Rambling Man

The feelings I have the morning after when a football team I like has lost A Big Match are completely different than those I feel the morning after when I team I support has lost. In Bristol Rovers disastrous relegation season of 2000/01 battered my spirits so badly I felt I would never recover. A small part of my world had died, or at least it felt like it. It took months, maybe years, to get over it and things got worse before they got better. Liverpool’s defeat to Real Madrid last night in Big Cup briefly deflated my spirits, but I’m well over it now, the morning after. The difference could not be greater.

I don’t get the same feelings of devastation these days when Rovers lose or the feelings of joy when they win because the emotional attachment is all but gone. There’s no need to go over the reasons because they will make no sense to anyone who doesn’t see the world entirely in black and white, as I tend to do, and because I have long gotten over myself.

I’m still caught up in the euphoria of yesterday’s Rugby League Challenge Cup final at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium where ‘my’ team Wigan Warriors defeated Huddersfield Giants 16-14. My team, I ask you. I’ve hardly ever been to Wigan, certainly on fewer occasions than I’ve been to Liverpool, and I have no familial connections with the area. But you can’t call me a ‘glory hunter’ either since I’ve been following – not supporting – Wigan since the late 1960s when I watched them on BBC’s Grandstand when they were shit. There was something indefinable that attracted me to Wigan, who weren’t even Warriors back then. Or perhaps I saw a kindred spirit, a team of plucky losers who I was going to emulate for the rest of my life?

Either way, I felt totally engaged yesterday and wrapped up emotionally with. ‘my team’. And when Liam Marshall scored a dramatic late winning try for ‘us’, I thought I might pass out. No, I can’t explain it either. I reckon I’d have felt a lot worse this morning had Wigan lost than I did about Liverpool.

I totally get that you should support, where possible, your local club. In fact, other than watching Rotterdam’s Feyenoord in the land of my mother(s) the first games I ever saw involved Bristol City before I saw the light and found my place at Bristol Rovers ramshackle Eastville Stadium. In fact, ramshackle is a word that follows Rovers around, from Eastville to non league Bath City and finally ex rugby ground the Memorial Stadium AKA Ground, the least ramshackle of them all. If it’s not Rovers, it’s no one for me. I just don’t have it in me – don’t want to have it in me – to choose another team to follow. God help me in the unlikely event Bristol become a Super League power!

Speaking of ramshackle, that’s a word you would not use to describe the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. I found it to be well-designed, albeit generic, modern football stadium with little to suggest it belonged to a particular club. For all that, the acoustics meant that when the crowd started singing and shouting it had a real sense of atmosphere. And luckily I had managed to mortgage my house so I could afford a pre match pint. I thought the stadium was far better than Wembley, which I suggest is a very low bar, and not as good as the Principality Stadium in Cardiff which to me is head and shoulders above the rest. Like with many Premier League grounds, a lifetime of watching lower league football has made them alien places for me. Give me the lower league terraces any day of the week.

Here are some more observations of my fun-packed day in the Capital:

• The Hitachi train that took me to London was very impressive, even though a lengthy signal check at Chipping Sodbury saw us arrive five minutes late. The train was rammed, too, and while this is no bad thing, it meant I had a shitty seat with virtually no window view.
• I went on the Elizabeth line which opened this week. Why on Earth they don’t call it Crossrail is beyond me. Although it’s both over and underground, in central London it’s basically another underground line and it was very busy. How were these people getting around before Crossrail?
• The train from Liverpool Street to White Hart Lane was desperately slow, but still arrived on time. Here was the familiar cry of ‘MOVE ALONG THE PLATFORM, PUH-LEASE’ every few seconds. It was cattle-class in every way except name. Returning to Liverpool Street was horrendous, with a mile long queue to get in the station. I somehow managed to get in through an exit door, apologising for using the wrong door, beating the entire queue.
• A reminder that the Mad Bishop and Bear at Paddington is still a great pub with even greater beer. Fullers Jubilee at a mere £5.80 a pint was the dog’s bollocks.

In summary, I’m over Liverpool’s defeat, I’m still on Cloud Nine about Wigan’s win and it was great to visit London again, the world in one place.