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Feb. 16th, 2008 11:32 pmWhen your team are playing an hour's drive away you don't expect to have to leave home at 7.30 am. However, Malc, who runs HawkSupport's away travel, is also manager of the HawkSupport football team, so today's bus to Basingstoke left at 9 am to take in HawkSupport's match against the Basingstoke fans.
Their game was played at a leisure centre. There was frost on the grass outside the changing rooms, but mercifully not on the pitch. The HawkSupport lads lined up for a photo before kick-off - as Pete remarked to me "They're having it done now while they can still walk!" Matt was wearing gold boots - Malc warned him "You'd better score in those, or you'll get the piss ripped out of you." HawkSupport lost 5-2. Matt didn't score.
We spectators filed back onto the bus to wait while those who'd been playing got changed and showered, then it was over to the Basingstoke Town ground. The clubhouse served proper plates of burgers, egg or hot dogs with chips, and had a table offering all the sauces you could ask for (burger relish, garlic mayonnaise, etc. as well as the traditional tom and brown). I went for a 'Dragon Burger' (Basingstoke's nickname is The Dragons) which consisted of a burger, a square of pink sausage, bacon and cheese in a bun, plus chips. Not bad. The bar served a strawberry and pear cider called 'The Brothers' - lovely stuff. A big screen was showing Bristol Rovers v Southampton. Word went round the clubhouse that Neil Sharp wouldn't be playing this afternoon, as he'd been driving to the game only to turn back when he got the message that his wife had gone into labour. Cue the jokes - "How inconsiderate of her!", "You'd think she could have had her chavvy induced yesterday"...
Behind me on the terrace were some of the guys from the HawkSupport team, who spent much of the first half taking the mick out of Basingstoke keeper Chris Tardif, mostly for his limited kicking ability. I told them how last Sunday Non-League Today had called him Chris Tardis - amusement all round followed by a rendition of the Dr Who theme. The match was tensely balanced until 18 minutes when Rocky Baptiste drilled home.
Basingstoke bombarded us with a succession of corners, but Scrivs and our defence dealt with them all.
Moving around the ground during half-time, when we arrived at the other end we found the sun shining full in our eyes. We all spent the whole second half with hands up shielding our eyes. Soon after the restart Gary Elphick poked in our second from close range.
"We want one more to make it safe," Pete said to me. "I'm quite happy with this," I replied - famous last words. By 75 minutes Basingstoke had pulled it back to 2-2. Deep dejection descended.
Thankfully, a few minutes later Mo Harkin ran down the right and curled a cross behind Craig Watkins to skid perfectly into the six-yard box for Richard Pacquette to tap in. 3-2 to Hawks was how it ended and we all clapped the team off with a rendition of Under The Moon Of Love.
As we walked out of the ground, the news spread that Barnsley had beaten Liverpool 2-1. One young boy in our party had a Liverpool jacket on; when he got on the coach Malc announced "We have a genuine Liverpool supporter here, please don't laugh at him because they're out of the Cup" - then promptly burst into raucous laughter.
All through the drive home the radio was tuned to Radio 1, which had Fearne Cotton and a male presenter playing records most of which I was unfamiliar with and happy to stay that way, although the kiddies on board seemed to like it. Someone should have a word with that driver and explain to him that Radio 5 Live is the only acceptable listening choice for the coach ride home from a footy match.
From Havant, I took the train to Portsmouth then the bus to the Pyramids to see Amy Macdonald. I arrived there just on 7.30 as the doors were opening, but was completely unprepared for the two-mile-long snake that was the queue. Thankfully they were letting people in fairly quickly. As I reached the paving at the top of the steps, right outside the Pyramids doors, a steward announced "This is your last chance for a cigarette, once you're inside you can't go out and in again." The lady behind me asked what he'd said. I told her. She observed "Who's going to be mad enough to go outside for a fag when it's this freezing?"
The place was absolutely packed. I'd never imagined it possible to get so many people into the Pyramids. The first act on, Julian Velard, started while I was still at the back of the queue for the bar. Seeing my Havant & Waterlooville shirt, the barman gave me a thumbs up and said "Nice shirt. Respect." By the time I'd got served and made my way back through the queueing masses and into the crowd, he was halfway through his set. He wasn't bad, and nor was the next guy, Cass Lowe - who gave me false hope of 'Summer of '69' when he asked a person in the crowd "Did you shout Bryan Adams or Ryan Adams?" He pretended to start Summer of '69, hitting the opening chords, then said "No, I'd rather play my own stuff." He went on to castigate Ryan Adams for wanting to be someone's underwear.
As we waited for Amy, I heard a young lady tell her friend how "her football" was so important to her she couldn't possibly give it up. I turned and asked her who she supported, and she said Pompey. I told her I was a Hawks fan; she replied "I guessed that from your shirt." She said she'd been to a few games at Westleigh Park and liked it. I asked if she was going to see Pompey at Preston tomorrow, but she said she'd be watching on telly as the price of a ticket was beyond her budget. "And you get to have your Sunday lie-in," I added. Top babe.
Amy appeared just after 9.30 to an enormous roar. She opened with A Wish For Something More, then rocked the place with L.A. Her between-songs patter was superb, and she won the crowd's hearts saying how last time she'd played Portsmouth, at the little Wedgewood Rooms a few months ago, someone had said to her "You'll never come back to Portsmouth, Amy, you'll be too big," but she'd promised to return and now here she was. She was delighted to hear a fellow Glaswegian call out to her, and later cemented her popularity by telling us how touched she was that, here in Portsmouth, almost as far from Glasgow as you can get in Britain, so many people wanted to come and see her perform her songs.
The place electrified when Amy and her band struck up This Is The Life as their fourth song. At the end Amy said "I like it how when we started that, you all held your phones up. I'll be watching it on YouTube tomorrow." Then she mused how in the 1950s we had celebrities who were nice people that you could really look up to - "and now we have Jade Goody! What a role model!" Her words "So this song is about talentless celebrities" got one of the biggest cheers of the night. And she launched into Footballer's Wife.
She played all her album and added a few treats - an early B-side "that you probably won't have heard", which was a fantastic song called Rock Bottom, plus two brand new songs, both brilliant - I especially loved the second, Your Time Will Come, which she played during the encore.
On to the taxi rank, where I met a married couple from Gosport and we shared a cab to the Hard. During the taxi ride they told me how they'd received their tickets as a Christmas gift from their son, who'd constantly been urging his mother to listen to Amy's music. As we got out at the Hard, a bunch of blokes were waiting at the rank to get in. One of them, glancing at my football shirt, asked me "Are you a Barnsley fan? Oh no, you're not, are you?"
"Havant & Waterlooville," I said, showing the club badge. That met with his approval.
Their game was played at a leisure centre. There was frost on the grass outside the changing rooms, but mercifully not on the pitch. The HawkSupport lads lined up for a photo before kick-off - as Pete remarked to me "They're having it done now while they can still walk!" Matt was wearing gold boots - Malc warned him "You'd better score in those, or you'll get the piss ripped out of you." HawkSupport lost 5-2. Matt didn't score.
We spectators filed back onto the bus to wait while those who'd been playing got changed and showered, then it was over to the Basingstoke Town ground. The clubhouse served proper plates of burgers, egg or hot dogs with chips, and had a table offering all the sauces you could ask for (burger relish, garlic mayonnaise, etc. as well as the traditional tom and brown). I went for a 'Dragon Burger' (Basingstoke's nickname is The Dragons) which consisted of a burger, a square of pink sausage, bacon and cheese in a bun, plus chips. Not bad. The bar served a strawberry and pear cider called 'The Brothers' - lovely stuff. A big screen was showing Bristol Rovers v Southampton. Word went round the clubhouse that Neil Sharp wouldn't be playing this afternoon, as he'd been driving to the game only to turn back when he got the message that his wife had gone into labour. Cue the jokes - "How inconsiderate of her!", "You'd think she could have had her chavvy induced yesterday"...
Behind me on the terrace were some of the guys from the HawkSupport team, who spent much of the first half taking the mick out of Basingstoke keeper Chris Tardif, mostly for his limited kicking ability. I told them how last Sunday Non-League Today had called him Chris Tardis - amusement all round followed by a rendition of the Dr Who theme. The match was tensely balanced until 18 minutes when Rocky Baptiste drilled home.
Basingstoke bombarded us with a succession of corners, but Scrivs and our defence dealt with them all.
Moving around the ground during half-time, when we arrived at the other end we found the sun shining full in our eyes. We all spent the whole second half with hands up shielding our eyes. Soon after the restart Gary Elphick poked in our second from close range.
"We want one more to make it safe," Pete said to me. "I'm quite happy with this," I replied - famous last words. By 75 minutes Basingstoke had pulled it back to 2-2. Deep dejection descended.
Thankfully, a few minutes later Mo Harkin ran down the right and curled a cross behind Craig Watkins to skid perfectly into the six-yard box for Richard Pacquette to tap in. 3-2 to Hawks was how it ended and we all clapped the team off with a rendition of Under The Moon Of Love.
As we walked out of the ground, the news spread that Barnsley had beaten Liverpool 2-1. One young boy in our party had a Liverpool jacket on; when he got on the coach Malc announced "We have a genuine Liverpool supporter here, please don't laugh at him because they're out of the Cup" - then promptly burst into raucous laughter.
All through the drive home the radio was tuned to Radio 1, which had Fearne Cotton and a male presenter playing records most of which I was unfamiliar with and happy to stay that way, although the kiddies on board seemed to like it. Someone should have a word with that driver and explain to him that Radio 5 Live is the only acceptable listening choice for the coach ride home from a footy match.
From Havant, I took the train to Portsmouth then the bus to the Pyramids to see Amy Macdonald. I arrived there just on 7.30 as the doors were opening, but was completely unprepared for the two-mile-long snake that was the queue. Thankfully they were letting people in fairly quickly. As I reached the paving at the top of the steps, right outside the Pyramids doors, a steward announced "This is your last chance for a cigarette, once you're inside you can't go out and in again." The lady behind me asked what he'd said. I told her. She observed "Who's going to be mad enough to go outside for a fag when it's this freezing?"
The place was absolutely packed. I'd never imagined it possible to get so many people into the Pyramids. The first act on, Julian Velard, started while I was still at the back of the queue for the bar. Seeing my Havant & Waterlooville shirt, the barman gave me a thumbs up and said "Nice shirt. Respect." By the time I'd got served and made my way back through the queueing masses and into the crowd, he was halfway through his set. He wasn't bad, and nor was the next guy, Cass Lowe - who gave me false hope of 'Summer of '69' when he asked a person in the crowd "Did you shout Bryan Adams or Ryan Adams?" He pretended to start Summer of '69, hitting the opening chords, then said "No, I'd rather play my own stuff." He went on to castigate Ryan Adams for wanting to be someone's underwear.
As we waited for Amy, I heard a young lady tell her friend how "her football" was so important to her she couldn't possibly give it up. I turned and asked her who she supported, and she said Pompey. I told her I was a Hawks fan; she replied "I guessed that from your shirt." She said she'd been to a few games at Westleigh Park and liked it. I asked if she was going to see Pompey at Preston tomorrow, but she said she'd be watching on telly as the price of a ticket was beyond her budget. "And you get to have your Sunday lie-in," I added. Top babe.
Amy appeared just after 9.30 to an enormous roar. She opened with A Wish For Something More, then rocked the place with L.A. Her between-songs patter was superb, and she won the crowd's hearts saying how last time she'd played Portsmouth, at the little Wedgewood Rooms a few months ago, someone had said to her "You'll never come back to Portsmouth, Amy, you'll be too big," but she'd promised to return and now here she was. She was delighted to hear a fellow Glaswegian call out to her, and later cemented her popularity by telling us how touched she was that, here in Portsmouth, almost as far from Glasgow as you can get in Britain, so many people wanted to come and see her perform her songs.
The place electrified when Amy and her band struck up This Is The Life as their fourth song. At the end Amy said "I like it how when we started that, you all held your phones up. I'll be watching it on YouTube tomorrow." Then she mused how in the 1950s we had celebrities who were nice people that you could really look up to - "and now we have Jade Goody! What a role model!" Her words "So this song is about talentless celebrities" got one of the biggest cheers of the night. And she launched into Footballer's Wife.
She played all her album and added a few treats - an early B-side "that you probably won't have heard", which was a fantastic song called Rock Bottom, plus two brand new songs, both brilliant - I especially loved the second, Your Time Will Come, which she played during the encore.
On to the taxi rank, where I met a married couple from Gosport and we shared a cab to the Hard. During the taxi ride they told me how they'd received their tickets as a Christmas gift from their son, who'd constantly been urging his mother to listen to Amy's music. As we got out at the Hard, a bunch of blokes were waiting at the rank to get in. One of them, glancing at my football shirt, asked me "Are you a Barnsley fan? Oh no, you're not, are you?"
"Havant & Waterlooville," I said, showing the club badge. That met with his approval.
