There’s this band that I like. They’re called the Eureka Machines. You’ve probably not heard of them as they’re an unsigned, part time outfit from up Leeds way. Good lads though, make a decent old racket and always put on a good show. You should definitely check them out if guitar based music is your thing. Anyway, they have this song I’m quite partial to, in which the last two lines of the chorus are as follows: “I’m wasting my time, yet again. Oh, another wasted weekend waiting”. And why do I mention this? No reason. No reason at all.
So, Boston away! Woo. The scene of one of last season’s bigger kick in the balls performance wise where we largely bossed the contest, missed a pen and shat the bed deep into injury time again to walk away empty handed. This year, getting there is a bit more of a faff as there’s no trains out of Kings Cross all weekend so with away numbers no doubt down because of it, the travel sec got to work and found us a roundabout way in via Nottingham. Which whilst a bit longer, does have the added advantage of any disasters meaning you could get stuck in Nottingham. With all those pubs. What a disaster eh?
We go into this one still not really setting much alight at all, let alone the world. Since Tamworth, we’ve drawn at home with Brackley (which thankfully I missed thanks to boring grown up life nonsense), who earned their point from a goal so fucking gift wrapped even the staff manning a Harrods jewellery counter at Xmas would have been impressed, such was its beautiful presentation. And by that I mean we got caught out fucking around with it at the back again. Because of course we fucking did. Keepo reckons it’s the worst goal he’s ever seen, which when you consider the last couple of seasons around this gaff, is really quite something. Hope all the bedwetters that cried about Matt’s ‘hoofball’ and demanding ‘better football’ are thoroughly entertained by the poundshop Pep-ball that currently has us 5th bottom though. What? It’s exciting. YOU WANTED EXCITING! Ahem.
There was also a 5-0 pumping of county league Horley during the week to move us 90minutes from a dream day out Tuesday evening down in Dorking for the county cup final. So if nothing else, whilst we’re all proper sorry frowns, Dukey is actually quite enjoying this season. The prick. Still, the last time we dicked a county side 5-0 in the SSC we went about 10 unbeaten, so fingers crossed history repeats itself eh? We’ve also added a couple of new faces, including kidnapping some lad from Tamworth. We’ve also lost Jack Taylor to League 1 Stevenage, which is a shame but good luck to the lad. Says a lot about our fucking ‘moneyball’ style recruitment the last few years when the only players to move on up are a 20 goal striker and one of our own Academy products.
So anyway. Boston. Another 6am alarm and out into the cold drizzly spitty rain, the type Peter Kaye famously stated ‘soaks you right through’ for a bus into Croydon. This goes without a hitch and I’m soon on the platform up at St Pancs after a trouble free journey. One highlight being the really quite pretty lady driving my train on arrival at East Croydon. Just the sort of lift a chap needs at this time of the morning I can tell you. Indy meanwhile has had to contend with the horrors of a discarded and destroyed pack of budget Jaffa cakes on his service. What a waste. After bagging a Greggs, I head upstairs to the Midlands platforms and find Indy sat munching his own scran. He’s important today as he’s the ticket carrier, with Mr X having decided to join Greek, Magnum and Ossie on a wild Friday night out in the bright lights of an old Market town in the arse end of Lincolnshire. Sure. Whatever rakes your moon out of a pond I guess.
Fed, I grab a cuppa and 4Days is soon on scene too. So with the gang all here, no really, we head for the platform before being made to wait about 10 minutes to board as the Sheffield train is in the way and I guess they don’t want anyone getting confused about which train they can get on. Still, it supplies a some amusement as people who’ve rocked up a minute before departure find their train is a 50 second sprint away. Run Forrest RUN! Eventually we’re on, the reservations are binned off and thankfully because we don’t have any, we grab the nearest table and settle in. On the move, the journey to our first change in Nottingham is peaceful and we pass the time between staring at flooded landscape out the window (we think Kettering will be mostly inhabited by fish at this point), some pub talk, setting your VPN to Afghanistan so you don’t get ads on YouTube and watching the Netherlands get carted all over the shop in the last over of their T20 game against Pakistan.
Some older lasses get on at Leicester and despite only being until Notts, they crack open the prosecco and a full M&S buffet spread for the trip. Fair play ladies. Looks like someone’s up for a full on Leo and it’s not just us! We pull into a drizzly Nottingham and whilst Indy & the Welshman go for seats on the train, I grab another brew. As the 2 carriage shitter to Skegness rolls on out, Mr X surfaces after a crazy cocktails night and shares a pic of the oppo’s old York Road ground from an estate agents window. Sold for £2m it seems. “Ok, how drunk did you get last night?” I enquire. The rest of the run is pretty dull and we eventually get into Boston just after 11. Pub? Pub. First stop is the eagle over the road and we’re soon joined by the Man of Mystery. Here we take to quizzing him about what he plans to do with his new property in Lincs.
With a pint necked, we move on and head over the river to the Church Keys. X had been here last night post-cocktails and whilst apparently sitting in the same seat as last night and 15 Eastern European lads try to have the jackpot out of a nearby fruity he describes it as an odd venue. “Like the 16th century meets Ibiza”. And when some music kicks in soon after he just offers a “See!?” as confirmation of his point. Here Magnum confirms he’s sacking us as he’s by the ground and can’t be arsed cabbing in. Fine by us, cheaper rounds! Next stop is Goodbarns Yard up the fabulously named ‘Wormgate’. Here we find we’re actually a bit ahead of schedule and settle in, reckoning we can probably do 3 more. We pass the time with discovering Mark Robins is now managing Stoke along with other nonsense, including a Bananarama reference from yours truly that no one gets. Fucking kids.
Sims, Ecclestone, Topallaj, Muller, Pruti, Taylor, Jennings, Simper, Francis, Nadesan, Ogbonna SUBS: Rodari, Eze, Bell, Njoku, Harris, Donkor, Haigh.
Eventually though, we’ve once again left it late for cabs to the ground and with about 25 minutes to go to kick off, pile into a Prius for the run out to some Starbucks next to a Premier Inn. Dumped, we get ourselves paid in at the turnstiles just in time to see the teams emerge from the tunnel. And I think we’ll largely leave it there where the game is concerned. Because fuck me we’re shit. Not a glove laid, barely a chance created. And their goal? US FUCKING ABOUT WITH IT ON THE EDGE OF OUR OWN BOX. AGAIN. Shite. Has anyone thought to tell this lot we’re in twatting 20th and a full on relegation fight? Might actually get some performances out of them. Thanks for fuck all again lads by the way.
Thankfully 4Days is top notch with the cab bookage and right after the final whistle we find our man parked in Starbucks. He quickly detects we’re not in the fucking mood for frivolity and gets us back to the Eagle in half the time geezer did before the game. 4Days is so impressed he tips him a fiver, practically doubling the fare. We down a quick pint in here where the Welshmen learns his countrymen have not gotten any better at Rugby and are being fucked in the face by their Colonial masters and I take the opportunity to pop over to the handily placed Aldi to load up some cans for the 90 minute run back to Notts.
The train trip back to civilisation is fine, if a little boring. The main interest is 4Days spotting a single love heart sweet on the floor. ‘Be Kind’ it says. Fuck off lads, we’re not making any promises at this point in proceedings. At least the supplies are adequate and when we hop off at the other end, we’ve got practically 90 minutes to kill before the train back to the big smoke. Well, we’ve seen shit football and we’re grumpy. Time for another pint! We neck a couple of leisurely ones in the Castle Rock place just over the bridge and note from the train departures screen here that there’s a Barrow in these parts. That and some people in the group pronounce Chat GPT in a French accent, making the latter acronym “je peh teh”! Naturally, I’m having none of this. Fucking dickheads. Pints downed and Tesco supplying home leg supplies, we eventually pull out of Nottingham 20 minutes later and all agree that getting a 50% delay repay might just be the highlight of our day.
The trip passes with my having a tip out in the toilet and 4Days not being impressed with the results when he makes use of the facilities after. It appears the flush was not as effective as one would have hoped it would be. Although that’s better than what Indy has to put up with a while later, when he finds someone’s shat on the floor of the same bog. Still, it’s a fitting metaphor for our performance today. And speaking of which, listening to Aggy’s post-matcher I got very late stage Morison vibes from it. Very downcast and seemingly looking for answers from a group of players that have largely flattered to deceive now for most of the last 2 seasons. Wednesday’s home game to Braintree is massive now. Lose that and we are in big big trouble.
Of course, to top off the day, we arrive back into St Pancs just the 29 minutes late. Something the guard seems really rather too fucking happy with when announcing it over the PA. Yeah, cheers mate. More money taken out of the working man’s pocket to sate your corporate masters! . With that delay putting us out of sync for trains, I wave the guys off here and hop on a run round to London Bridge to swap services and pick up a non-Thameslink rattler back to Croydon. Thankfully this does the job and I’m back at HQ just prior to the witching hour. Good enough.
And that’s me until probably Halifax now (which will no doubt be called off like it always is). Fuck Hartlepool quite frankly, I can just about be arsed to go on Wednesday as it is.
I can’t take it any more, my rotten stinking luck,
Everywhere an open door, another six slam shut.
There’s no known antidote to this poison,
Guess I just hit and hope this noise will leave me be…
Taz