A brisk walk down to Canning Town station is a bracing set-up for the day to come, but I’ll be glad when the District Line is back to something resembling a normal service at weekends. Last night Ted and I were out in Hammersmith, getting another fix of the excellent Masters Of Reality. They were one of the support acts for The Cult, the other being Romance, a group who appear to have just escaped from the sixth form, with a striking female bassist and a lead singer forged from off-cuts of Andrew Stone. He might speak like a polite prep school boy, but he has a real belter of a singing voice (though when he ripped off his shirt during the final number, I could hear my dad saying, ‘I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil.’) They’ll probably vanish without trace now I’ve said nice things about them..
Emerging from the Jubilee Line, I’d like to wind my way down Baker Street in tribute to the late Gerry Rafferty, but cutting through the back streets to Marylebone helps avoid the crowds and enables me to spot a van bearing the name ‘D.G. Moore’. Today’s lucky omen?
At the station, I bump into Wycombe photographer Paul, who’s already alerted us to the fact we’ll be on a replacement bus from Amersham to High Wycombe. He’s on the train before ours, but he lets us know where he plans to go drinking after the game, in case we want to meet up. There’s a decent London Miller contingent gathering at Marylebone – Jenny, Clarkey, Chris Turner, Rob Maxfield and Diamond, and we’ll be joined by Tim at Harrow. The replacement bus takes us through some of the nicer parts of the Home Counties (you can tell it’s posh – in Rotherham if you saw anything up on bricks in someone’s front garden it’d be a rusty Ford Escort, in Amersham it’s a speedboat...), and we’re soon ensconsced in the big back room of the Belle Vue in High Wycombe. There’s a photographic exhibition on the walls, featuring models with a variety of tattoos and piercings, including one woman who could be a third party in the Adam Le Fondre/young Marc Almond lookalike suggested by Paul Martin. The boys peruse the accompanying book of photographs with the ‘18+ Adult Content’ warning, but this is all a bit of a busman’s holiday for me...
Gradually, we’re joined by my brother, Mick Walker and Steve Czajewski, who has Joe with him. Somehow, Steve manages to wangle a lift to the ground for himself and Joe with a Wycombe fan who’s known as the Honey Monster. We never manage to find out why...
The rest of us pile into Robert’s and Mick’s cars. As we drive to the ground, a red kite swoops low over the car. The species is so prolific round here, it actually works its way into the match report in the Sheffield Star by Les Payne, a man who loves to have weird pegs on which to hang his descriptions of games.
Though Mick sets off before us, he somehow arrives later, by which time Tim, Robert and I have managed to get the last of the hot pork rolls from Linda’s snack van just outside the ground. The others have to make do with burgers, but if they enjoy them even half as much as the bloke I get chatting to who’s tucking into his cheeseburger with obvious relish (no pun intended), they’ll do all right.
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| And she was never seen again... |
In the ground, I get the flag up just in time for kick-off (as the photo proves, from the back it looks like the stewards are escorting me out of the ground), then we get seats nice and close to the action, where we’re joined by the Burton brothers. Wycombe are another team like Southend; they know all the tricks, and Gareth Ainsworth, a man who always looks as though he needs a good shampooing, is never more than two inches from the referee’s ear. They take the lead when a cross isolates Jamie Green, the smallest Miller on the pitch, and Ainsworth heads past Don.
They’ve had the best of the first half, but we make a better fist of things in the second. Marcus Marshall starts to cause the Wycombe defence problems. We’re desperately unlucky when keeper Rikki Bull, still sporting at least one K too many, pushes a shot from Ryan Taylor on to his crossbar and it bounces the wrong side of the line as far as we’re concerned, while a free kick from Nicky Law is headed over the crossbar. Wycombe have a chance for a second goal just before full time, but Don makes a good save. They then decide to try and run time out by messing around with the ball in the corner, and when Jason Taylor has a bit of a hack to get it off them, their player does a spot of rolling around to earn Taylor a second yellow. It’s a bit of classlessness that ranks with the best (or worst) or Notts County last season.
When we pile on the bus that, after the usual long wait for all the traffic parked by the ground to leave first, will eventually take us back into town, there’s no sign of Clarkey. He’s so angry with the sending-off that he decides only a two-mile walk back will cool him down. By the time he finally joins us, the rest of the London-bound posse (Steve and Joe are getting a lift back with Robert, when they finally get out of the carpark...) are in The Bootlegger by the station. In its previous incarnation, this is the pub where several of the London Millers (myself not included) were ‘entertained’ by an exotic dancer writhing on the sticky carpet after a night game ten years ago. Now, it has about eight real ales on draught, as well as a selection of bottled beers to rival the Sheffield Tap and the Rake at Borough Market. And they do a nice hot chocolate, too, which is very welcome on a day like today. Diamond, meanwhile, falls in love with the hot Swedish cider.
Eventually, Paul arrives, along with two friends/camera bag roadies. Clarkey resists the temptation to harangue them too much about Wycombe’s style of play, and we could stay there for a while, chewing the fat, if it wasn’t for the fact the journey home is so tortuous. Indeed, Rob Maxfield has already made an early exit, intending to meet up with Sally on the South Bank.
When the replacement bus drops us off in Amersham, those who want to have time to grab sarnies from the Tesco over the road. They’ve officially gone past their sell-by date and appear to be getting cheaper by the minute. If we’d turned up half an hour later, they’d probably have paid us to take them away!
Back at Marylebone, Jenny, Chris, Diamond and Clarkey decide to head Euston-wards for further drinkies, but I call it a night. Note to self: vans may not be omens, after all...
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