Warthogs On The Pitch

It's belting down with rain as I dash between Monument and Bank stations, but what's going through my mind is not, 'Why do those blokes still need to wash the pavement with that high-powered hose?' but the Osmonds' song which goes, 'We're having a party, Gonna dance and play, We're having a party, While the folks are away.' Don't worry, I don't think about the Osmonds often, but today is, after all, the London Millers Christmas Party trip.
The London Millers may have officially in existence for 25 years, but the party trip has only really been around since December 2000. On that day, we managed to pull crackers, scoff mince pies, drink the gluhwein Rob Maxfield had brought back from the Frankfurt Christmas party and stuff copies of the London Miller magazine into envelopes - all between London and Swindon. As with most of our party trips since, the result that day didn't go our way, but we did have a great time. Since then, highlights have included a home trip against Preston, on the way back from which we initiated Phil Kyte ('the hapless Phil Kyte', as I later called him in the programme notes, much to the amusement of his dad) into the gang by making him sell raffle tickets to the drunkest Woking fans in Christendom. Then there was the Ipswich trip, where we not only celebrated a win (and are shown doing so - or at least applauding one of our goals - on that year's season highlights video) but Steve Ducker invented a new version of 'The 12 Days Of Christmas', where the 'true love' gave their paramour 'Division 2 for Sheffield Wednesday' and the then first choice Rotherham X1 by squad number. Even now, I can't hear the carol without wanting to replace the five gold rings with eight Chris Swailes... The most hilarious was the journey back from Cheltenham, where someone started describing how he'd seen a bloke dressed in a Father Christmas costume get into a scuffle in the away end. In the telling, this became inflated into a full-on Santa-off, with red-suited, white-bearded blokes being pulled apart by small children dressed as elves, yelling, 'Leave him, Dad, he's not worth it!' Meanwhile, the rest of the conversation was made up of what can only be described as single entendres about our then midfielder Martin Woods. A sex 'scandal' involving some Sunderland players had made the pages of the Sun, in which Martin had had a minor role (or as we inevitably described it at the time, a small part...).

So we're hoping for similar entertainment when we meet up at Kings Cross. There are eight of us - me, Jenny, Chris Turner, John Kirkland, Andy Leng, Rob 'still a jinx?' Elston, Stephen Armitage (making his first trip without his dad) and Clarkey. Stephanie, Clarkey tells us, has blown us out in favour of watching the X Factor final. Tim will be joining us on the train at Meadowhell and Phil Kyte and Chris Kirkland will be waiting in Sheffield, the latter having taken an earlier than usual train from Manchester to save 45p... Everything is going to plan, from the crackers, champers and party food on the train - Chris' cheese and silverskin onions on sticks the piece de resistance, as always - to gathering in the extra bodies en route. And then we board the tram, heading for the three pubs around West Street we were planning to visit, only for Phil to receive a text telling him the match is off! I ring my dad for confirmation. Yes, it's been on Radio Sheffield and Sky - the pitch is waterlogged and the ref has deemed it unfit for play. Disaster! Or maybe not. At last Phil is going to get the afternoon of drinking he's been suggesting all season - he can even pretend we'd won if he wants.

First stop is the Devonshire Cat, a weirdly modern pub which feels like an upmarket Wetherspoon - though the beer goes down well. We see a group of lads walk in and recognised them as Aldershot fans who we'd met on a train at the end of last season, when we'd been coming back from Mansfield and they'd been at Rushden & Diamonds. We'd had a good chat with them then, and they'd told us how, despite the romantic ideals of some of our fans, who were reckoning that if we hadn't found a buyer for Rotherham it would have been fun to start again in non-league football, that's the last thing anyone wants to do. They'd endured some miserable years since they went bust in 1992 thinking they would never see their team play league football again, and they wouldn't wish it on anyone. Now, they've come up to Sheffield for the whole weekend - and are probably going to have the opportunity to sample more pubs than they expected. Meanwhile, John and Andy are trying to find out whether Sheffield FC's game is on, working on the theory that we could go over and be the Mark Newsham fan club for the afternoon, as that's where he's pitched up on loan. The bad news, according to their website, is that the game is off. The good news is that their new replica away kit is now in stock - ideal if Andy fancies treating himself to a new shirt at two in the morning, as he sometimes does...

We end up spending most of the afternoon in the Bath Hotel, which is a great pub. Good beer, nice staff and possibly the world's tiniest kitchen, so it takes us a bit longer than we would normally expect for our food to arrive - but hell, we have all afternoon! Tim has been joined by a friend he knows through the When Saturday Comes messageboard, and Chris K and I keep the others up to date with the football scores via my radio and John's Blackberry (which Chris knows how to work a lot better than he does). There's a particularly massive cheer when Hull go two up against Liverpool, even though it doeen't stay that way.

A quickie in the Red Deer (where those whose view, unlike mine, wasn't blocked by a pillar were watch what appeared to be a burgeoning romance between two of the bar staff) is followed by the tram ride to the station, squeezed in among the Wednesday and Brizzle fans on the way back to the station. Someone should pour olive oil in through the windows so we can really recreate the full 'sardines in a tin' experience. In Donny, there is time to visit one of our favourite haunts, the Corner Pin, which endears itself to us even more by offering seasonal chip butties. They are devoured while we pick over the Green 'Un, which John has acquired from the stall at Doncaster station. It'll be a real shame if the pub is, as is threatened, demolished to make way for a new development in that part of Doncaster.

Part two of the party, the sweet course you might call it, takes place on the train back to London. It is a more sedate affair than on the way up, partly because the afternoon has been a little more alcohol-fuelled than people expected, and partly because we are in the quiet carriage and Clarkey manages to incur the wrath of a female passenger by raising his voice... Still, it's been a really good day, even minus any actual football - roll on the last game of the season, as that's our other excuse for a party trip!