At last the engineering works are being inflicted on the western end of the District Line, so it’s a quick, smooth ride into the centre of London today. At Euston, we bump into Monica Harland, Stoke supporter and long-time committee member of APFSCIL (the cumbersomely named Association of Professional Football Supporters’ Clubs In London). Normally, Jenny and I only spot her when we’re in the middle of a pig of a journey, wandering past randomly while we’re waiting for a delayed train at Northampton or Leamington Spa. Hopefully this isn’t some kind of omen.
Speaking of omens, I’ve got everyone in the habit of looking for them now. Clarkey was handed a flyer yesterday for a band called Bury Tomorrow, a bunch of flannel-shirted emo types none of us has ever heard of, while Joy and Chris Turner have spotted posters at Euston reading ‘Try Warrington’ and ‘Alf joins Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert’ (that’s a reference to the bloke out of Home And Away, for anyone horrified at the prospect of Mr Le Fondre dragging up). John Kirkland completes the travelling band.
The train leaves on time and arrives in Manchester on time, so that’s a bonus. Kirkland Junior is waiting for us at Manchester, and we head for the tram, which is now running direct from Piccadilly, sparing us the walk to Victoria. Various Millers we recognise get on at stops across the city centre, but they’ll most likely be going to pubs closer to the ground. At Bury, Jenny’s friend Jean is waiting for us, having somehow been persuaded that she really, really wants to spend her Saturday watching Rotherham again. We also spot Barry, our Bury-based Miller, who thinks he may go drinking in the Trackside but does eventually join us in the Rose and Crown.
Having learned from last season, Jenny got in touch with the pub’s landlady a few days ago and arranged to have food put on for us. This equates to meat and potato pie, peas, chips and rolls, all of which is almost ridiculously cheaply priced and much appreciated. Shame the apricot wine runs out when I’ve had a scant glass, but you can’t have everything.
We’re joined by Chris Burrows and three of his Manchester chums, and Diamond, Phil and Nigel, who can’t resist the lure of a night out in Manchester. Some promotion team in the city have been handing out sachets of Sukk, a green tea and lemon-flavoured fibre-filled jelly drink thing. Nigel has saved me a packet, just so he can see the expression on my face when I sample a mouthful of cold, lumpy jelly. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste...
We arrive at Gigg Lane to find a healthy contingent of Rotherham supporters. The acoustics in the away end are good (so good that we immediately decide to sit as far away as we can from the bloke with the drum!) and Clarkey and Chris K are soon up and chanting.
It’s another good, inspiring Millers performance, though we’re playing in an unfamiliar formation. Alf is on his own up front, with Mark Bradley joining Jason Taylor and Danny Harrison in midfield. Ryan Cresswell is strangely absent and the team are wearing black armbands – these two facts turn out to be connected, as Cresswell’s grandfather, the man who took him to Millmoor was he was younger, died yesterday and he’s not in the right frame of mind to play today.
We very nearly take the lead in the first minute, but Bury clear the ball following a goalmouth scramble. Bury have Lenell John-Lewis (ex of Lincoln and still never knowingly under-goaled) up front alongside Ryan Lowe, but they don’t produce much in the way of shots on target. Meanwhile, Neil Cutler has taken up his usual position on the steps to get an elevated view of proceedings; we can see his head poking over the top of the dugout like a stern, beardy meerkat.
Alf is having a running battle with Efe Sodje, who gets a yellow card very early on for a foul on him, but then somehow escapes a second on a couple of occasions. He’s doing well in his lone frontman role, and has a shot that just flashes wide of goal, but it looks like the first half is going to finish all square. Then Exodus Geohaghon, who otherwise has another very good game (and whose name is increasingly being chanted by the Millers fans, though there’s no Paul Martin here to chip in with ‘movement of Ja people’, as he’d otherwise be tempted to do) passes back to Don a bit casually. I don’t know whether he doesn’t get a shout (though we’ve seen Don bellowing ‘away!’ at his defence in the past, only for them to completely ignore him), but Lowe latches on to the loose ball and rounds Don to score.
Bury are another team who try to cram as many forms of entertainment into half-time as they possibly can. They have tweeny cheerleaders who yell, ‘Go, Bury!’ and form themselves into wobbly human pyramids. One day, this will end badly. There’s a half-time schools six-a-side game, a load of little footballers being paraded for some reason or other (I’d kind of stopped paying attention to the announcer by this point) and Andy Dibble’s son, who’s on the books at Bury, being awarded with his first cap for the Welsh Under-19s. He’s called Christian Dibble. Parents, please think about these things...
Anyway, by now I’ve been distracted by Mr Cutler coming down to warm up Bury keeper Cameron Belford in the goal at our end. It never struck me last season just how tiny Belford is, but now I can see he only comes up to Ivor’s shoulder. There’s no law that says you have to be ludicrously tall to play in goal, but I thought the titchy keeper had officially died out when Neil Edwards, who was at Rochdale for about a thousand years, retired. The Rotherham fans give Ivor a generous round of applause, and he entertains us (okay, me) with some needless stretching.
We’re hoping for a good response from Rotherham in the second half, as we didn’t really deserve to be behind, but we didn’t think it would come as quickly as it does. A couple of minutes in, Kevin Ellison chases down a long ball the defender should probably clear, turns and hooks the ball across goal. Alf can’t resist the invitation and heads past the helpless Belford. His goal celebration ends with him rolling on the floor. I can’t tell what he was supposed to be doing, as a wildly leaping Mr Clarke obscures my view, but I’m sure ‘Soccer AM’ will enlighten me at the weekend (whether I want them to or not).
After that, we have a ten-minute spell where we’re really on top, but the second goal doesn’t materialise. Nick Fenton heads into the side netting, but that’s as close as we come. Alan Knill makes changes for the Shakers, taking off John-Lewis and David Worrall and bringing on Nicky Ajose and Andy Haworth. Last season, when he switched things round it paid off for them. Both Ajose and Haworth are lively, and it looks as though the same thing might happen again. But though Bury have a lot of possession as the game goes on, and the ball spends an awful lot of time in our box, Don only has about one shot to save. In the end, we hold out for a hard-earned draw.
At Bury station, Jean finally manages to escape the mayhem and go home, though she seems to have enjoyed herself. There’s certainly none of the grumbling among Rotherham fans on the tram we heard last time, and as Clarkey points out, the singing of ‘Ronnie Moore’s red army’ went on throughout the game for much longer than it has in a while.
Back in Manchester, we make the trek up the Rochdale Road to the Marble Arch, the main pub of the Marble Brewery (whose beers are a favourite of both Chris T and Ted). It’s a place I’d certainly like to spend more time in, with its original tiles and fixtures and its very enticing-looking menu. The ladies may have teased me for drooling over Mr Cutler, but that’s nothing compared to my reaction on seeing the list of cheeses on offer!
Our route back to the station takes us past the streets where they’re filming Captain America, chosen because they have a 1940s feel. Like all film and TV sets, it looks to be just a lot of people hanging about waiting for something to happen. We bid our farewells to Phil, Diamond and Nigel, who are off to Canal Street for the evening. Lock up your transvestites!
The London train is delayed. Is the Monica Effect kicking in? Fortunately not, as it pulls in about 15 minutes late and doesn’t get any further behind. It’s busy, but half the passengers seem to be shoppers on their way back to Wilmslow and Macc. We find seats in the quiet coach (apart from Clarkey, who was out till the small hours at a Kirk Brandon gig and goes for a quick snooze in first class – solidarity with the masses, brother!) and by Crewe we practically have the whole thing to ourselves.
The temptation to start a conga line is overwhelming, but we resist. Maybe next time...
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