Popping The Cherries

By now, the entry for any home trip pretty much begins the same way. Meet up with Miller chums (in this case, Jenny, Clarkey and Steve Ducker), travel up to Sheffield on the train (via Donny in this instance, and for the next few Saturdays, given that National Express are currently doing the best deals on tickets), meet up with Mr Kyte in the Fat Cat and have nice lunch while Mr Kyte debates staying in the pub till six o'clock and just pretending that we've won (and given that it's the Fat Cat's winter beer festival at the end of the month, if he's ever actually going to do that, that's going to be the weekend) before heading to the DVS by about quarter to three. So assume that we've done all that, and that Jenny and I have hoisted the London Miller flag in what's probably getting up to Force 5 on the Beaufort Scale, at least in the exposed bit of the main stand's upper tier. We've asked the youth team, who always sit up there to watch the game, to try and stop it from blowing away, but we're not hopeful...
Instead, it's probably time for thumbnail sketches of the regulars who sit round us in Block 5, just to give you the full flavour of the matchday experience. Across the aisle, we have the press box, and behind that the few rows of seats which are given over to scouts, referees' assessors, fringe players (though most of them are currently on-loan at Ilkeston, under the tender care of Rotherham legend and one of the nicest men in football, Paul Hurst), people with players' comp tickets and assorted hangers-on. Behind us, we have two blokes of pension age who moan, sotto voce, throughout the match and always, but always leave well before the end, and a bloke of what my dad would describe as 'stiffish build', who road-tests his sarcastic one-liners on my dad and vice versa. In front of us, we have a forty-ish bloke with two lads of about six and eight. He has the unenviable job of trying to watch the game and keep the two of them from getting bored at the same time. The older boy seems to actually care about what's happening on the pitch; the younger one is still at the age where he prefers playing some football game on a hand-held console, interspersed with bouts of randomly punching his brother. Sometimes, this is more entertaining for the rest of us than the game, and it's certainly more fun than listening to the moaning pensioners attempt to break the world record for using the word 'rubbish' the most times in a ninety-minute period.
It's a word they certainly get to use at stages throughout the game today. Bournemouth, who've made a healthy attempt at wiping off their points deduction, are still stuck in the bottom two and need to beat us to stay in touch with the teams above them. For the first ten minutes, they have a pretty good go, and then Mark Hudson scores a goal out of almost nothing, with a beautiful volley which would be up there in the goal of the month candidates if we were in the top division. (Whoever sub-edits the local Saturday night sports paper, the 'Green 'Un', manages to give a nod to the recent New York plane crash with a rather dubious shoe-horning of 'Hudson miracle' into the headline of the match report. The fact Hudson once referred to himself as 'our saviour' when his injury-delayed first appearance in the team sparked a run of winning games is purely coincidental.)
After that, we go on some lengthy spells of decent possession football. It soon becomes obvious just how much influence Darren Anderton had on Bournemouth's play. With him, back in October, they bossed the midfield and dictated things. Now, we have four or five more very good chances to score before half-time, and really should put the game beyond them.
Their cause isn't helped when Danny Hollands manages to get himself off by committing two silly fouls in the space of a couple of minutes, the second when he chops down Jamie Green, who is having a cracking game and at the time is on a run which has already seen him evade two fairly healthy tackles. However, as so often happens, the ten men up their game. The ineffective Lee Bradbury is replaced by the pacy, threatening Mark Molesley, and the crowd, especially the moaners behind us, become increasingly frustrated by the fact we can't press home our advantage. Jamie Green hits the crossbar, Molesley puts a shot agonisingly wide (if you're a Bournemouth fan), David Stockdale, playing his last game for us before he goes back to Fulham, makes the one real save he has to all afternoon and Bournemouth have a goal disallowed for offside - the last couple of incidents taking place in stoppage time. Incidentally, now might be the time to mention that I was actually at university with one of the assistant referees, Mr T. Maton of Leicestershire. Tony probably won't remember me, but I certainly remember him - and we had some interesting chants about him twenty-however-many years ago, so woe betide him if he ever gets as far as refeering!
At last the whistle goes. Jenny is stopping up for the game at Scunny on Tuesday, so it's Clarkey who helps me retrieve the flag - which is, thankfully, still securely tethered. On the train from Meadowhall to Doncaster, Clarkey, Steve and I get talking to a really nice woman who's on her way back to Donny following an afternoon at the ballet in Sheffield. It turns out her husband is a Grimsby fan - who, bizarrely, are our opponents next weekend - and she enlightens us with a story of how, though she's not really a fan of the team she tried, and failed, to get their grandchild called Buckley (after Alan), simply because she thought it was a good name. We can't help but agree.
There's time for a swift one in the Corner Pin (just voted CAMRA Pub of the Season) before we get the train back to London. Ted, Martin and Howard are in the next carriage along, bouyant after beating Luton 5-1, which also does us a favour. Ted and I pop into the Doric Arch, where we're treated to the Ultimate Fighting Championships on the big TV. It's sport, Jim, but not as we know it...

The late, late show

For once, I'm travelling up to Sheffield on my own, Jenny having stayed up in Rotherham over the New Year and everyone else presumably having better things to do than go watch us play the Daggers. King's Cross is the quietest I've seen it in a long time, though the train I'm on, one of the little four-carriage Hull Trains services, is packed with exiled Magpies going to see Newcastle play Hull in the FA Cup. I  keep an eye out to see if I can spot the Dag and Red squad, which isn't as unlikely as it seems. The team have a policy of travelling by train whenever possible, and last season they were on the same service as us when we were going up for our home game against Grimsby and they were on their way to Rochdale. Clarkey's comment at the time – that I only realised who they were because I recognised their goalkeeper's backside – was completely uncalled for! Meanwhile, Ted has seen them this season and last when they've played up at the Darlo Arena ( I would give the name of the stadium, but given the number it's had since George Reynolds had it erected as a monument to himself, it'll probably have changed again by the time you read this), and according to him they're going first class this season. Insert your own overpaid prima donnas comment here.

When I open my morning paper, the magazine supplement which falls out has an advert on the back for Sharps bedrooms. Pay attention, because that may or may not become significant later.

I make the connection at Donny with seconds to spare, but the train waits at Rotherham Central for five minutes for no apparent reason, ensuring Jenny and I just miss the tram we would otherwise have been on. It's not the kind of day to be hanging around in the cold for long, even though it's noticeably warmer than it is down in the capital. As ever, Phil is waiting for us in the Fat Cat, having bagged the table nearest the fire. We're joined by Chris Turner (who gets the inevitable ribbing about how he's doing as caretaker manager of Hartlepool) and a friend of his who's a Fulham fan up for their game against Wednesday. We all really, really want Fulham to win – I just can't tell him that in case it jinxes our own result.

Dagenham's fans haven't exactly travelled in numbers – a pretty poor show given how well they're doing in the league and the fact they've only had to come about five miles further than I have! As the game progresses, it seems their league position has less to do with their quality and is more a reflection the standard of the league as a whole. John Still has bulked his squad out (literally) with big, physically  imposing players who make things awkward for the opposition – the sort of team we never enjoy playing against. That said, we generally have the better of things, forcing Tony Roberts, who must be doing his nut over the fact he's got nobody behind the goal to talk to apart from some junior school-age ball boy, to make a couple of good saves. And then, early in the second half, we somehow contrive to let Dagenham's smallest player – Matt Richie, on loan from Pompey – head the ball home. After that, the Daggers reckon they should have a penalty when Stockdale appears to bring Richie down, but then they could easily have been playing with ten men if the ref had given their defender a red card, rather than a yellow, for what looked like a deliberate handball. Stockdale makes a great save which probably turns the game, but though we press for an equaliser, nothing happens and the natives are disgruntled. Drewe Broughton is substituted for Richie Barker, who's just signed a permanent deal with us, and it seems nailed on that he'll score when we get a free kick. Of course, it doesn't happen. 'They've had us licked since the goal went in,' grumbles the man behind us, as all around us the sneaking out has begun in earnest. Three minutes (sorry, a minimum of three minutes – which again may or may not be significant) are announced. 'Come on, Rotherham, one last chance,' I shout, as I usually do in similar circumstances. 'It's too late, gel,' my dad replies. Until one of the Dagenham players gives away a needless foul right on the edge of the box. All the messing around getting the wall back ten yards takes us well over the stated three minutes. Reuben Reid, who's rumoured to want away from the club and who a couple of people around us have offered to drive him there, given his seeming lack of interest during the previous ninety minutes, slides the ball round the wall, rather than over it, and it goes in off some part of Ian Sharps' anatomy. The power of the omen yet again.

There's nothing like a spawny equaliser with the last kick (or, more accurately, pelvic thrust) of the game to put a smile on your face. Jenny and I take the tram to Meadowhall to get the train to Donny. On the platform, a man is wandering around randomly announcing, 'We are Leeds,' every couple of minutes, while a lad who's still in his yellow steward's jacket is telling a female friend we had the Carlisle manager in the VIP area today. Bonus points to anyone who can name him.

Ted and his tunnel steward chum Martin are on the same train as us, but in a different carriage. They don't bother to join us, but Ted, Jenny and I do decide to go for a couple in the Doric Arch. He's happy because Darlo nicked three points against Bournemouth (and did us a favour in the process) with a last-minute penalty. A case of the late, late show all round.

We paid for quality

So 2008 ends in exactly the same way 2007 did, with a trip to Meadow Lane. I'm picked up by Jenny's brother, John, who drops us off at the Belvedere, the pub by Thomas Rotherham College, where we're meeting Bob Harrison and Tim. Bob is the one who's actually giving us a lift to Nottingham, John having another carful to collect and take to the match. We make decent time despite roadworks on the M1 near Mansfield. On the way, we're discussing the new mascot which was unveiled by Rotherham on Boxing Day, Millers Bear. There's a long-standing debate between Phil and Toddy about whether a bear can drive a hovercraft, inspired by some half-remembered episode of Gentle Ben, and this seems set to start it off all over again. 'But why a bear?' I ask. 'Why not something which alliterates, like Millers Monkey, or Millers Moose or – Millers Barn!' Okay, so there's no alliteration there, but said pub, which we drove past in the middle of my rant, looks like today's omen.

Now here comes the brief history of the omen. It all started a few years ago, when we were driving up for an FA Cup tie against Southampton which had been rearranged due to bad weather. On the M1, we spotted a couple of lorries which had the surnames of either one of the then Rotherham players or manager Ronnie Moore on the side. We duly won the tie 2-1, and so began the search for omens. Then someone (okay, me) suggested that we raise some money for our funds by putting a few quid on Monty's Pass in the Grand National. We didn't, but ever since I've been looking for proptitious racehorse names on matchdays, too. This season, for example, we've had wins when I've spotted Harrison's Flyer, Henry Joseph and Broughton Green (two for the price of one, there...). Newsham's Glory, on the other hand, failed to do the business for us, but that suggests if a player's on loan elsewhere, his name doesn't count.

Omen duly spotted, I can relax. When we get to the centre of Nottingham, we take a few inadvertent detours because Bob, whose parents used to run a pub in the city a good few years ago now, heads for the old Victoria station, which doesn't exist any more. Eventually, we find the main railway station and the Vat and Fiddle, the excellent Castle Rock pub a few hundred yards down the road which is one of our favourite haunts. Already there are Jenny's friends Graham and Gail, who live in Derby, and we're soon joined by Phil and his girlfriend, Helen. We haven't seen Helen for several years, since she came to a game at Selhurst Park – maybe watching Rotherham once a decade is enough for sensible people...

The ground, when we get there, is heaving with Rotherham fans. Apparently we've taken over 1500. There's been a bit of controversy over the fact that the Notts County fans are only being charged five pounds to get in, whereas we're paying twenty. Not that we haven't offered special prices for our own supporters before now. Of course, there are a couple of dozen Millers who've bought tickets for the home end, and are very quickly outed, as Reuben Reid scores in the opening five minutes. None of them have the sense to keep quiet and not celebrate, though instead of ejecting them, as had been promised, the stewards lead them down to where we're sitting. Jenny reckons they should be forced to go out and pay to come in again. The usual chants of 'scab' which blight any game we play against either of the Nottingham clubs or Mansfield ring out, with the County fans responding with a chorus of 'UDM, UDM...' It wouldn't be so bad, but most of the people involved weren't even born during the miners' strike and are just raking over some very old and tired coals. However, the banter gets more imaginative as the game goes on. 'You've only come cos it's a fiver,' sing the travelling support, followed by, 'We paid for quality.'

That said, despite our early lead, there isn't too much in the way of quality in our performance, and Notts County have a couple of threatening moments, including a free kick which former Miller Delroy Facey smashes well over the bar. That changes very early in the second half. Tim actually misses our second goal – a simple tap-in by Drewe Broughton following some neat interplay between Reid, Mark Hudson and Jamie Green –  as he's scrambling back into his seat. He certainly sees the third, five minutes later, though – Mickey Cummins lashing the ball into the top corner from twenty yards. After that, we all feel more comfortable. Apart from Tim, that is. He's been to Meadow Lane twice before, and both times he's seen us ship four goals in a twenty-minute period. Despite the fact that we're completely in control of the game, with only County's Jamie Clapham, their best player by a mile, threatening to cause any problems, Tim can't start to enjoy it until he reckons we've reached a stage where even the ref adding on a silly amount of stoppage time can't give County long enough to score four. Meanwhile, I feel compelled to congratulate Graham on staying awake, given what Gail was saying earlier about his ability to sleep through a match even on the coldest of days. 'You should have seen him in the first half,' says Gail. 'He nodded off then...'

Not only do County not get four, they don't even manage one. Mark Lynch comes on as a sub after being out for three months following a shoulder injury, and slots into the team as though he's never been away. The Rotherham fans start singing, 'Robins, Robins, give us a wave,' and when Mark Robins duly obliges, they then direct the chant at everyone on the bench, from assistant manager John Breckin to fitness coach Nick Daws to Omar Garcia. Whether his English has reached a good enough standard to be able to understand them or whether someone has simply given him a nudge, he waves back, getting a massive cheer. When Robins comes on to the pitch at the end of the game and salutes us all in the time-honoured 'we're not worthy' gesture, you can understand why.

So it's back to the Vat and Fiddle so Bob and Tim can collect the car and set off for London, and the rest of us can have a quick drink. The pub is absolutely heaving, and we quickly realise it's because the last Sunday of the month is jazz night, and we're being treated to the gypsy stylings of The Hot Club, which just sounds like inoffensive noodling to us non-jazz fans.

Jenny and I take the train back to Rotherham. There are a few other Millers on the train and we think at first they're going to be rowdy, but they just seem content to bask in the warmth of three well-earned points. Given the vagaries of fixture compiling, we'll probably end up seeing out 2009 in Nottingham, too, but there are worse places...

Bah, humbug!

Boxing Day, and my brother is about to get his first taste of the DVS. Originally, the plan is to drop me and my dad off at the ground as there's no public transport today, but the lure of Port Vale obviously proves too much, as he decides the rest of the family can manage without him for a couple of hours. When we park up in Attercliffe, my dad suggests a short detour to see where he used to live as a small boy – though the row of terraced houses has been replaced by a light industrial unit. Such is progress.

My dad is the one person who never really looks forward to Boxing Day matches. Every football fan has their superstitions, and his revolve around never wearing anything new to a match. He always goes in the same outfit, and when any of it needs to be renewed, he tries to break the new item in at a game which doesn't really matter. Usually, that's one of the early rounds of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy (or one of its previous incarnations), but this season that isn't really an option, given that we've made it to the regional final. He even has the same humbugs which he puts back in the tin and brings again the next week if he hasn't eaten them, though that could just be venturing into the realms of the plain weird... Anyway, his theory is that we're never going to do well over the Christmas period, because people are either wearing brand-new jumpers, socks, replica shirts and other paraphernalia they've received as presents, or they're bringing a family member to see us play for the first time.

There must be a load of newbies here today besides Robert, as the concourse in the main stand is absolutely heaving. There aren't too many, on the other hand, who have made the trip over from Burslem, but it's not a bad showing given the lack of trains.

And it seems that my dad's pessimism is about to be proved right when Marc Joseph manages to get himself sent off with twenty-odd minutes gone. Having played David Stockdale into possible problems, he tries to redeem the situation by tugging at the Port Vale attacker, who needs no encouragement to go down. Fortunately, it's outside the area, but as last man he has to go. There's some obvious 'Joseph is no wise man' joke begging to be cracked here, but it hardly seems the time.

However, it's not the disaster it at first threatens to be, and that's because Port Vale appear to have come with the intention of getting a nil-nil draw, and even with the man advantage, they continue to play in the same unadventurous way. They push on a little more in the second half, but still don't cause us too many problems. And then, with about twenty minutes to go, Drewe Broughton latches on to a long ball. From our angle in the stand, we're convinced his shot is going wide, right until the moment it trundles into the bottom corner. He celebrates by kicking over one of the advertising hoardings like a complete girl's blouse, and while the ref is booking him, Robert begins his ritual anxious blowing. He explains it's because he feels less comfortable at one-nil up than he does when there's no score. Meanwhile, the chants of 'we only need ten men' ring out. Vale almost sneak a point right at the end, but Stockdale makes a fantastic save – about the only thing he's had to do all match – and we get away with it.

It's not our best ever victory following a sending-off - that remains the game at Northampton the year we got promoted to Division One, when Guy Branston got his marching orders after ten minutes and we still went on to win – but it's still intensely satisfying. The people who came for the first time can come again – all that about them being unlucky is probably just humbug...