as the group had tried to go there last night but completely failed to locate it. Fine work. Have you ever tried that clever mappy thing the Googles provides? Here some unsavoury talk about foxes and the noises they make develops from me telling the tale of the Jurassic Park knock off that’s been in place by HQ this summer and which you can hear from our khazi window. I’ll say no more on the subject lest we get ourselves into difficulties. In the Swan, we find Greek and take a seat in the ‘Secret Garden’ out back. Here he regales us of his poo emergency from the previous evening whilst drinking in the Guy Fawkes, much to our collective delight. Short version, he didn’t shit himself.
Next stop is the Duke of York, which we expect to be packed as it’s in the back streets but is thankfully pretty quiet so the ‘oop North’ dimpled glass pint goes down nicely. Then it’s onto Pivni, which involves dodging half of the population of planet Earth between the Duke and that point, mainly as we have to skirt across the top of the Shambles full of Harry Potter fans and god knows what else. Still, we’re all pwopa Sahf Lahndan sorts, so carving our way through a crowd is second nature and little VDT is wasted. The boozer is a fun spot, with 3-4 levels of little seated areas and modern décor mixed with plague era wooden beams. Given the location close to cab pickups, we elect to do a couple here and not risk wasting time on fighting through more tourist scrums. Here it appears Greek comes out and this is then somehow linked to his previous poo emergency and somehow this morphs into setting up an OnlyFans under the name ‘ShittyBigBear’. Fucked if I know. This lot can be properly weird after a few pints and no mistake.
We make the move for cabs around 2pm and are soon outside the away end and on the hunt for tickets. At least I and Dr Bell are. And having been send back & forth with vague instructions and failed to get the website to deliver a QR code, a fellow U’s fan bails out the good Doctor with a spare and I go in search of someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about. Finally, a supervisor directs me to the right spot and with a brief finally sorted, I’m in the away end fashionably late a minute or two after kick off. As I half expected, York are on the front foot from the off and keen to avoid the mild embarrassment of their home defeat to us last season after which they properly threw their toys out the pram. Early probing causes some nerves, but no major issues until we’re a little slow to react to a raid wide, their lad gets a little dart at Taylor and he’s hauled him down in the box. Well, that could have gone better. La Bastarda’s top scorer from last year Ollie Pearce steps up 11 minutes into the new season and rattles the spot kick into the top corner. You don’t save those.
Sims, Jones, Pruti, Vincent, Phipps, Taylor, Ogbonna, Simper, Harris, Nadesan, Woodyard. SUBS: Tizzard, Critchlow, Odelusi, Da Silva, Njoku
The response isn’t bad and we almost level soon after when a hit from Harris, back fresh from last season’s achillies injury, through a crowd of players is just beaten away by the keeper seeing it late. We’re soon back working hard though as the hosts look to pile on the pressure and midway through the half, the ref gives ’em another leg up with another pen. This time an attempted cross from the byeline hits Vincent’s arm. It’s more ball to hand than anything but as we well know these days, refs are gonna give it. Especially when it’s in favour of one of the pre-season favourites at home. Again Pearce lines it up and once more goes to Sims left, but he doesn’t catch it as well and it pings wide off the outside of the upright. All together now, arms wide and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!. Naturally, the next time their frontman is in earshot, I remind him that’s probably why they spaffed 350 bags of sand on another striker last season. Ahem. It’s a let off though, as being 2 down in 25 would probably have been it for us. However, we stick to the task and with the break looming, we’ve nicked one.
Like last season here, a quick ball out down the channels gets Nadesan away wide and with Ogbonna in support in the middle, he squares it for the new lad to slide in and rather untidily smuggle it over the line despite the attentions of a defender and the keeper trying to pretend it’s not in. Thanks to the linesman here for the secondary assist as it’s his flag that gets us heading back to the centre circle. Love me a scruffy bundler I do. You can poke your 25yard worldies where the sun doesn’t shine quite frankly. So, level at the break somewhat against the run of play, I head for a celebratory jimmy and some much needed soakage that I’d not had time to acquire before the start. Any hopes that we’d carry momentum into the second half with that late goal are soon dispelled and the hosts are back out quickest again after the restart. We’re made to work hard as York have all the ball and despite plenty of pressure we look to be holding our own until around the hour when a corner in isn’t dealt with and it’s turned in from close range. Bollocks.
The gaffer responds with a triple sub and looks to get more pace out there, but by and large it doesn’t help a great deal as we still can’t really string much together and make any real impression on the game. However in the last 10 or so, the hosts seem to fade a little and this gives us some more breathing room. “We ain’t been great, but we’re still in the game” I mutter to 4Days as we watch the minutes tick away. Then with a couple left, Vincent puts a long throw in from just down in front of us, it’s half nodded away and quickly recycled outside the box. The ball finds Simper, he whips one in and Taylor gets his nut on it to nod down and debutant Njoku is on hand to tuck the ball past the keeper and level things up again. Get in there my son! Despite there being several minutes added on, York can’t find another gear and we see out the Desmond in relative comfort. Point on the road, that’ll do pig! Right, pub? Pub!
We sort some Ubers out from the same spot as last year, but with mine booked several minutes after 4Days, mine still arrives first once more to much Welshist grumbling. We head back to the Black Swan also as per last year, mainly as we have it in our trip histories and head in for a pint, only to find the place somewhat bare beer wise. Right, quick Guinness and we’re heading elsewhere! Pints necked, us day trippers head off to get closer to town and the station whilst the others freshen up for their evening out, aiming for the Blue Bell a small pub a short walk away. But on arrival, find it’s been booked out for a private do. Denied! with a quick pivot, we head up a much quieter Shambles than earlier and cut over to the Market Cat as it’s a reliable venue we know. Here there’s a weird interaction when a slightly tipsy lass spots the Burge & Gunson sponsor on the back of my Sutton trackie top. “My maiden name was Gunson” she slurs. Then having asked what team we support she bursts out laughing. Turns out she went from being a Gunson to a Sutton. “That was my married name!”. Still, she and her two friends are nice to chat to before we neck these and move on.
Next stop is the Guy Fawkes, another known spot and having got beers, we locate Mr X, Greek, Ossie, Indy & Rax out in the second beer garden. Yes, the second. There’s actually three. We mentioned this last season, were you not paying attention?? Jeez. Dunno why we bother sometimes. Here a couple of the gang scoff dinner but with time pressing on, us day trippers need to head for the station. Of course, we leave a little too late to secure serious train refreshments and anyway find out from Johnnie on the platform that the police were confiscating visible booze being carried on the way in. Fucking dry train? Surely not! Oh well, buffet raid it is then. The train arrives on time and finding our seats the thing is soon packed out standing room only, we presume because it’s fast to Donny. This unravels as we sit and we sit and we sit before finding out 20 minutes later that there’s been a points failure. AND there’s no buffet open! Fuck our lives. This could be fatal to our trip home as there is literally no direct train back to London after the alleged 20.02 we’re sitting on. Thankfully however, just as we’re looking up digs in York for the night that don’t cost the same as a 2 bed flat in Doncaster and other alternatives, we eventually pull out 45 mins late.
Still, the delay has allowed us time to chat with the lad on our table who of course is from South London, played a couple of colts games for Sutton as a kid and most impressively of all, knows Craig Dundas. “Dundo? Legend!” he says. We couldn’t agree more sir. The delay is particularly galling for him as he’d hopped on a train this morning to head to Aberdeen for a surprise party for a mate. However, an hour out, the do got binned off and the poor fucker was left with no option but to turn around and head right on back to the capital. “Have you heard of ‘Deep Vein Thrombosis?” enquires a concerned Dr Bell. Thankfully, once the train tips the vast majority of it’s somewhat boozed up load of Hen Do’s and Grimsby fans at Donny, they re-open the buffet, so I and 4Days head off to pillage it for all the booze we can get. This is mildly successful. We do get some booze but the pickings are slim. We return with 4 cans of Carlsberg, a small bottle of wine for the Welshman and an Absolut & Sprite chaser for me. And 3 large bags of Cheese and Onion crisps. A veritable banquet. Our Aberdeen friend graciously declines the offer of a Carlsberg despite our efforts to persuade him otherwise however. Clearly it takes more than some shit Danish lager to make up for his ordeal.
We hit Kings Cross ‘on time’ in that we remain just the 45 minutes late that we left York. Here I wave the lads off as they scoot to Victoria to get back to Sutton and I head to St Pancs, but annoyingly just miss the connection and then end up stuck here another 40 mins as all the subsequent trains are banjaxed. Thanks a lot Thameslink, just what I needed. Eventually the last fast one to East Croydon shows its face as my eyes start to become heavier than the Morecambe owner’s conscience, so battling to stay awake lest I pull a Mr X and wind up in Brighton for the evening (explaining that one to Mrs Taz would have been quite something, I can tell you), I make it to East Croydon and then have to apply the matchsticks again on the bus back to home. Arrival? 1am. Just the 19 hour day then.
Yep. The Bastard League is back folks. No doubt about it.
Taz