NL: Barrow ARC v Torquay United 3pm - 14th November 2015

amid those dark satanic mills…never having been to Barrow before, the words of Jerusalem were always how I pictured the place…and I wasn’t disappointed! Though to be fair the weather was bloody shocking.
Drove up to the match from The Dales with a mate of mine who had come up for a long weekend visit from Torquay. We chatted about our chances with me predicting a 1:1 draw and him predicting a 4:0 loss! Next time he predicts a score line I’m heading to the nearest bookies. As he hadn’t been to an away match (or indeed a home match) for about 20 years I decided to put him straight on the singing side of things. During our days in the mini-stand the different songs we sang went into double figures of course, but times and songs change, so I taught him our new songs. The first one of course is ‘Yellow Army …Yellow Army…Yellow Army!’ And then my all time favourite ‘Yellow Army…Yellow Army…Yellow Army!’ And then that great classic from yesteryear ‘Yellow Army…Yellow Army…Yellow Army…………Ad Infinitum!
Plenty of street parking and into the pub at the ground for 13:00. Nice friendly home support and got chatting to a few of them…one reason being because my mate had got lost by this stage. I explained to them that he was from Torquay and he didn’t get out much, to which they gave me knowing nods and smiles! The bar overlooks the length of the pitch and with the conditions at the time and with even worse weather predicted, I couldn’t see the match going ahead, and certainly not being completed if it did start, more about that later.
After a couple of pints and about 30 trips to the toilet (this cold weather does affect the little fella) we went to get our tickets for the match. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to find the away fans weren’t segregated; so mixed with a more than friendly home support.
The weather took a turn for the worse as we kicked off and stayed like that throughout the match. Fist goal didn’t take long in coming, scored by someone called Khan, and a good goal it was. I’m sure I read somewhere that Barrow only got him recently from a higher division and to be honest he ran the entire show, running rings round the Torquay players! The second goal came on the half hour and was a beauty! You can’t see it on the clip of the goal but it was on the half-volley and bent out of the reach of the keeper…again scored by Khan. Forgot to mention that Butler lost the ball in midfield during an attack which led directly to the second goal. Strangely enough though, even being 2 goals down within half an hour I turned to my mate and said ‘I’m enjoying this’, to which he agreed! I then sat there for the next ten minutes scratching my head in a bid to figure out why I was enjoying it! Suddenly it came to me…we were actually playing good football! No hoof ball (because of the wind and the rain one could have accepted it in this match, particularly in the first half with the wind at our backs) but good on the floor stuff.

The next happy moment for TUFC was in the second half when Smith saw red! Smith clearly pulled their player down when he was in on goal and Smith was off. I have to mention that the referee had a very good game (they do get slated don’t they?) ably assisted by his female assistant on my side…nice bum! Next happy moment for TUFC came shortly after when Nico (might be wrong about that) got skinned on the edge of the area and it was goodnight Vienna! Another goal at the end, but the game was over as a contest as soon as the first goal went in!
And what was the reason the game was over after the first goal went in…yes sports fans…I’ll say it again…because we don’t have a bloody striker! Campion…what the bloody hell was he doing! I know there is some rule where you can’t be offside if you’re not interfering with play (believe me, he never interfered with play throughout the entire bloody match) but the amount of times he was ten or more yards offside was unbelievable! Another one of our magnificent forwards (Wright ) came on late and equally did sod all.
Every game has to have a star of the match. Of course none of our players qualified for such honours, and not even Khan from the other side came close to the actual star of this match…for the star of this match was that bloody pitch! Even the world’s best grounds man (Aussie) if ordered to soak the pitch to have a match called off would be unable to comply with that order…even if he stood on the pitch 24/7 with his hose out! Even at the end of the match there was no standing water and it had hardly cut up at all. I had found out earlier why the rain doesn’t affect it. Seemingly, it’s built over an old brick works, and there are more bricks underneath it than you can shake a stick at…hence the good drainage.
All in all a nice day…barring the score line and the weather: Holes in the roof of the stand we were sitting in, even worse toilets than Plainmoor (if that’s possible), non segregation, I love all of that stuff; these new stadiums give me the shits!
So to sum up, we actually played some good football on Saturday, and if we can cut out the defensive mistakes (I do feel it’s time for Nico to become purely a manager) and if we can beg, steal or borrow a decent striker, we have a good chance of getting out of the deep shite we are in! Although I see already that poor old Nico is getting slated on the so called Kiddies site, so goodness knows what dog’s abuse he is receiving on the site that has a propensity to hate everything and everybody in particular everything and everybody to do with TUFC, though allegedly not the recently deceased! I have no idea because I don’t bother to look over there anymore.

On a lighter note: as I mentioned earlier, I have never been to that area of the country in this life, but by some quirk am going there again this coming weekend. This time though for a Vajrapani Empowerment!
For those of you that are even remotely interested… bookings.manjushri.org/?_ga=1.108037954.1949058289.1445421768#/en/event/34/program