The joy of father and son at their first game. . . and winning!
Mail Sport writer Kieran Gill treats baby Ezra to Hartlepool away and sees a glorious goal amid the nappy changing
EBBSFLEET 0
HARTLEPOOL 1 Mancini 59
Ezra’s half- time analysis is apt. The game is goalless, the football frustrating, and there’s a familiar stench permeating my nostrils from his nappy. Poonami. Perfect summary, son. You’re getting the hang of supporting Hartlepool already.
This is Ezra’s first game of football, his baptism into my profession and passion, his introduction to the Monkey Hangers.
Code Brown averted after a tour of Ebbsfleet’s Kuflink stadium to find a baby-changing table — with help from the National League club’s considerate stewards who formed an impromptu search party — we’re back in the away end in time for the start of the second half.
all that is missing is something blue to show his allegiance. a chap called Brian strikes up a conversation. asks his age. Why he’s here. Where we’re from. He gifts Ezra his scarf and tells us he’ll be warm enough after his two half-time whiskies. Kind bunch, Hartlepudlians.
Ezra isn’t even one year old yet. He doesn’t have the foggiest what is happening. He’s more preoccupied with the sensory overload coming from the floodlights and practising the two words in his vocabulary. ‘Mamma’, and ‘arya’, our dog’s name. No offence taken.
In the 59th minute, his attention turns to the blokes going bonkers in the away end. The reason is Hartlepool have scored. Cracking strike from 25 yards, one of those where it makes that satisfying noise as it smacks the underside of the crossbar. anthony Mancini is the scorer, a player whose talents we are trying and failing to keep a secret.
Ezra’s first goal is well worth the £1 he cost to get into the ground, down the road from where we now live in Gravesend. I cost £19 by comparison, as did my wife, Jemma — coaxed into joining us on the promise of a half-time pie — and Grandad Mart. They’re kind enough to treat today as the big deal it is in my mind as a firsttime, sleep- deprived, oh- godwhat’s-that-rash father going to his first game with his son, and now we’re winning.
Delivering this from the Hartlepool dugout is Lennie Lawrence. Yes, that Lennie Lawrence, who managed Middlesbrough in the Premier League’s first season in existence and formerly of Charlton, Luton and Cardiff, among others. He is 76 now, the same age as roy Hodgson, and filling in as caretaker. rumours swirl that ronnie Moore, 70, is to return.
But midway through this match, the club announce that Kevin Phillips, the 50-year- old former sunderland and England striker, will be taking over as manager. Unusual timing, but it does prompt chants of ‘super Kev’s blue and white army’ from the 162 brave souls in the away end.
The beauty of these trips is they offer the opportunity to bump into old chums. Like andy Patterson, my mate from English Martyrs secondary school whose first meeting with Ezra will forever be in the away end at Ebbsfleet. His wife, Juliet, is due to give birth in February. Yet another Monkey Hanger in the making.
Or steve sharp, a legend of the fanbase who travels home and away to every game, usually with his wife, ann — or ‘current wife’ as he jokingly calls his partner of 45 years. steve tells us it’s tradition to gift silver to babies. He doesn’t have any on him, so he gives Ezra a £5 note for his piggybank instead. Like I said, kind bunch.
In the spirit of everyone knowing everyone from small towns, Jeff stelling also sent a message the night before Ezra’s first game, offering a few words of wisdom: ‘Tell him this is his team for life. However bad it is this weekend, it will almost certainly get worse.
‘But if you support your hometown team — or dad’s team — you can always look down on those who just follow teams because they win things. and when we do something special, you will never, ever forget it. and all the bad days won’t matter at all. Well, not much.’
Yet this turns into one of the good days as the win is confirmed. Up to 13th in the National League we go. It is only natural that Ezra is being nudged towards Hartlepool. The poor kid never stood a chance, in truth.
He was a day old when aunty sandra knitted him a blue and white bobble hat. a week old when Uncle sam sent him a cuddly monkey named H’angus after the club’s mascot. a month old when Granda John bought him a ‘Born to play for Hartlepool’ bib. Hell, I’ve rocked him to sleep while humming Tom Hark’s The Piranhas.
Now we’ve had our first official boys’ day out — supervised by mammy — and the Monkey Hangers have a new cheeky monkey among their ranks.