Away Day - Tadcaster 17.08.19

FANS’ AWAY DAY BLOG – TADCASTER ALBION, 17^th AUGUST 2019

AND NOW the moment we’ve all been waiting for! THE SEASON PROPER STARTS! There was an unmistakeable buzz of excitement as we began gathering in Th’ Bird I’ Th’ Han’ for their delicious al’ da’ breakfas’

The Jonesey coach was just around the corner and by 11.46 prompt we were all on board…. Except for Brooko, who dropped out because he had to tickle his dog’s belly or something. The ensuing Straight Red meant Brooko would NOT get any updates on the WhatsApp group today, despite Andylee pestering Burkey all afternoon to reinstate him.

There was a bit of traffic on the M62 heading into Yorkshire – a bad looking accident with ambulances & all that. Hope there were no serious injuries. The coach let us supporters off right outside the John Smith’s brewery and we went in the pub across the road….. Which was a Samuel Smith’s! Inside, the barman had the oldest cashtill in Yorkshire – you ain’t seen one of these since 1989 – but it still took him ages to get the drawer to open. The technology seemed beyond him, but at £2-a-pint (practically 1989 prices!) none of us were complaining.

There were signs all round the pub saying “NO SWEARING” and “NO MOBILE PHONES – PLEASE TALK TO ONE ANOTHER” so we listened to El Presidente’s Martian joke and Hooligan Faulkner’s Moss Vale story-that-wasn’t-a-joke, then headed to another Sam Smiths pub round the corner because it had a pool table.

Now this pool room was not exactly the biggest room in Taddy. It wasn’t even wide enough to use a pool cue properly, but if you rubbed your ears the cue shrank and it worked….. With all 16 of us in there it was a tad cosy, but somehow Wazza overcame the cramped conditions to win the Pot. We then started playing darts in the MASSIVE room, but this was a quick game as kick off time was approaching….

Inside the ground we set up behind the goal and got straight into the singing, airing some of our new songs as well as old favourites. Taddy’s Twitter feed was very complimentary about our vocal support, and we upped the noise level when Jordan Johnson/Peaky Blinder put us 1-0 in front. Unfortunately JJ later suffered an injury and had to limp off, and by half time Tadcaster had equalised with what looked like a really soft goal at the other end.

For the 2^nd half we took up residence at the other end, in the “Joe Gibraltar” stand (get some new glasses Matthaus!) and carried on singing the praises of our heroes, resplendent in their brand new all white Kappa kits. The favourite song was the new one for Joel Amado, which has a verse AND a chorus, leading to one of our non-musical fans saying “so he’s got TWO songs has he?”!!

On the pitch, the Boys-who-play-in-white were playing well despite the LONG grass! (“Shall we mow the pitch for you?” “Foxxy Foxxy cut the grass, Foxxy – cut the grass!”) We felt we could grab a winner here, but if it was a draw we’d be happy with that. For the last ten years Adrian Abbott has been saying “Why don’t they chip the keeper from the half way line? Look at him, he’s miles out of his goal” and that is EXACTLY what Taddy’s No.10 did to us... Chipped Coops from over 40 yards in the last minute to win the game for them, boooooh! What a Downer to finish on, especially as losing meant the coach-home-karaoke would be cancelled and all we had to look forward to on the journey back to Urmston was a bog that was overflowing with foul smelling yellow liquid, and Glinks’ boxer shorts “issues”...

When it was over, a few of us had one final slurp in Th’ Bi’ I Ha’ and Mattaeus received an extra few slurps all over his face from a massive big Canarian Mastiff. Roll on Tuesday for Wooky at Home, 7.45pm kick off. (witten by Taddy Sheringham)