There’s only one thing better than spending a Saturday lunchtime at the Fat Cat, and that’s spending Saturday lunchtime there during their beer festival. Just as last year, it’s coincided with a home game, and when the travelling London Millers contingent – Jenny, Joy, Steve Ducker and myself, along with Graham and Gail, who join us at Derby – arrive there, Mr Kyte and Andy Leng are already comfortably ensconsed in the beer garden, pints in hand. The tickers are out in force, but we’re more concerned with discussing today’s game, which has all the signs of being a potential banana skin. Barnet have started well, and held Gillingham to a draw in the week. It did us a favour, but it suggests the Bees have improved since last season. I’ve done my usual trick of checking the list of today’s horseracing runners and riders and found nothing with a name to suggest it might be a Rotherham omen – but there is a Barnet Fair running today, which could be ominous.
Phil has our sponsored shirt from last season, to pass on to Clarkey. I take it from him, as I’m the only one with room in my bag, but it looks like I’m going to be carrying it round for a while, as Clarkey’s dashing off to catch the early train tonight to make some gig in London.
On the way to the DVS, Gail manages to drive us all demented by telling us she saw one of the London Millers at the Oxford game, but can’t remember his name. ‘He’s dark-haired, losing it at the back, quiet and hasn’t travelled with you for a while,’ she says. We run through the card of all the obvious suspects, but you can rule most of them out not so much on the grounds they still have their hair, but they’re definitely not quiet! Even now, I still haven’t worked out who she was talking about, so if you are that mystery Miller, please make yourself known...
Barnet are now being managed by Lawrie Sanchez, possessor of the last Van Dyke beard in captivity, and he’s beefed them up with the addition of Jason Price, ludicrously tall even without the exploding mushroom of hair, who seems to be in the team primarily for his skill with back headers. They’re organised and very efficient at closing us down and not giving us any time on the ball. We’re missing Jason Taylor and Ryan Cresswell, who got injured at Crewe, and Dale Tonge looks strangely off the pace today, slipping and losing the ball in dangerous areas on a couple of occasions. The game has the feel of a scrappy nil-nil, but Barnet take the lead about ten minutes before half-time, Clovis Kamdjo scoring a soft header from a corner kick. The fistful of Barnet fans in attendance, including the four who’ve been singing, ‘We are Barnet, no one likes us, we don’t care,’ without any sense of irony, go barmy. Mr Random Stream Of Consciousness behind me has been fairly quiet, apart from randomly asking one of his companions if he’s human or if he’s dancer, but now he has a good old grumble. At half time, the eight surviving members of Rotherham’s 1961 League Cup runners-up team are being presented to the crowd, and he rants that they should come on in the second half because they’d show more effort than the current 11.
Said 1961 team get a brilliant reaction from the crowd, and the BBC’s Football League Show are here to record the occasion in the shape of Mark ‘Clem’ Clemmett, last seen having his ear bent about all things Darlo when he happened to share a train back from Manchester with Ted in February.
Andy Scott makes the changes the crowd has been hoping for Tonge and Lewis Grabban are replaced by Marcus Marshall and Chris Holroyd. There must have been a stern half-time talking-to, because Rotherham play with renewed vigour, and equalise from a corner almost immediately. I’m sure the goal will be disallowed, because Troy Brown appears to be climbing all over the man marking him before he volleys the ball past Dean Brill, last spotted at the DVS being caught out by a freaky Alex Rhodes cross cum shot while in goal for Luton.
Barnet retake the lead when Izale McLeod is tugged down in the box by Michael Raynes, and gives Conrad Logan no chance with the resulting penalty. Incidentally, my dad and I have been discussing the fact that my trademark shout at the keeper to ‘have a run with it’ takes on a whole new dimension when you’te telling someone called Logan to do it. Goodness knows what’s going to happen to him when he hits thirty...
Ahead once more, Barnet start timewasting with a vengeance. Having a manager who was once part of the Crazy Gang, they’ve certainly got the art of gamesmanship down pat. Mr Random Stream Of Consciousness, having had a good old moan in the first half, now starts berating those of us around him for our apparent lack of support for the team. We’d like to express it, believe us, but we simply can’t get a word in edgeways.
Things could get a lot worse when McLeod looks to have beaten Logan in a one-on-one, but Brown clears the ball off the line. Mark Bradley, who’s having a decent game, hits the crossbar, and we have a really good claim for a penalty of our own, but the referee ignores it. However, before any feeling of injustice about the decision can fester, we equalise, Danny Harrison slipping a great ball through to Alf, who slots it through Brill’s legs. With the other goals having been scored by a Clovis, a Troy and an Izale, it’s nice to see the man with the oldest name in the (good) book rounding off proceedings. We’d more than likely have lost this game last season, but in the end this was a pleasingly resilient performance after the sloppiness in the first half.
Jenny’s staying in Rotherham for the weekend, so Steve, Joy, Graham, Gail and I go to the Old Queen’s Head. QPR are playing in the televised game, which gives us a chance to go into a flight of fancy involving Neil Warnock as England manager – because it would be entertaining on so many levels and it would be nice to have a former Rotherham player in charge of the national team. In the course of this conversation we learn Gail’s one of the few people who doesn’t know why Warnock’s nickname is Colin, so naturally we enlighten her...
The train journey down is as quiet as the one up, though the good news is the Green ’Un is now reaching the station in time for us to pick up a copy, meaning Steve and I can catch up on the fishing results. Hoorah! All is right with the world once more...
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