Away game frigging miles away from the Republic? Check. So far that it requires the use of modern commercial aviation? Check. New ground to tick off? Check. Opportunity for a couple of days on the gas at the seaside? Check. Having to actually bother doing a blog to cover all this bollocks? Check and underlined. Spending Monday back at work wondering why I didn’t book that off too? Well, no actually. But it was definitely a risk not worth taking if I’m entirely honest.
Yes folks, we hath returned. Like that unruly Uncle who always attends Christmas dinner, gets hammered, upsets everyone and has fucked off home by 7pm much to everyone’s relief until next year. Oh come now, you’ve missed us really. You can admit it to us, we won’t tell anyone. Maybe. Still, it was inevitable that we’d be doing Truro away on here, mainly as mentioned above it’s fucking miles away in middle earth and it’s a new ground. Even cynical old bastards like us aren’t turning that one down.
Now the last time we were with you was of course for the pulsating FA Cup tie down at Farnham, where an 98th minute leveller nicked us a replay after yet another less than satisfactory defensive performance. Thankfully I missed the replay due to life stuff, where we sneaked through thanks to taking the lead for the first time in the tie in the dying moments of Extra Time. Still, fuck it, a wins a win. It wasn’t exactly a turning point in our season we’d hoped it might be however, as once more conceding for fun we pissed away a 2-0 lead at Wealdstone to drop a 4-2 decision and needed a 97th minute leveller at home to a poor Hartlepool side (3-3). Once more, defending not being our specialist subject, as you can probably tell.
Slowly but surely though, the gaffer’s made some tweaks and clearly working under the premise of no extra budget and being one in one out, he’s shuffled the pack a bit. The big signing was the capture of Jake Taylor from Eastleigh, the sort of experienced older head we’ve been crying out for about 12 months now. Heading out are Odelusi (Dover. Loan), Jaiden White’s (Back to Hereford. Loan), Da Silva (Tamworth. Loan) and Harry Phipps (Eastbourne). Coming in have been Kai Jennings and Osman Foyo from the Wombles along with the aforementioned Taylor Snr. Since the Wealdstone game we’ve won 3 on the bounce at home (Telford FA Cup, Eastleigh & Halifax) and come from 2 down at Morecambe in a huge 6 pointer to lift us out of the bottom 4 for the first time in yonks. Green shoots of improvement? Yeah, you could say that. We even stuck out a strong side in the Surrey Cup to see off Guildford 5-0, much to Dukey’s delight. Not enough to do a blog on it though, the flat capped prick.
This all of course makes the one at Truro all the bigger. They’re bottom and we’ve no away wins to date this season. A win here and we’re looking on the way to glorious lower mid-table obscurity. With the distance involved, we decided to once more take flight to the wilds of middle earth Cornwall. Sadly, the only mob flying from the rather convenient Gatwick were charging an arm and a leg for the privilege and not only that, promptly went bust about a fortnight before the game. Close shave! Instead we elected for the services of the ever charming Mr O’Leary and his Ryan Air mob from Stanstead. Couple of car loads, everyone chips in for a weekend’s parking, job jobbed. So with a Friday off booked, Magnum PI is outside Gandermonium HQ tooting his horn at 10am for the run up the M11 via a quick stop to get Southampton Steve.
Forgoing the traditional slog round the 25, Magnum’s sat nav takes us up through the Blackwall tunnel, a route I’ve not done since I was in my 20’s. Still, it’s less than 2 hours and before noon we’re parking up right behind what we deduce is definitely Mr X’s shiny new expensive jam jar. So new in fact, it’s not even dirty enough to draw a spunky cock on the rear of it. Disgraceful. We reach the terminal to find the aforementioned man of mystery and Greek outside cramming as much nicotine into their bloodstream as possible. Inside, we find Robbo & Loffers along with debutant Vicky from the club shop. Clearly our beloved SLO is sick of being the only lass on these jaunts and has decided to dilute the sheer alpha male testosterone masculinity overload of the group a touch for this one. Fair enough, can’t say I blame her.
Also helping on this front is Indy making a long weekend of it on the train and stopping overnight in Plymouth and Not-Irish-Pete failing a late fitness test thanks to a pesky chest infection. 4Days is also doing the rattler this weekend, but he’s properly lost his marbles and will be going down and back in a day. Fuck that for a laugh. We hit security where Steve and I reckon we’ve pulled off a coup by ducking through a quiet gate only to find ourselves stood in what appears to be a shed tacked onto the terminal with one fucking x-ray machine and a queue of people of the length you’d find at an airport somewhere that’s just suffered a coup. To make matters worse, we both get the full shoe bomber treatment when we eventually get to go through leaving us stood on the freezing cold floor in our socks, which serves to remind me why I never fly from fucking Stanstead if I can help it.
With our feet stinging, we eventually make our way through duty free and go find the rest of the crew at the back of the Spoons, where there’s also a fair few other familiar boats knocking about the place, including the B Team. By my reckoning, it looks like we’ve probably got about 40% of this flight properly PRoWS’d up. Nice. A quick bit of grotty lunch and a pint later, it’s gate time. Thankfully an earlier 50minute delay has been remedied by Ryan Air swapping out our Polish originating plane for one coming in from Porto. A fact discovered by Steve on Flight Radar and one that impresses Greek immensely. “You sad cunt”.
On the little train to our gate, Greek asks “Who’s tightly?” when the PA announces that you need to “Hold tightly” as it is in motion. Steve’s having none of it either when asked “Are you tightly?”, completely blanking to question. There’s some drama at the gate as it turns out they’ve changed our boarding cards so none of our group booking works and Mr X ends up having to stand with the bird on the counter and scan us all through one by one. But it works out and we all make it on board. Then 50 minutes later, we’re crash landing in Newquay (seriously thought. Have you fucking touched down on a RyanAir flight lately, Jesus Christ!). We disembark to find that there’s no cabs at all and have to wait a good 20minutes for some transport to come pick us up.
Still, we pass the time with Loffers regaling us with the fact she’d been proper nosing at what the bloke in the row in front, sat between Mr X and Steve was sexting to a lass at work in between sending normal boring type messages to his actual missus. Some of the stuff covered involved spanking and “swapping juices” apparently. The highlight of it all though was the lucky lady asking “I hope no one can see what you’re writing”, to which he replied “They’re staring at their phones and one’s picking his nose”. Thankfully at this point the cab arrives, all eight of us pile in and we’re off just as the rain starts to fall.
Quick check in at the Premier Inn and we’re back out for the traditional Gandermonium “Couple of pints and a curry” Friday away day night out where there will be nothing like a couple of pints and absolutely no fucking curry. Greek in particular is hoping for lots of intake of Cornish Rattler, his favourite fruity flavoured pretend cider. And at this point if you can imagine if this was being narrated by Morgan Freeman, he’d say something along the lines of “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane”. But as he wasn’t available, I can only tell you somewhat bluntly that he was to be largely shit out of luck.
The places we hit are a varied bunch from regular pubs, to student nightlife gaffs doing pink and blue Hooch in cans (yes, Greek and Magnum. Idiots) to a place where some line dancing broke out and we legged it from sharpish to a place doing 80’s & 90’s pop and where most of the Yoof and B Team are out skulling lager and shaking their stuff. Here Greek is treated to a scandalously minging pint and the sight of two blokes, one hammered, one the relatively sober mate trying to escort him out falling through a door in the corner to the bemusement of the doormen. Once they’ve been hauled out, Mr X’s curiosity gets the better of him and he checks it out with his phone light before returning with a shrug. “It’s just a broom cupboard”. Shortly before midnight, I and Magnum call it and leave Ossie, Indy, Greek and Mr X to it and head back to the hotel for some shut eye. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long one and I need my beauty sleep!!
I feel remarkably decent when my alarm pings off at 8am, but regardless I tell it to fuck off and reset for quarter to 9 instead. Second time of asking though, I’m up, showered and down for breakfast, passing Indy on the way out. A plate of the usual to establish a decent soakage base for the day and with a 10.30 leave to Truro established, I head out into the morning air for a cobweb blower of a walk along the headland over the road. Some nice views, the sound of the ocean and a rather lovely looking young lady hiker bidding me a good morning sets me up a treat for the day ahead. We try to book cabs from a nearby office, but with a 45 minute wait we head to the station instead. Luckily there’s two here and having agreed a price, load on up and head on out.
We get dropped off 20 minutes later by the Cathedral and having located the others who were dropped the other side, we head for the White Hart. Here the barman’s impressed with me collecting the start of the whip for the day and suggests there’s a window in the gents I could probably do a bunk out of. As if. Here we do one and then head round the corner to Fitpatricks where there’s a lot of the Yoof in as well as Porn Star and Nutsack. Not far behind are Keepo, a freshly blow dried Fish and Dirty Barry, with the latter two bickering like two old birds as per usual. “Five fucking hours on the train I had it for!” groans Keepo. We do a couple here whilst Steve gleefully watches Southampton stick four past Charlton in less than 10 minutes with a show of defending that makes our own efforts earlier this season look positively competent, before then moving on to the Old Ale House. Here Greek still can’t find any Rattler “It’s where they fucking make it!” he complains. With a cab rank outside and a decent non-Greek beer selection, we elect to stick it out here pre-match.
Reid, Ecclestone, Muller, Jake Taylor, Jack Taylor, Pruti, Ogbonna, Simper, Foyo, Jennings, Harris SUBS: Njoku, Tizzard, Vaz, Jones, Crichlow, Bell, Sims
As per, we sup up at half two and head out to bag the only 2 sherbets waiting. What? Maximum efficiency that, no wastage! Although I do take the opportunity to nip to the nearby bakers for a pastie whilst Mr X finishes his cig and Steve has a piss. And despite some traffic on the way out to Threemilestone where the hosts now reside, we rock up outside the turnstiles with a couple minutes to spare to kick off. Why break the habit of a lifetime after all? The first half isn’t really much to write home about really, the hosts make a lot of the running, but do very little with it and we’re reduced to the odd flash here or there. In fact the only real highlight of the half is me hitting the fussy homer ref with a cracking ‘Wickerman’ line that gets a decent laugh and even has the lass steward down in front of us chuckling. We don’t always just call them a cunt you know!
Then with the 45 up, Truro make a mess of things in their half and gift us territory with a throw, we try to work it into the box from wide, Jack Taylor has a poke from an angle, it’s blocked and comes back to Harris who sweeps it across the keeper and into the far corner. Blimey, talk about take your chances! There’s then a lengthy stoppage for one of their lads who’s gone down awkwardly in the build up to the goal and sadly ends up needing to be stretchered off. Fortunately though the ref only adds on what he was going to add and we don’t end up playing an hour long first half.
Blagging the lead right on half time sees the lads start the 2nd 45 confidently, with Foyo making his first start firing one in that the keeps has to tip over soon after we resume. We keep up the tempo and 5 minutes in, we work the ball in from wide and eventually with the path to goal blocked, Muller lays the ball back to 18 for Kai Jennings to bend it top bins with the keeper rooted. 2-0!! And of course, no one’s remotely worried we’ll toss this one off because we’ve definitely not binned off a 2 goal lead this season already. We play ok for 10 or so, then past the hour they stick a deep cross in and a lad nips between two yellow shirts to nod down past Reid.
Even despite this we really should see the game off. Their keeps makes a great point blank save from Njoku (now resplendent with his own chant thanks to Johnnie and the Yoof), on for Foyo. Brandon also wastes a 1 on 1 firing low across the face and wide after being slotted in through the channel. But entering the last 10 we still look ok and not in any great danger, but then again this is of course Sutton United we’re talking about here, so that means fuck all. We can concede to the cones in training when we put our fucking minds to it. Of course, Truro level when we give it away cheap in midfield, a lad’s allowed to gallop miles with it and his shot from 18 takes a big deflection that’s just enough to beat Tommy and trickle over the line. Fucking Ada lads, not again!
To be fair though, the lads seem to take offence at being pegged back, going straight on the attack from the restart and inside 2 minutes, we’re back in front! Nice bit of play around the box, Ogbonna darts, pulls it back to Simper who offloads to the arriving Jennings who take a touch and leathers it bottom corner. I may have got excited at this point. First time this season pretty much and log overdue. Thankfully the lads see out the remainder and the whistle goes to signal a huge huge 3 points and our first win on the road this season. With the lads applauded off, we stumble out into the cold dark car park with smiles on our boats as big as the 3 points we’ll be transporting back to the Republic. And having located a nearby boozer to calm down in, we head over for pints and to arrange transport back to the Quay of New. Along the way, I even locate the Three Mile Stone that Threemilestone is, I assume, named after. #yeractualcultureinnit
Here we neck a couple of pints whilst Fish & DB continue to bicker like old washer women and Steve tries to convince Bev, otherwise known as ‘Vegan Bev’ that the carvery looks decent value. There’s also Rattler on pump and numerous options in bottles for Greek. Although sadly for him, he’s decided to jump in with Ossie straight back to the digs. But they make it here mate!! Steve books us some sherbets and just before 7, we head off into the Cornish darkness back to the Atlantic coast. There’s no faffing and we head straight to the Great Western for some dinner and celebratory pints and here after a busy night and pre-match today, we elect to just set up shop and booze here until they ask us to leave. Naturally the conversation is the usual high brow stuff with the main topic being what biscuit would be best suited for a female version of the game ‘Soggy Biscuit’.
A few drift away just before closing, whilst I predict the standard 95th minute Celtic winner in their game with St Mirren. At the death though, Greek, Indy myself and the Man of Mystery go over to spoons for a nightcap or two and the idiots start buying shots. Greek at least goes with Tequila Rose, the only acceptable tequila variant. Meanwhile Mr X picks up some vile ‘Spicy Mango’ things that are easily the worst thing I’ve ever drank. And I’ve had aftershock. Right, fuck this, I’m off to bed before some dickhead gets a round of Toilet Duck or something in!
Next morning, I have a lie in and head down for breakfast a bit later. Here a few of the gang are hanging out at various stages of devouring bacon, all moaning about a wild storm that woke them up at 5am. “What storm?” I shrug “Never heard a thing!”. Clearly Mr X’s vile round of shots had quite the anaesthetic effect on me! Eaten, I head back up to pack and another small pre-departure snooze before meeting everyone downstairs at noon. With the flight at almost 4pm, we’ve time to kill and we call decamp once more to the Great Western, where I leave the gang for a walk into town, a pastie and sitting on the sea wall at Towan beach whilst watching an old hippy lad balancing stones on boulders whilst his Bluetooth speaker plays some techno.
Half one and it’s back to the airport in cabs to begin the journey home. Here getting through security is a bit easier than it was at Stanstead and we clutter up departures with a brew whilst awaiting our flight. Eventually we’re airborne and soon back in the wilds of Essex with another smooth as butter O’Leary landing. Seriously lads, I know it’s cheap but fucking hell. Still when phones go back on, there’s good news to be had as the womens team have also won 3-2 away and are into the 3rd Round of the FA Cup! G’won the lasses! Back in the car park, we all bid our farewells and pile into transport to head round the 25 and home.
Just after 7, I wander into HQ, greet Mrs Taz and order up some pizza online.
You know what, we might just stay up I reckon!
Taz