When it was put on the group chat who wanted to write this blog, Mr Henry Weston was probably still talking for me when I agreed to do it. You can thank your lucky stripes we didn’t elect Mr Buik to write it, as he summarised it perfectly on the group chat. “Got pissed, ref was shit, lost, got more pissed, the end”. So here goes with writing the ramblings of AFC Totton away.
The day started in quite typical fashion, I was awoken by my children at some ridiculous hour of the morning, nursing a rather awful hangover. The kids had no sympathy, and nor did the wife. What kept the hangover at bay was an away day to Totton. I had agreed in the week to collect the flags along with 9,000 stickers from Vossy Saturday morning, before getting me barnet cut and awaiting the wife to drop me at Tesco around 11.45 so I could get some supplies for the coach (supplies meaning a paper, and Tesco meal deal, how dare people think we would break the law!). After my trim up I ventured over to the delights of the Oxford bakery where I found the wife and kids having a coffee and cake. The wife asked how I was getting to Tesco; you can drop me off before heading to Yeovil to see your Mum. How wrong I was! As she wanted to be in Yeovil by 12!
My brain finally woke up and i realised I could literally be sat in a pub by 10.45AM! With this news in hand, I threw it onto the group, and Vossy decided to keep me company by venturing up for a coffee. When he arrived, I was sweating over a half drunk pint of Henry Weston’s cider, with a beautiful looking Espresso Martini ready as the grand prize for powering through my cider. After me and Vossy put the world to rights it was time to depart and make the short trip down to the avenue and get on the battle bus.
I boarded the battle bus just after midday and it was already swarming with people. After Dabbs did a quick headcount, we departed the Avenue at 12.10, thus being 5 minutes before the scheduled departure time of 12.15. I sat towards the back on the coach near where most of the Electric Avenue boys were housed. As we exited via the Tesco roundabout, we spotted two Dorch fans still walking past the bus stop. Lots of “STOP THE BUS” echoed through the coach, a quick hop up on the curb, load the two missing Dorch fans and off we went. This is what happens when the chief bus steward Vossy isn’t on board to do the head count.
The bus journey was uneventful, lots of talk about how we would set up against a well drilled outfit, future battle buses, boxing day and how Buik has not nodded off throughout the journey. As the cold coffees and bottles of soda flowed, we arrived at Totton’s stadium. For me, I couldn’t decide if it was a shit ground or a half decent one. There is no doubt the facilities are clearly well looked after, but to me it looked like something on the front of a Playmobil box.
As we departed the coach, we were directed through the ticket office/club shop – the girls on the door were clearly not expecting a coach, in fact they had been told a minibus was the only mode of transport taking our army of supporters. Silly Totton, not everyone can fill a minibus like you to a big game!
As we rocked into the excellent bar facilities (every club’s bar is better than ours) and took our seats, to everyone’s surprise Floydy appeared alongside Goddard. He headed straight to the table to greet both Ant and Kath. After the home defeat to Hanwell, everyone was very much on edge and many arguments took place, and to break the ice, Kath offered up an apologetic cuddle to Dan which he received warmly. We spent the 90 mins before KO throwing down enough booze to sink the Titanic again, other than the General who opted for his bottle of water, or Huel, to be honest, I am still unsure what the fuck it was.
Now this is where it gets a bit bleary. The booze had clearly hit me, and somehow, I had managed to sink the best part of 8 pints, an espresso martini, and several large shorts before KO. Must be my dart boot camp training from back in the day seeing me through.
As 70/80+ of us congregated behind the goal, it was clear that Totton’s ground is soulless, with only an exceedingly small terrace covering on one side of the ground. They have also clearly tried to copy us with a Bovril stand of their own, to summarise, it was a pathetic attempt and should be taken down with immediate effect and launched in the bin. Perhaps chuck the oaf in the green coat in the bin at the same time. He seemed to take pleasure in offering out our younger supporters, but said fuck all to the likes of Watkins and the older few.
Back to the football, we started well and had lots of the ball, however nothing clearcut came of it. If I knew prior to the game I was doing this blog I would have paid much more attention to what was going on, and not get so pissed so i could list much more detail from the 1st half. Na, not a chance! Anyway, halftime rolled in, and you could clearly see that it was two very good sides trying to break each other down. Most ventured back to the bar, however me and Floydy walked round the other side to attempt to put up the flags. As we attempted to put them up with the help of a few Dorch fans, we were struggling to tie them to the fence, however one young Dorch fan for some strange reason had an abundance of cable ties in his pockets, do not ask me why, perhaps he visited the local DIY shop before boarding the battle bus.
The second half started much the same as the first. We had vast amounts of possession, and looked a threat going forward. However, Totton’s patience paid off as they took the lead. The goal looked well worked, straight off the under 16’s training ground….
The goal did not open the flood gates, quite the opposite in fact. We continued to press hard. However around the 65-70 min mark ex magpie Tom Blair went in for a challenge on Shaq near the edge of the pitch. It resulted in Shaq flying over the advertising hoardings. We all screamed for a second yellow, which we got, however when Shaq got back up, he reacted, to me it looked like he pushed him towards the top of the chest, however the ref had a different opinion and showed Shaq a straight red.
We continued to dominate the game as Totton sat back to try and protect their lead. We thought we were given a break. We looked almost through on goal as one of the magpie’s front line (memory is fuzzy) was brought down in what looked like an absolute stone wall penalty. It was not given to the bemusement of our supporters and coaching team. Perhaps the ref was still aggrieved by our bench sitting on the water box. As the clock ticked down, we threw everything at them but to no avail. A bitterly disappointing defeat, and out of the cup. The players were rightly applauded off for their efforts as they gave everything on the pitch. Amid taking the flags down Tommy was shown a straight red for expressing his delight at the officials.
One final drink in the bar before we set off home on the battle bus.
Most were well oiled, and the songs flowed. Some fell asleep, some got half naked, some wanted to go further. These were swiftly instructed to put some clothes on, and the less said about that the better. We arrived back at the Avenue, where unlike everyone else I have no self-control. I thought it would be a good idea to carry on drinking in town, so myself, half of the board, Buik and others got back on the coach for a lift into town.
An enjoyable day with friends, don’t particularly fancy going back to Totton again for a while, however I get a feeling that come May we might have to. As expected, I woke up hungover again on Sunday. Over and out.
BW
Leave a Reply