I'd got my ticket on the first day they were released and had decided to book a trip on one of the supporters coaches. I'd have to drive through Oxford anyway and it looked like the easieast way to get there. And at only £9 it was probably cheaper than the extra petrol and the parking anyway. One fly in the ointment was that my jalopy had broken down (again) on the way back from the rather excellent victory against Shrewsbury. Luckily, Mrs ZeroThe Hero (who has a much better car than me anyway - aren't I a nice man!) wasn't going anywhere today, so I nicked hers and made my way down to the stadium to catch the coach. My car is in intensive care with little chance of (affordable) recovery - if anyone has something estatey they want to pass on, just leave me a message!
Now supporters coaches are no longer a hotbed of depravity. No booze, no singing and definitely no mooning out of the back window. Still , it was quiet enough to listen to my little tranny (that's a transistor radio, not a tranvestite. I leave him at home on matchdays.) so I could keep listening to the test match as we travelled. Much to my amazement, they had cars in Swindon too. I thought it would probably be full of donkey carts - but in a valiant effort to confirm my prejudices , I loved the sign on the outskirts of pig hill which said 'For town centre shopping, follow signs to town centre'! Brilliant.
We were soon parked up - all six coaches of us - and then went on a wander down a little path, under what I though was a lovely old bridge (but probably passes for modern architecture in Swindon - 'Its made o' real stone, not good old wood'), and then all the way around the County Ground (there's only one football ground in the whole county, you see), to be greeted with this:
Now you know why we call it "The Skip"! Through the rusty turnstiles with bits of plywood bodged over them for some reason and into the ground. There was a healthy amount of yellows support in the ground already with about 45 minutes until kick off. My little TV could pick up RadOx - although they spent ages rattling on about past not-so-glories against Swindon, and didn't tell me the team. Or if they did, it was during one of the increasingly frequent bursts of singing that drowned the radio out.
Eventually the teams came out:
There are bound to be lots and lots of match reports. Suffice to say, we were fine to start with. Beano (the well known Swindon fan) scored after about 10 minutes from a corner expertly delivered by Peter Leven. Joy unconfined on the uncovered terrace. Swindon came back into it and scored after about 20 minutes. It looked at the time as if the otherwise excellent Duberry had been pulled out of position a bit. Gloom amoung the faithful, jumping up and down from the in-breds. It took a couple of good saves from Clarke to keep the scores level, and to me and those around me it looked likely that we would be behind at half time. I deployed my secret weapon by putting on my yellow-tinted glasses (yes, really!) and lo and behold - a Leven free kick, a Beano chest, and we were one goal up again. Even more excitement from the yellow army. Brilliant. Half time whistle blew.
Now I've been in some crappy grounds recently (Stafford, anyone?) but the loos at the Skip are awful. There's ivy growing into them through the walls. But that's OK, there's plently to water them, since the bit of hosepipe with holes in it that is supposed to occasionally wash the urinals is lying in the floor, shooting water about everywhere but where it's supposed to go. Nice. Back to the terrace in time to catch the half time entertainment, kindly provided by young ladies from the St. Vitus School of Dance and Jiggling About A Bit.
The second half. Hmm. I'm tempted to draw a bit of a veil over it to be honest. It wasn't pretty. I'm being kind. CW called it 'rubbish' afterwards. We defended fairly well, which is a good job as we had quite a lot of it to do! We couldn't keep the ball. But Swindon couldn't do very much with it when they had it. And in fact Beano could of added a third at the end, but his lob over the goalie just hit the bar. Never mind. There have been many occasions over the last few years when we were the better team and lost. Today (at least for the second half) we weren't the better team, and we won. The ref blew up and:
That was it. We'd won. Bragging rights until 25 brave Swindon supporters sidle into our place later in the season. Back on the coach, back to the cricket (we bowled India out cheaply yet again), back to Oxford, back home in my wifes little white rollerskate. An excellent day. I could go through the team and pick out the poor performers, but do you know what? I don't care. We beat the scum at the Skip. End of. 10/10 for every player, member of the management team and supporter.
My MOM. I'm going to cheat. Duberry (signing of the season), Beano (our best striker by a mile) and Clarke (who had a blinding game.)
Other random thoughts:
DiCanio is indeed a plonker. First he motivated our main striker, who puts two past his team. Then he gets sent to the stands. Finally he can't even be gracious in defeat.
We beat the referee today as well. Following the professional perfomance of the ref in the Shrews game, we witnessed another stinker today.
Memo to self. Next time it might be sunny, remember sun cream. My face is as red as a farmer's arse - except where the yellow-tinted glasses were. I look like some sort of embarassed panda.
See you all for the next game - Aldershot at home (if I can get there!)
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