AWAY DAYS

(Three Days to get to Barrow?)

 We set off for Barrow in plenty of time, Sunday afternoon to be exact, just to make sure we got there!

The we being the wife and I. She had heard that the roads in to Barrow were not the best so an early start was necessary! It would have been Sunday morning but we decided to leave it until later so we could watch the latest fans match in the morning against Manchester Rovers, a game that they lost 2-1 but they were up against a very strong team and in some ways played the best I had seen.

So on to Barrow. It was almost 26 years since I last went to Holker Street when, in our first season in non-league football we made two visits, winning 2-0 in a Tuesday night league game and losing 2-1 in the FA Trophy. I particularly remember the league game as we had made a day of it and gone climbing and arrived at the ground absolutely shattered but goals by my hero, George Dewsnip and John Beesley made for a pleasant run home.

I remembered Barrow as a rather bleak and miserable place but apart from the toilets, which left a lot to be desired, it was a smart ground with a nice stand and raised terracing behind each goal with a good covered area down the side of the ground. It was £8 to get in and £1.50 for the programme.

Barrow gets a bad press for being so out of the way and “at the end of the longest cul-de-sac in the country” but we arrived glowing having spent the afternoon looking around Sellafield. With a couple of hours to spare we had time to go around the town and despite being closed it was a nice enough place. I was very disturbed to see so many of the locals walking around in Liverpool or Man Utd shirts, a bit like Southport really, but when you look at the map I think Liverpool and Manchester are the nearest Premiership teams to Barrow so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at all.

Barrow seem to be a club with troubles but I anticipated a lot harder game and would have been happy with a draw before kick off but 20 minutes in I really felt we would win. The 2-0 scoreline did not do the performance justice, we could easily have won by 4 or 5. What a turnout of support as well, for a two hour midweek journey there must have been close on 150 travelling fans. The noisiest contingent were the lads from the supporters team who had hired a “fun bus” and gave the team non stop backing starting with a tickertape and balloon welcome and continuing with their full repertoire of songs virtually throughout the game.

I wonder if the fixture planners and those involved with the clubs involved know the things people do to tie in the watching of their team to other recreational pursuits. We had had a few days break in the Lakes, I heard other people say they had spent the day in Keswick or Ulverston and Martin, my usual driver, had done a 62 mile cycle ride and looked a bit the worse for wear!

A great way to start this seasons away trips.

A report on the Away Day to Hinckley will appear in a future programme.  

I will miss a few away games this season so if there is anyone else who wants to do an Away Days piece for the games in September at Alfreton or Gainsborough please contact me either via the Club Shop or by mailing rob@urwin26.fsnet.co.uk.

As Derek mentioned in our first programme I am more than willing to feature any suitable Southport FC fan related article so feel free to pen a piece at any time.

 On a totally different tack I was looking at the excellent web site for us ground hoppers www.footballgroundguide.co.uk the other day and came across an article from a member of the 92 Club, Colin Peel, who had completed a  questionnaire about his visits and one of the questions was, What was the first ground you visited.  Answer Haig Avenue, Southport, 17/4/76. “My Grandparents lived a mile or so from Haig Avenue, and it was my late Grandfather who took me to my first ever match, a Division Four game against Stockport County. Southport provided the family’s only connection with football, as my Nan used to run the tea bar in the 1950’s. Southport won the match I think (we did 2-0), all I remember was the sound of the home fans kicking the corrugated iron at the back of the terracing when the “Sandgrounders” attacked, and dropping the onions out of my hot dog. And the language, which was bad” Some things just never change!