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Jan. 16th, 2008 11:32 pmArriving at work, Mike said "The big night tonight, then" and asked me if I'd bought my ticket for Liverpool yet! Little did he or I know...
Half an hour into the shift I was pleasantly surprised to see a tin of Heroes on the nibbles table. Couldn't resist prising the lid off and dipping in - even better, it was full or nearly full. A bit later, Sarah #4 pointed them out to me and said she'd brought them. I thanked her effusively. The chocs were just the thing to help pass the shift - for not just me but a lot of the others, judging by the puny half-dozen or so that remained with an hour to go.
During the last hour I got an elderly woman who had the worst attitude ever of anyone I've completed a full survey with. She constantly abused me in between questions and said on four separate occasions "This is a waste of my time". At the end she refused to suggest a time when we might catch her daughter in and hung up before I could ask if we could call her back in three months. After she hung up, I threw my headphones on the floor in disgust. Ann, a few seats away, looked over, but didn't ask me what was up, she just gawped at me as though I were a monkey at the zoo. At least Paula came back from her coffee break at that point, and spotted my headphones on the ground before I wound them back up onto my desk as she came back to her booth next to me. She did ask what was up.
"That call was a nightmare," I told her.
"We've all been getting nightmare ones," she said. I had, earlier, made out her and Jane talking to each other about awkward customers they'd got. "Well, it's over now," she added.
By contrast, the next guy I got, my last call of the day, was a man in his seventies who was a full-time carer for his wife and son, both of whom have a disability brought on by a progressive illness - thankfully, it hasn't stopped the son getting and holding a good job - and whose three other grown-up children, who live elsewhere, also have the same condition. If anyone was entitled to regard the survey as an unwelcome intrusion on their time it was him, not some cantankerous grotbag who's just in a foul mood and decides to take it out on a random stranger. But he was a lovely bloke and did the whole thing without complaint.
Arrived at Westleigh Park at 6 pm to find two mobile burger vans, of the type that set up at fairgrounds, pitched on the approachway. There was a sizeable queue there, though it built up a much longer way behind me, until, after a quarter of an hour of standing still while wide boys wandered up and down the queue trying to sell flags and scarves and the two programme ladies flogged their legitimate wares, we finally started moving.
By the time I got to the front and into the ground, there were only about 20 to 30 seats still unbagged, mostly in the front rows at the sides where you generally have a floodlight pole problem. After trying two seats, I settled in a third, from which the pole wasn't quite so obtrusive. There was still over an hour before kick-off and it was just surreal to be sitting in a full stand and to see Westleigh Park packed to the rafters, with people three or four deep all round the perimeter fence. I spotted Rob and Lisa sitting in the next block and waved.
The game - what can I say? The atmosphere was incredible throughout. Hawks went on the attack from the kick off, but nothing could have prepared me for, in the fourth minute, Richard Pacquette getting a touch onto a Brett Poate cross (or so I, and Trev on the PA, thought : it was later given as an OG) and sending the ball into the back of the net. We all went wild celebrating, then the realisation dawned that we wanted absolutely nothing to happen for the remaining 86 minutes...
And then halfway through the half Jamie Collins doubled our lead with a toe-poke from a goalmouth scramble! Could it get any better? Well, yes actually. After Jay Smith had intervened to head a Swansea threat clear, a Swansea defender failed to stop a Pacquette through ball and Rocky Baptiste gratefully ran on to make it 3-0.
But the game wasn't dead yet. Moments after our third, a Swansea player tried a speculative lob from 20 yards and scored with a deflection. Not long after that they got a dangerous-looking free kick, which was blocked, but then one of theirs was brought down in the box and the ref awarded a penalty - earning him a torrent of abuse from those all around me.
But KEVIN SCRIVEN SAVED IT!!!
Going in 3-1 up at the break was better than anyone had dared to dream. Very soon after the restart, though, Swansea pulled one back and the realisation hit me that our command of the game was as fragile as a house of cards. Both sides attacked; Kevin Scriven made some super saves; Brett Poate and Jay Smith in the Hawk defence dealt superbly with Swansea threats.
On 65 minutes, Brett Poate crossed from 30 yards out...and Tom Jordan was in the penalty box to head home. 4-2. That was when I really started to believe we were going to do it. The fast open game continued, still both sides piled on the pressure, Swansea hit the woodwork twice, Scrivs made another great save; I never once looked at my watch, I didn't want to know how long we still had to endure. Then suddenly Trev announced that the sponsors had chosen JC as Man of the Match (though I thought Scrivs or Brett deserved it) - a sign that the end was near. It really didn't feel like we'd played that long. Around me people were singing "We're going to Wemberley, que sera sera". Trev asked people not to go on the pitch at the end of the game, warning that they could be arrested. Still no further score. Trev announced that there would be three minutes of time added on. As the seconds slipped by, people began to shout at the referee "Blow your whistle". When we got a throw-in in their half, I knew we'd done it.
At last the final whistle blew and we all rose to our feet and let up a mighty cheer. I made my way quickly to the front - I needed to get to the loo before going for my train - but I and the other people seeking to get away were held at the barrier for a while, as Hawk players and fans celebrated on the pitch. Kevin Scriven came up to the fence to receive our richly deserved plaudits.
Finally making it to Havant station, I met a husband and wife in Hawk jackets, still on a post-game high. We all talked until they got off at Fratton. Missed the Gosport ferry by seconds; as I'd had nothing to eat or drink since tea time I headed for the 24-hour snack window for a perfect bacon roll and a Dr Pepper. "Here's a happy man," grinned the guy serving, spotting my Hawks scarf.
"Well done. Fucking brilliant, mate," a man on the Gosport ferry said, coming over and shaking my hand. He'd been listening to the game on the radio at work. "Did they win?" a teenage couple sitting a few seats away asked.
"4-2, mate," the guy told them, grinning. He talked to me about the match for the rest of the ride, and signed off "All you need now's to scrape past Liverpool 1-0"...
Unbelievable.
Half an hour into the shift I was pleasantly surprised to see a tin of Heroes on the nibbles table. Couldn't resist prising the lid off and dipping in - even better, it was full or nearly full. A bit later, Sarah #4 pointed them out to me and said she'd brought them. I thanked her effusively. The chocs were just the thing to help pass the shift - for not just me but a lot of the others, judging by the puny half-dozen or so that remained with an hour to go.
During the last hour I got an elderly woman who had the worst attitude ever of anyone I've completed a full survey with. She constantly abused me in between questions and said on four separate occasions "This is a waste of my time". At the end she refused to suggest a time when we might catch her daughter in and hung up before I could ask if we could call her back in three months. After she hung up, I threw my headphones on the floor in disgust. Ann, a few seats away, looked over, but didn't ask me what was up, she just gawped at me as though I were a monkey at the zoo. At least Paula came back from her coffee break at that point, and spotted my headphones on the ground before I wound them back up onto my desk as she came back to her booth next to me. She did ask what was up.
"That call was a nightmare," I told her.
"We've all been getting nightmare ones," she said. I had, earlier, made out her and Jane talking to each other about awkward customers they'd got. "Well, it's over now," she added.
By contrast, the next guy I got, my last call of the day, was a man in his seventies who was a full-time carer for his wife and son, both of whom have a disability brought on by a progressive illness - thankfully, it hasn't stopped the son getting and holding a good job - and whose three other grown-up children, who live elsewhere, also have the same condition. If anyone was entitled to regard the survey as an unwelcome intrusion on their time it was him, not some cantankerous grotbag who's just in a foul mood and decides to take it out on a random stranger. But he was a lovely bloke and did the whole thing without complaint.
Arrived at Westleigh Park at 6 pm to find two mobile burger vans, of the type that set up at fairgrounds, pitched on the approachway. There was a sizeable queue there, though it built up a much longer way behind me, until, after a quarter of an hour of standing still while wide boys wandered up and down the queue trying to sell flags and scarves and the two programme ladies flogged their legitimate wares, we finally started moving.
By the time I got to the front and into the ground, there were only about 20 to 30 seats still unbagged, mostly in the front rows at the sides where you generally have a floodlight pole problem. After trying two seats, I settled in a third, from which the pole wasn't quite so obtrusive. There was still over an hour before kick-off and it was just surreal to be sitting in a full stand and to see Westleigh Park packed to the rafters, with people three or four deep all round the perimeter fence. I spotted Rob and Lisa sitting in the next block and waved.
The game - what can I say? The atmosphere was incredible throughout. Hawks went on the attack from the kick off, but nothing could have prepared me for, in the fourth minute, Richard Pacquette getting a touch onto a Brett Poate cross (or so I, and Trev on the PA, thought : it was later given as an OG) and sending the ball into the back of the net. We all went wild celebrating, then the realisation dawned that we wanted absolutely nothing to happen for the remaining 86 minutes...
And then halfway through the half Jamie Collins doubled our lead with a toe-poke from a goalmouth scramble! Could it get any better? Well, yes actually. After Jay Smith had intervened to head a Swansea threat clear, a Swansea defender failed to stop a Pacquette through ball and Rocky Baptiste gratefully ran on to make it 3-0.
But the game wasn't dead yet. Moments after our third, a Swansea player tried a speculative lob from 20 yards and scored with a deflection. Not long after that they got a dangerous-looking free kick, which was blocked, but then one of theirs was brought down in the box and the ref awarded a penalty - earning him a torrent of abuse from those all around me.
But KEVIN SCRIVEN SAVED IT!!!
Going in 3-1 up at the break was better than anyone had dared to dream. Very soon after the restart, though, Swansea pulled one back and the realisation hit me that our command of the game was as fragile as a house of cards. Both sides attacked; Kevin Scriven made some super saves; Brett Poate and Jay Smith in the Hawk defence dealt superbly with Swansea threats.
On 65 minutes, Brett Poate crossed from 30 yards out...and Tom Jordan was in the penalty box to head home. 4-2. That was when I really started to believe we were going to do it. The fast open game continued, still both sides piled on the pressure, Swansea hit the woodwork twice, Scrivs made another great save; I never once looked at my watch, I didn't want to know how long we still had to endure. Then suddenly Trev announced that the sponsors had chosen JC as Man of the Match (though I thought Scrivs or Brett deserved it) - a sign that the end was near. It really didn't feel like we'd played that long. Around me people were singing "We're going to Wemberley, que sera sera". Trev asked people not to go on the pitch at the end of the game, warning that they could be arrested. Still no further score. Trev announced that there would be three minutes of time added on. As the seconds slipped by, people began to shout at the referee "Blow your whistle". When we got a throw-in in their half, I knew we'd done it.
At last the final whistle blew and we all rose to our feet and let up a mighty cheer. I made my way quickly to the front - I needed to get to the loo before going for my train - but I and the other people seeking to get away were held at the barrier for a while, as Hawk players and fans celebrated on the pitch. Kevin Scriven came up to the fence to receive our richly deserved plaudits.
Finally making it to Havant station, I met a husband and wife in Hawk jackets, still on a post-game high. We all talked until they got off at Fratton. Missed the Gosport ferry by seconds; as I'd had nothing to eat or drink since tea time I headed for the 24-hour snack window for a perfect bacon roll and a Dr Pepper. "Here's a happy man," grinned the guy serving, spotting my Hawks scarf.
"Well done. Fucking brilliant, mate," a man on the Gosport ferry said, coming over and shaking my hand. He'd been listening to the game on the radio at work. "Did they win?" a teenage couple sitting a few seats away asked.
"4-2, mate," the guy told them, grinning. He talked to me about the match for the rest of the ride, and signed off "All you need now's to scrape past Liverpool 1-0"...
Unbelievable.
