Imagine being addicted to heroin but this type of heroin has a high that only occurs once in a blue moon, with a massive come down mostly every time. That’s what following Dorchester Town is like. Probably worse than heroin actually. Yeah, being a Dorch fan is definitely worse than being a heroin addict. It’s a love/hate relationship and it’s addictive. “I had a really good weekend but I need something to be bitter about” was Luke justifying the fact he was about to spend 3 and a half hours in a crammed car on a Monday night to watch us. Erm yeah.. Fair enough. Redditch United away.
Luckily, in the week, Cam had informed Steve (who was driving) that Redditch was Birmingham way and not, as Steve had originally thought, “like Hereford” where we would need to drive through Wales. I know the Scottish are supposed to be tight fisted but driving through Wales to get to Birmingham just so he could charge us extra for the toll is a bit extreme.
With that sorted, we were ready to go. five of us crammed into the car and we headed for Redditch, where the talk quickly began to be about how many we were going to lose by. I thought someone had dropped acid into my Newcastle Brown when Steve predicted a 2-2 draw. This from the man who would have “been happy” with a draw at Abingdon in the FA Cup. I’d tell you how many leagues below us they are but I have no idea if I’m honest. Basically they’re a lot worse than us. And that takes some doing. The rest of us predicted defeats by three or four goals, with the rest of the journey consisted of a conversation about 3G pitches (which did seem to last about three hours) and a Burger King stop.
After driving into oncoming traffic and then having to travel six miles down and back up the motorway for the right turning, we’d made it to Redditch. We’d arrived at the ground and everyone went up to the bar, I’d planned to meet a mate from Redditch in the Royal Enfield pub which was, according to their steward “fucking miles away, mate.” Not sure if miles are the same in the midlands but after a 5 minute walk, I was there. The first Wetherspoons I’ve ever seen with a motorbike in. Culture. We had a couple of pints and then headed to the ground, ready for kick off.
It was an open game for the first few minutes, we had a couple of chances, one of which was skied over the bar from a few yards out. They also hit the post not long after. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the football, psychologists say the brain has the ability to suppress memories of traumatic experiences. So yeah. Anyway, same as usual, defensive mistakes and we go in at half time 1-0 down. I spent the second half in the bar, watching the game (bar maid) from the windows (across the room). Redditch scored two more and the rest is history. Full time. 3-0. After some words of ‘advice’ from certain individuals to certain individuals, we headed up to the bar to be miserable and talk about how shit at football we are.
You know when you’re three and a half hours away from home on a freezing cold Monday night in December having just watched your team get beat 3-0 and all you can think about is getting up for work the next morning? Yeah, that was made even better when we discovered the M5 was closed.
Because I have an iPhone, it had died several hours before so I was entertained only by everyone arguing about the youth set up at Dorch. Josh, who happens to be the chairman’s son was constantly getting “TELL YOUR DAD…” bellowed at him by Luke as we tried to navigate through the fog. I’m not exaggerating, for most of the journey home, you couldn’t see the road so I’d like to thank Steve Hill again for getting us home in once piece. “This is like ice road truckers” “It’s fucking worse than that, mate.” We were all deadly serious. Finally, we’d got to a clearer area, a village somewhere near Salisbury, where half of the car decided they’d lived. “Yeah, I think I lived here as well actually. Not sure.” Was a genuine quote.
We arrived back in glorious DT1 at 02:10. “I turned down sex for this tonight” – why do we do it? I’ll never really know. That’s now 13 goals conceded in 3 games. Are we all going to Bideford? Of course we are. Weekender.
Oh yeah, Tom Berry masturbates with his left hand. Pass it on.
JW
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