Dar-low

It’s only half-past eight, but the Darlo contingent of today’s expeditionary force, including Ted, are already on their way north. There’s a good turn-out from the London Millers – Jenny, Steve Ducker, Chris Turner, Andy Leng, the rarely-spotted Paul Martin and Julia. The Norwood boys have managed to fit in breakfast at one of Ted’s haunts of choice, Da Vinci’s on Gray’s Inn Road, to fortify themselves for the trip. As their itinerary once they reach Darlington is going to include a stop-off for Taylor’s pies (again recommended by Ted – who rings to ask if someone can get the apple and raspberry for Martin the steward which he forgot!), I don’t think they’re going to go hungry today.
It seems strange not to start preparing to get off the train once we reach Doncaster. As we approach Darlo, it’s too foggy to see the local landmarks, including the white horse carved in the hillside at Kilburn and Middlesbrough’s training ground at Hurworth. Hopefully it will have lifted a little by the time the game kicks off.
Chris Kirkland is waiting for us on Darlington station. We’d been hoping to give him jip about being forced to go shopping at Meadowhell when last week’s game was called off, but when I was confirming train times with him in the week he let me know that he ended up sitting in the car listening to the Sheff U commentary while his folks were shopping, which apparently annoyed his mum more than him joining us on a pub crawl would have done! Chris also has his Newcastle-supporting chum Tom with him, who’s seen us once this season at Bury but is clearly a glutton for further punishment.
Ted is already enconsed in the Quaker House when we get there, along with John Wilson and Tony, one of the Darlington-based DAFTS. We make ourselves comfortable, which is quite easy to do. The Norwood boys roll up, pied up to the eyeballs, then Chris Burrows calls to say he’s arrived in Darlo and can he have directions to the pub? When he’s walked past Greggs twice he realises something’s amiss, but as the Quaker House is tucked down an alleyway it is quite easy to miss, so Ted goes out to guide him in, air traffic control style...
From the Quaker House, we move on to Number Twenty-2 on Coniscliffe Road, which is my favourite. It shuns alcopops and fizzy lager, serves cracking food and is known by the locals as ‘Jurassic Park’ because of the age of the clientele. Inside, I spot Paul Walker, who I haven’t seen for absolutely ages. When he lived in Essex, he and Ted regularly used to travel up to games together, but then work took him to Scotland. Paul has his daughter, Hayley, with him, who shows me a picture of her daughter, Shannon, Suddenly, I feel old. Hayley’s clearly settled where she is, as she seems to have picked up more than a touch of the local accent – very odd when mixed with her original Essex twang. When we were in the bottom division with Darlo last time round, Ted and I sponsored the matchball at all six games, and Hayley was the mascot at Millmoor. She was treated very well by everyone at the club, but we were a bit alarmed to see her joining in the pre-match huddle with the Darlington players. ‘They were all swearing their heads off,’ she told us when she came to sit with us, ‘and then one of them said, “I think you should put your hands over your ears, love.”’
Ted has organised taxis to take us all to the ground, giving us plenty of time to put the flag up. There’s quite a decent turn-out from Rotherham, but the end behind the Darlo goal is as sparse as I’ve ever seen it. If they do find themselves in the Conference next year, it may feel very empty when some of the smaller clubs in the league play there.
It’s safe to say what follows is not a very good game of football. Darlo are clearly up for it, and are unrecognisable from the limp shower I saw at Barnet – mostly because Steve Staunton has recruited loads of new players, most of them from Ireland, since then. They’ve recaptured some of the dirtiness they had under Dave Penney, too, with a few nasty-looking challenges going in. They take the lead when a shot which Don would have had covered hits the yellow-booted Curtis Main and goes in. We respond, and soon have the ball in the net, but the ref blows for a foul on their keeper.
There’s plenty of discontent in the away end, which gets louder and more vocal as the game goes on. We know that if we can get an equaliser, Darlo still look fragile. Instead, they go further ahead. Don spills a shot, nobody manages to clear the ball and Waite slots it in. Now the boos really start, which infuriates Chris K. ‘If you don’t like it, go and watch Barnsley,’ he yells at the little knot of fans at the back of the stand who are coming out with some anti-Ronnie chants (I’m paraphrasing his words slightly here, as this is a family blog...). ‘Get your hair cut!’ someone shouts at him. ‘Get a job!’ Chris shouts back – probably the first instance ever of a student directing that comment at someone...
A bloke sitting in front of us decides to engage us in conversation. He admires our positivity, he tells us, but we have to admit it’s not a good performance. We’re not saying it is, we reply, but we just don’t see how booing and barracking the team does anything to help them improve. He plays the ‘I’m a season ticket holder’ card. Jenny and I see him, and raise him ‘I’m a season ticket holder and I travel up from London’, at which point he mellows a little.
On the pitch, Ronnie has taken off Micky Cummins and brought on Drewe Broughton, who clearly unsettles the Darlo defence but fires the best chance he gets over the bar. At the end, the Darlo fans behind the goal stay for a few minutes to celebrate like they’ve stayed up, while one lone Rotherham fan continues his rant against the manager.
We head back to Twenty-2 to drown our sorrows, Ted having arranged taxis for us again. He’s already there when we arrive. Instead of gloating (which he knows only ever comes back on you), he shows us the column he wrote for the programme, which has the lovely picture of us he took outside the Wenlock Arms two Treasure Hunt Pub Crawl Thingys ago – and a standfirst courtesy of the programme editor which describes me as his wife! Cue much mirth. If I had a solicitor, he’d be in touch...
There’s time for a quick one in the Quaker House, which is showing England v Wales in the Six Nations. The one person who’s really interested in the game is Paul Martin, who manages to miss an England try by going to the gents’.
Bidding farewell to the Manchester contingent, whose train is twenty minutes after ours, we head for the station. The journey back is fairly riotous, given our despondency (Ted not included) about the result and performance. Andy is in the sort of pontificating mood which usually sees him going on the Rotherham messageboards and leaving comments for the most knuckle-dragging posters before treating himself to a lower-league Scottish away shirt. Ted has to explain to him that because he described Andy’s beloved Clarets watering hole as dark, dingy and full of old codgers, these are not bad points. Mr Martin decides to show us his spuds – having a photo of his most recent crop of new potatoes on his phone. Instead, he manages to find a shot of what appears to be someone he knows taking their trousers down in a local park. Meanwhile, Steve Ducker and I are discussing ‘Come Dine With Me’ and what we’d cook if we appeared, little realising that later in the week a Rotherham fan is going to appear on the show. (And Steve’s menu would have been better than his!)
At least the Taylor’s pies go down well.
By the time we arrive in London we’ve just about put the world to rights. Shame we might not have the opportunity to do it all again next season.