KETTERING TOWN 3 BARROW 2 GM Vauxhall Conference 8 February 1992 by MC Messenger
As usual, four of us set out from Morecambe and had to endure a train journey that involved many stops and changes throughout. Along with a friend who travelled from Barrow we eventually reached the small town in the South East Midlands which seemed to be full of more Scots folk than Morecambe is in summer. After a trek up a hill that even Colne Dynamoes would have been proud of, we finally reached the ground. It seemed to have an eerie buzz about it. Even at 2.55 there was still quite a healthy queue to get into what, apart from the quite dramatic main stand, can only be described as a pathetic attempt at a football ground. Well that's enough of my attempts to be Prince Charles, the architecture critic, so let me tell you the first thing I heard as I climbed up the terraces looking for a programme seller. "Hey Vinny, get back to Morecambe, you bloody yobbo!" This gentlemanly attempt at a greeting came from none other than the one and only (thank Cowps there's only one) Sir Jamie of Hill. How the heck he knew it was me through that sea of red and white, I will never know, but after deciding that the game was more important than the programme we scrambled our way through the mob and reached the rest of the blue and white army just as the referee blew the whistle for the kick-off. From our point of view the highlight of that first half surely must have been the fantastic free kick from which John Brady scored probably his best goal last season and maybe even his best for us so far. The second half saw the thirty or so of us troop round to the other end of the junk heap to see the walls that had nearly been bashed down after Jabber's shot hit the back of the net! But the organisation of the programme sales was worse than at Runcorn. At least they can use the excuse of being affected by the chemicals. I can't usually stomach any food until after I get a programme, so I gave what was recommended by friends (What? At Kettering? I think they were winding you up, Vinny. Ed.) who had visited previously a miss. Also during the second half myself and the rest of the angry folk on the terraces took out our frustration at going behind through a fluke Neil Kelly own goal on the Kettering goalkeeper and I gave Jamie something to justify his calling me Vinny. The game was one of the better that I had the misfortune to see last season - it ended in the usual defeat for Barrow, 2-3 and we began the long trail back to the station. However, special thanks have to go to Jamie who very kindly gave us a lift. There were six of us plus bags packed into the red speed bomb that torpedoed its way from one set of lights to another. The lights were only about a hundred yards apart and at an average speed of 76mph we still avoided a collision. And on Kettering station with a wait of nearly an hour ahead of you it is not easy to control the assortment of malicious and vindictive thoughts that cross your mind, especially when your team has just lost 3-2 to a team of Scottish Southerners, but we did. The ride home was fairly uneventful apart from a homeless kid who sat next to me and tried to nick all the money that I had in my pocket. He was honey nut loops though - he said he was a Celtic fan who had been to Wembley to watch them play Spurs and he was returning to Nottingham. And all this on a train whose destination was Crewe! Issue 016 - April 1993