But What Is A Pellet Waggler, Anyway?

Welcome to the wonderful world of life in the post Mark Robins era. Earlier in the week he officially joined Barnsley, though the announcement was held up for a little while as he’s taken his coaching staff with him and there was some faffing over the compensation payments. This leaves us with our head of youth in temporary charge (he definitely doesn’t want the job full time), ably assisted by one-time London Millers Player of the Season, Paul Warne. Meanwhile, everyone from Steve Staunton to some lad who’ll have managed us to the Premier League on Championship Manager is applying for the job and Morecambe are rolling into town, hoping to take advantage of all this uncertainty.
Also rolling into town are Jenny, Steve Ducker and myself. Steve’s on a print deadline at work and keeps having to nip off and deal with anxious phone calls. ‘During the game, the phone is off,’ he declares.
We pick the tram up at Meadowhall and trundle past the DVS, trying to get a glimpse of whether the pitch has improved since last week. The Sheffield Eagles played there again last night, so I’m not hopeful.
It’s a gloriously sunny day, and we’re hoping on getting a seat in the Fat Cat beer garden, but for once Phil has only beaten us there by a couple of minutes, and the garden is already rammed. As always, we debate the merits of avoiding the game – which are stronger than usual – and as we wait, and wait, for a tram back to Attercliffe, we think it might have been the better plan. Nottingham Forest (and if you really, really want to wind their fans up, call them Notts Forest) are playing at Hillsborough, and we watch four trams go past in the opposite direction, packed with fans singing their heads off. They inform us what Nottingham is full of (parts of the female anatomy and Forest, apparently) and go through their full repertoire of songs about Nathan Tyson (which appears to be just the one). Finally, a Meadowhall-bound tram arrives, though by the time I finally take my seat (or, rather, Gordon’s seat, as he’s on holiday) we’re just kicking off.
Morecambe play the way we expected Accrington to in the first game of the season – they’ve drawn most of their matches so far, and it’s clear they’re primarily looking for a point today, though it’s the sort of performance which could easily turn into a smash and grab. They include ex-Miller David Artell in their ranks, another in the long list of players who support the theory that I can injure someone simply by talking to them. He was playing for Chester at the time, but already had a broken leg, which is why he was at Millmoor, and I asked how long he expected to be out. He was confident the pot would be off in a couple of weeks, but what neither of us knew was that it had accidentally been applied too tightly. That night he developed a deep vein thrombosis and narrowly escaped something very nasty indeed happening to him. Coincidence? I think not...
Also in the Morecambe ranks is Paul Mullin, who’s joined them after spending the best part of a century at Accrington. However, he doesn’t seem to possess the same threat as he did for them, which we’re quite happy to discover.
Morecambe are your clichéd ‘big, physical’ team – they don’t allow us to create too much, but they create very little themselves in return. They are aided by some fairly awful refereeing, with Mr Deadman (seriously, that’s his name) failing to notice the sly pushing and tugging from the Morecambe defence. About halfway through the first half, there’s an announcement over the Tannoy to the effect that a pair of spectacles has been found by the home turnstiles. ‘They’ll be the referee’s,’ says our friend with the two boys in front of us.
Half time brings the obligatory appearance by a Chuckle Brother to perform the draw – this week it’s Barry. I’m starting to believe the two of them are being kept in a holding pen somewhere behind the DVS gymnasium and are only let out on Saturdays.
Rotherham make a couple of enforced changes at the start of the second half. Warney and Nick Fenton replace the injured Law and Sharps. It’s revealed later that Nicky Law damaged his toe getting into his car to come to the ground – a comedy injury for which I was in no way responsible, for once. It doesn’t really change the pattern of the game – Kevin Ellison wastes a couple of good shooting opportunities, and Danny Harrison has a header cleared off the line, but that’s as close as it gets. Down the other end, Don has almost nothing to do. It’s likely that if we hadn’t had such an unsettled week we would have beaten Morecambe, but the mood lightens slightly when we discover that the other two managerless teams in the league, Lincoln and Northampton, have both been on the end of a good hiding.
We’re on an earlier than usual train out of Donny, so we just have time to pop into the Railway. It’s the first time we’ve been in since it’s been refurbished, and it’s full of people who’ve been to the St Leger meeting. There don’t appear to be any bottles of champagne on the table, so presumably no one backed the winner.
On the train, we discover just how much fun you can have with a copy of The Green ’Un. Having digestedthe day’s results, we start picking through the minutiae of the fishing results (pellet waggler is the way to lure carp in, it seems) and learn that Worsbrough Bridge Athletic have a player in their ranks called Dean Shirt – almost as good as the man with the finest name in football, Emanuel Panther, who was in the midfield for Morecambe this afternoon. We also peruse the personal ads, and I enlighten Steve and Jenny about the abbreviations used. LTR is ‘long-term relationship’, ‘OHAC’ is ‘own house and car’. Steve suggests that in some cases ‘OHAT’ for ‘own hair and teeth’ might be more appropriate. We’re a little alarmed by the man looking for a woman who ‘looks nice in black dress’ – is he taking her to a funeral for the first date? Meanwhile, the woman who asks if you’re ‘looking for the ride of your life?’ turns out to be into motorbikes. Truly, in terms of entertainment provided, this is the best 60p we’ve ever spent...