eiffel_71 | (no subject)

To Chelmsford on the HawkSupport coach. We called at Clacketts Lane services again en route, at around 11.40 - an early lunch for me at the Wimpy, while many of our party braved the long wait in the queue for Costa coffee. Dave observed "I think they go to Brazil to pick the beans."

We reached the ground just after 1 pm and hit the clubhouse, where Liverpool v Manchester United was half an hour old. The sight of Liverpool was enough to have Mark and Simon reliving memories the trip to Anfield last season, then they went into reminiscences about football in the 80s. Trevor came up to me to say the venue for the girls' game tomorrow has been moved; Mark began his usual routine of derogatory comments about women's football, including "Why don't you go and watch a Southampton Junior League game instead? The standard'll be better," but he was rapidly put straight by Trev, then the conversation moved on to the Academy team's fortunes in the FA Youth Cup.

20 minutes before kick-off, the Sky match over, we all made our way out to pitchside. The ground's in an athletics track, but Chelmsford have made a decent fist of making it a proper football ground, with metal terraces installed directly behind both goals. It's only the spectators in the stand and along the other long side who have the track between themselves and the action. Before kick-off we serenaded various Hawk players with their individual chants, and Malc and Simon promised a new Gary Elphick song - but it wouldn't be unveiled until he'd scored a goal for us.

The match was a cracker. Chelmsford are the best footballing side we've faced all season. Both sides constantly threatened, but Hawks took the lead on 25 minutes when Gary Elphick met a lovely cross from Matt Gray with a bullet header right into the net. Malc and Simon promptly started a song beginning "Elphick is a striker, he wears a striker's hat" to the tune of My Old Man's A Dustman (Gary's actually a centre-back, but when we signed him part of the blurb was that he can play as an emergency striker). Chelmsford almost equalised just before the break but Kevin Scriven denied them with a super save. Cue "Hit me with your Scriven stick".

Chelmsford did get an equaliser from a free kick early in the second half, but Craig Watkins restored our lead on 67 minutes when Craig Watkins slipped his marker on the edge of the penalty box and sent in a shot along the ground which deflected off the centre-back and into the net. A Chelmsford sub was sent off for an apparent headbutt on Jay Gasson. Both sides continued to attack but thanks to Kevin Scriven's magnificent goalkeeping and the Chelmsford attack's wayward shooting Hawks held on for the win. As Chelmsford were second in the table and this was their first defeat of the season, this was a fantastic showing. At the final whistle we sang Under The Moon Of Love with gusto then reprised a few of the players' individual songs.

As the two sets of fans mingled to disperse, the afternoon took a much sourer turn. I didn't witness all these incidents but certainly saw one at close quarters. A huge bad-tempered bloke gave Aly a mouthful of foul invective, in front of little kids; Malc and Aly's five-year-old son was sworn at coming out of the loo; in the bar a Chelmsford fan told Mark we were "cheating scum"; several home fans made comments about us having bribed the ref or him being on board our bus; a group of home fans offered Hawks fans a fight outside the clubhouse, whereupon Malc urged everyone to walk away and get back on the coach - and it was Malc who found himself surrounded and questioned by stewards. Aly, in tears, said she wouldn't bring her little lad to matches again but Malc replied "TWATS like him are not going to stop my five-year-old coming to football." Some sensible Chelmsford supporters stopped to talk to us and apologise for their colleagues' conduct; one guy told Mark that these people had only been coming last season and this so had only known constant success, and simply couldn't take losing. We were still getting the odd bit of invective hurled at us as the last of us boarded the coach, with Malc shouting "Thanks for the three points, guys" then saying loudly, ostensibly to us, "Let's get out of pikey land."

The journey back was subdued although Mark and others talked up the brilliance of our team's performance. We'd been told we had half an hour when we arrived at Clacketts Lane, but after 22 minutes I was sat at a table with a packet of crisps and a Dipped Flake when Brian shouted to me from the front door to get on the coach. "I'm not late," I told him as I walked past, but he said "Everyone's back on the coach, though." As I passed Malc he said he'd been about to send out a search party, and Brian said "I am the search party." I was a bit cheesed off at being made to feel late just because everyone else got back on the coach early.

Aly's five-year-old was over his bad experience by the second half of the journey; he spent an hour asking people sitting around him, and shouting to Malc, asking them which they preferred of various pairs of teams ("Chelsea or United?" "Havant & Waterlooville or Barcelona?"...)