Away Day - Ashton United FA CUP

Fans Blog – Ashton United away, FA Cup qualifier, 22^nd September 2018

So for this one, we tried a new feature for the official Supporters Clubs away trips – Open the Shawe View clubhouse for a couple of hours of boozing and doing Lines* before we even get on the coach! Risky stuff…… but more about that later…….

We should have had a forewarning of what was to come when one member of the S.C who shall remain shrouded in a cloak of anonymity (but his initials are M.J) got a straight red and a 3-day ban for posting the wrong thing on the wrong WhatsApp group (#familyclub).

When I arrived at the FPSVS, the clubhouse was resplendently bedecked with the new T.F.C.S.C flag featuring the Manchester Bee, the year 1990…. and not enough full stops. When the bacon butties turned up there wasn’t enough of them either. Meanwhile a game of Killer Darts was underway that no one seemed to know the rules of……

In the clubhouse, lots of Lines* were being done including someone who did about 8 soggy Lines* on the table with beer spilt all over it. 

At half one there was a mass exodus for the bus…. which was no where to be seen. We hung around on Flixton Road, all 49 of us like extras from “The Football Factory” trying to dodge the onrushing O.B when just in time The Big White Jonesy arrived and we boarded in good spirits, ready for a trip across to the Eastside of Manchester. The bus had a toilet, and a few more Lines* were done then choir practice commenced with a well-rehearsed “Ole Ole Ole!” and some new songs attempted.  “Viva Aaron Burns”, “Super Cooper”, “Sweet Caldicott” and “Got myself a crying walking sleepin’ talkin’ Matty Bryan……” well, three hit songs from four isn’t bad...

On arrival at Ashton, we piled into the Hurst Cross clubhouse to smash down a few quick glasses of beer and do a few more Lines* before the game. We’d been led to believe that you couldn’t take beer onto the terraces for this game because (1) Ashton Utd are in the Conference North, and (2) this was an FA Cup game. This myth was debunked however, and we were able to keep ourselves well stocked with plastic containers of Kronenburg throughout the 90 minutes.

The game was a close affair and the boys who play in… er… yellow today, were more than matching the boys from two steps above us in the Football Pyramid. But then, around the 30^th minute it went the shape of a deformed pear when Matt Mahoney gave away a penalty and we went a goal behind. A few moments later M.M totalled one of their players and received the O.B.E (Order of the Bath, Early). From then on it got tough, but our heroes worked to stay in the game until the last ten minutes when tiredness saw Ashton bag two late goals for the 3—0 win. Off the pitch, our singing performance was second to none, and we even managed to poke a bit of fun at the Ashton fans for the bus stop / smoking shelter / bike rack structure at their end of the ground. Any attempts to sing the Adams Family song were sssshhhh’d quite vociferously by our own self-policing supporters (#familyclub). 

After a few more post-match glasses and some great clubhouse singing (how’s about “Sephton, he’s no longer in our team!”) we boarded the bus to take us home. There was, we have to admit, an element of uncontrollable lunacy on the journey home. Some singing of the Chrissy Palmer song with the banned lyrics; Some failed aisle-dancing; And some failed belt/braces disasters…… we can only apologise to those women and children who were present (#familyclub)

A further outrageous crime was committed when it became apparent with each passing motorway junction, that we were not going to be taking the M60 to Urmston – we were going directly to Town, not passing Go, and certainly not collecting £200! Chairman Glinks was flexing all of his Putin-esque democratic leader muscles to obtain for himself a ride directly to Manchester city centre! This resulted in the coach making it back to Urmston approximately 4 hours and 27 minutes later than it should have done.

As is usual on these kind of trips, I cannot remember getting off the bus or arriving home, but I do remember waking up at 3am in the bathroom asleep in the shower cubicle.

*P.S “Lines” refers to the Trafford FC Supporters Club results sweepstake a.k.a “Trafford Lines” whereby you predict the result of certain football matches that day, and the winner gets a Pot which is growing week-by-week. Nothing to do with the old Hokey-Cokey (#familyclub #gambleaware.co.uk #whenthefunstopsstop)

(Blog by Hugo Drax)