Authored By Max
Away wins have been few and far between since we got back in the football league, but this day was far more than that and it will take something special to take the title of 'best away day of all time' off this one.
Nine of us on the train, left New Barnet just after half 8 and got straight on the beers. We had to change at Peterborough and then Nottingham en route. Here we hit our first problem. No trains to Chesterfield, engineering works. So..a railn replacement coach to Alfreton. We all carried on drinking on the coach and it wasn't too bad, but it did take about 40 minutes to make the relatively short trip to Alfreton. When we got there, we had to get another rail replacement. This was something else, a battered old minibus pulled up. There was just about enough room for us all to get in, including one or two poor non-Barnet fans, who had the pleasure of our intelligent conversation for the duration.
We didn't get to Chesterfield until about half one, later than planned. We went straight into Yates' and things started to get silly, my mate kept buying rounds of dirty shots and you can imagine the state we were all in by 3pm. We were on that open terrace behind the goal, 139 Bees fans there, hardly great numbers, but those of us who'd been on it since breakfast time were making sure we had a good sing song. Getting various abuse off a little section of chavs in the home end, to our right.
The first half was fairly dull as I recall, they looked more like scoring than us, but it was 0-0 at the break.
We were hardly being subtle with our drinking and its fair to say, the stewards were pretty sound in turning a blind eye. After 55 minutes, we didn't half have something to jump about, about, though. Jason Norville, the biggest sicknote ever, popped up with a weird header which seemed to take a while to go in and put us 0-1 up. We were right behind the goal and the footage on the highlights was quality. You could see us all going spare. Me jumping on the barrier, being told to get down, getting down and then getting back on it again straight away. Quality celebrations.
After this, although Chesterfield were on top, you sort of got the feeling this might be our day. Either way, we were having a good little party on the terrace, myself and a friend dancing around like a right pair of dicks with our tops off. During this came either my finest hour or moment of complete shame, depending on how you look at it.
The ball came in our end. I got it, my mate wanted a touch, so I gave it to him and he kicked it back to me. I then walked towards the front with it, as Chesterfield's keeper Barry Roche strolled over to get it off me. I leaned over the barrier to hand it back, then as he went for it, pulled it back. I then proceeded to hold the ball in one hand and give him the wanker sign with the other. All this, whilst topless and with 4000 home fans getting pretty angry. Eventually I threw the ball over his head and shouted something else at him. Naturally, I was grabbed by the stewards and they started to march me out. Someone threw me my top and I was getting ready to leave, I didn't have a leg to stand on after that. Somehow though and I really don't know how, my group of mates managed to talk them round and they let me stay in! Chesterfield FC - Best Stewards In The World!
There was only about five minutes to go when all that happened and despite relentless pressure from the home side, we did indeed hang on to claim a fantastic away win against the side who at the time were 2nd in the division. Good scenes at full time. All the players coming over, us all clapping and going generally mad. Then came the dicey bit, although the state we were in, we didn't really give this much thought. We'd have to walk back through the town to the station. Like a bunch of absolute morons we came out the ground singing, walking through a sea of home fans. A police officer then came up to my mate and we thought we might be in trouble for something...instead, he offered us all a lift to the station! Took the term 'police escort' to a whole new level, a lift in a riot van.
We got to the station and again, no trains running and we couldn't be arsed to wait for the coach, so we just jumped in a taxi to Nottingham. Only £35 for 5 of us, which is pretty amazingly cheap considering it's not THAT near. Back on the train from Nottingham to Peterborough, it continued getting messy. We were now drinking wine for some reason. The change at Peterborough saw the 'purchase' of free beer, as the woman didn't charge me for it for some bizzare reason at the station, just the sandwich I bought with it. This day just kept getting better.
The last train home was the best, though. We'd seen this group of generally attractive ladies at Peterborough, but thought nothing of it. Ended up getting in the same bit of the train as them. Of the nine of us, the older who hadn't been getting so messy were somewhere else on the train, one of my lot had gone with them for a bit too, two others had decided a nap was a good shout, so it was just two of us left with these birds. And, as you do when your drunk, we spoke to them. Dutch courage and all that. Once the others heard we were chatting to them they all rushed back to get invovled and things just got awful, but in a good way. They were filthy, some of the stuff that was said. Then we were all doing roly polys, flips, climbing in the luggage racks and so on. Amidst all this, probably the 2nd fittest of the bunch just randomly came out with 'I think you're well cute, if you were a bit older...' which was a nice little ego boost. Naturally I then tried my bollocks off with her, some of the things we did to impress were horrendous. Pictures, that's all I'm saying.
Anyway, as we got off the train, this fit bird (27) obviously couldn't resist my (at the time, 18 year old), charms and I managed to get off with her, as we said bye. This day was bloody perfect.
Got back to Barnet, had a few pints and then at about midnight, got hit by a car, as you do. Was in hospital until 5am....not a scratch on me. Just a bit of concussion and a hurt leg, but nothing broken, not even a bruise in sight! Proper whacked me too, up in the air, the back of my head shattered the windscreen and a I bounced forward into the road. But got straight back up. Beer saves lives. I think that was my lucky day, 6 days before I left for Univeristy too, a bloody good send off, minus the near death experience!
Just pretty much a perfect day, a story I will never get bored of telling! Fair play if you read all this, a bit long I know, but too easy to get carried away.
Brilliant.
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