Gulls in europe
Travelling with Torquay United
Now I realise that people really believe SKY when they say the football season begins when Chelsea have their first game – the fact that the other three leagues began the week before is irrelevant. So the problem for these people reading the headline to this articile is twofold: Torquay who ? United actually and from now on known as The Gulls (and no, not The Seagulls of Brighton who are one of those clubs who, like Portsmouth are likely to be heard saying “it’s not fair we’re a big club and shouldn’t be down here” ). And, yes, in our minds, we had a big match in Europe this season.
Torquay is a long way from anywhere but, as an ex-chairman of ours pointed out to a player who wouldn’t join us, “we do have running water”, so most away games involve plenty of travelling. Nearly as much as all those Devonian Chelsea and Arsenal fans we see on the train and who never speak to us, because we are Torquay who?
It’s not that we are bitter about being a small club in League Two, actually it is great because all the other fans like us because everybody seems to have had a good holiday in Torquay at some time or wants a weekend away. When they see our shirts every other supporter asks where we are going/been and how did we get on? Then we chat away about football with no animosity (no, that doesn’t include Manchester United fans). As I was saying away trips tend to be long but four of us recently took the unusual League Two option of following our team into Europe by flying to the game.
I’ll explain: When Hartlepool found themselves back among the deadmen this season we all agreed it was a must to go there, trouble is it is in a foreign land – bloody miles away. It has its own language, and takes forever to get there by train. So it was agreed Dav (who works for FlyBe) would arrange the trip to this alien country and, just like the big clubs’ supporters, we would fly to Europe because Newcastle Airport is in Europe. So me, my son Chris, Dav and DD met up at Exeter Airport on a sunny February morning for the big trip.
It was the usual group of weekend misfits, ten blokes who all worked out and had huge biceps and the inevitable hen party wearing tee-shirts that were mind blowingly frank. Now DD was a copper in a former life and was of the opinion that most of the nicknames they gave themselves in big letters on their back constituted a public order offence.
Probably the only one that could be printed was ‘leg over Leah’; you just wouldn’t believe what the bride and her mates Hinksy and Tora liked doing! But we all scrambled on board the 75 seater turboprop plane, about the size of a coach, and off we soared over a landscape that was mainly under water from all the flooding around here – obviously not as important as the ones in the Thames Valley I appreciate.
If you have never been to the land that is Newcastle you should go. It’s brilliant a great mix of old and new and yes they spoke a strange language – mainly Scottish and eastern European it seemed. Sadly nobody added ‘like’ to the end of every sentence as we had expected. So after the obligatory Premier Inn booking-in, two bottles of Newcy Brown in Shearer’s Bar at St James’ Park and a curry, we were set. Once we were identified as foreigners, the Newcastle fans were great and wished us well – shame Alan Pardew spoiled their weekend by nutting a Hull player. Saturday dawned bright and sunny and we caught the train down the coast to Hartlepool. I appreciate that all most people know about the place is that Jeff Stelling supports the team,
but it was great. Friendly and on the coast with a nice marina and a pub that did four pints for £11.55. The floodlights of Victoria Park dominate the skyline and drew us in, guided by a lovely lad who took the photo shown here, too. The Gulls fans were beginning to gather, around a 100 arriving from all over the country; so Ollie from Manchester and Big Chris from his manor in ‘Landan’ were there.
In my younger days I was a teacher in Barnsley and there I learned to love one of the great food dishes of the world – The Meat & Potato Pie. So the highlight of any trip to northern lands is being able to buy one, since they don’t appear at Plainmoor, just pasties and Balti pies. It was magnificent, a definite 9/10 and I got the last one, too.
Okay, so the game was disappointing and we lost 3 – 0 and relegation to the Conference sadly beckons again; but I expect Jeff was happy in the Sky Studio and Merse was looking confused yet again. But the Hartlepool fans didn’t gloat and shook our hands in commiseration as we trailed home for a pizza, some beers and handshakes from Newcastle fans who admired our efforts.
So the point is that even us distant cousins of Sky’s ‘proper fans’ who want to stand at matches but can’t (so why not go to football where you can then!) can have a trip to Europe and can, for a short while, live the dream.
This was how a proper club rewarded the efforts of the 91 fans who went to Victoria Park: we were invited to have pint with the manager during the week. Now would that happen at the Emirates?