![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Black Pudding Bertha
Dec. 7th, 2014 11:01 pmWent up to Bury yesterday, keeping my promise to the Grange-over-Sands greengrocer. I'd got cheap advance tickets last month, including the joys of first class travel on the way up.
Had to change Metrolink trams in Manchester, involving a short walk between two city centre stops. The centre of Manchester was buzzing with Christmas shoppers, decorations in all the shops. There were more festive goings-on in Bury town centre, including two guys with a stall collecting for Children with Cancer, one of whom was singing Christmas hits over instrumental backing tracks. They were starting to sound a bit dispirited, so I chucked a pound in one of their buckets.
I was on a mission : find some black pudding, a food I've always liked, which originates from Bury. I struck lucky in the busy Bury Market where The Barbecue Barn offered black pudding in a roll - or 'barm' as they're called in those parts - for £1.99. Quite tasty.
It was still only 1.15 when I finished my barm but my continuing detox ruled out a visit to a local hostelry so I just made the walk out of the centre of town and on to Gigg Lane, just in time to see the last of the lads getting out of the team coach. There were half a dozen other early birds waiting by the away turnstiles.
The ground was a fine traditional English lower-division one, converted to all-seater by the addition of seats to the terraces. In the away stand that meant the seats were a bit low above the ground so our knees ended up bent a bit upward. I sat in the second row from the top ; about 35 Hatters stood all along the top behind the back row of seats, singing non-stop. With 23 minutes of the game gone, some stewards came up and told them to go and sit, explaining that they were occupying an emergency gangway. Some of them got argumentative, but within minutes they'd all moved on to a previously empty block of seats - where they stood all game and kept up the singing.
Luton took the lead on 50 minutes, Mark Cullen pouncing on a ball spilled by the Bury goalie. For the rest of the half Bury pressed forward a few times until, in the first minute of smegging injury time, a Bury corner led to a goalmouth scramble that ended with the ball finding its way into the net.
On the walk back to town I met Keith, who said that equaliser was gutting as we could have done without the extra fixture. We chatted till we reached the bus station. Waiting for the tram a guy spoke to me ; he'd been a steward at the game, but was a Manchester United fan - he worked both Old Trafford and Gigg Lane and also music concerts. We talked on the tram until we reached his stop.
Had to leg it through Piccadilly to get to the right platform - the furthest-flung one in the whole station - on time. The train was ten minutes late, which on the one hand meant I made it comfortably, but on the other hand meant it was touch and go whether I'd make my connection at Warrington - to the only train home my booked cheap ticket was good for. The change at Warrington, bizarrely, involved walking from Central station to Bank Quay station which was a fair old hoof. I ran some of the way, then met Paul, a fellow member of one of the fan groups on Facebook, and we walked the rest of the way chatting about football. It looked like we were going to miss the all-important train by the narrowest of margins, but thankfully that one was late too. We met another Hatter on the platform and all moaned together about having to play a replay, until the train turned up and we had to separate to our reserved seats.
One knock-on effect was that we didn't make Milton Keynes in time for a connecting train to Leighton and had to wait there for half an hour - or three-quarters of an hour as it turned out, yet another bloody delay. At least the guy I'd met at Warrington Bank Quay was also waiting for the Leighton train and we were able to take cover from the cold in the platform's coffee shop (closed of course). Made it home just after 10pm.
Had to change Metrolink trams in Manchester, involving a short walk between two city centre stops. The centre of Manchester was buzzing with Christmas shoppers, decorations in all the shops. There were more festive goings-on in Bury town centre, including two guys with a stall collecting for Children with Cancer, one of whom was singing Christmas hits over instrumental backing tracks. They were starting to sound a bit dispirited, so I chucked a pound in one of their buckets.
I was on a mission : find some black pudding, a food I've always liked, which originates from Bury. I struck lucky in the busy Bury Market where The Barbecue Barn offered black pudding in a roll - or 'barm' as they're called in those parts - for £1.99. Quite tasty.
It was still only 1.15 when I finished my barm but my continuing detox ruled out a visit to a local hostelry so I just made the walk out of the centre of town and on to Gigg Lane, just in time to see the last of the lads getting out of the team coach. There were half a dozen other early birds waiting by the away turnstiles.
The ground was a fine traditional English lower-division one, converted to all-seater by the addition of seats to the terraces. In the away stand that meant the seats were a bit low above the ground so our knees ended up bent a bit upward. I sat in the second row from the top ; about 35 Hatters stood all along the top behind the back row of seats, singing non-stop. With 23 minutes of the game gone, some stewards came up and told them to go and sit, explaining that they were occupying an emergency gangway. Some of them got argumentative, but within minutes they'd all moved on to a previously empty block of seats - where they stood all game and kept up the singing.
Luton took the lead on 50 minutes, Mark Cullen pouncing on a ball spilled by the Bury goalie. For the rest of the half Bury pressed forward a few times until, in the first minute of smegging injury time, a Bury corner led to a goalmouth scramble that ended with the ball finding its way into the net.
On the walk back to town I met Keith, who said that equaliser was gutting as we could have done without the extra fixture. We chatted till we reached the bus station. Waiting for the tram a guy spoke to me ; he'd been a steward at the game, but was a Manchester United fan - he worked both Old Trafford and Gigg Lane and also music concerts. We talked on the tram until we reached his stop.
Had to leg it through Piccadilly to get to the right platform - the furthest-flung one in the whole station - on time. The train was ten minutes late, which on the one hand meant I made it comfortably, but on the other hand meant it was touch and go whether I'd make my connection at Warrington - to the only train home my booked cheap ticket was good for. The change at Warrington, bizarrely, involved walking from Central station to Bank Quay station which was a fair old hoof. I ran some of the way, then met Paul, a fellow member of one of the fan groups on Facebook, and we walked the rest of the way chatting about football. It looked like we were going to miss the all-important train by the narrowest of margins, but thankfully that one was late too. We met another Hatter on the platform and all moaned together about having to play a replay, until the train turned up and we had to separate to our reserved seats.
One knock-on effect was that we didn't make Milton Keynes in time for a connecting train to Leighton and had to wait there for half an hour - or three-quarters of an hour as it turned out, yet another bloody delay. At least the guy I'd met at Warrington Bank Quay was also waiting for the Leighton train and we were able to take cover from the cold in the platform's coffee shop (closed of course). Made it home just after 10pm.
