Typical... Just this once, Graham Murphy got to the match early. This time it was the team who were late...
EMLEY 0 BARROW 0 Northern Premier League Premier Division 25 April 1994 by Graham Murphy
As this final away game of the season was on a midweek night I rushed home from work and jumped into the car with an anorak, a cold pizza, a flask of tea and some cake. Well, what I get up to in my own time is my own affair. Anyway, by the time I got to the M62, there wasn't very much traffic. So with scarcely any reduction in speed necessary for the inevitable roadworks, Huddersfield was soon looming up on the right of the motorway. Well, actually that should be looming down because it's at the bottom of a very, very, very long hill. Five minutes round the ring road, left for Wakefield and right for Emley at the top of another very, very, very long hill and I was turning into the ground in plenty of time for the start. But as soon as I'd turned into the narrow entrance which leads to the car park at Emley a chap waved me down. Must be the car park attendant. Surely I don't have to pay. Must be some mistake. With the practiced ease of one who is used to doing several things at the same time (aren't we all?) I wound down my window and braked gently. "Kick off's delayed," he said in broad Yorkshire, "They 'asn't arrived. Barrer team. Held up on't motorway." Great, I thought as I wound up the window and edged forward to find a parking space. So what am I going to do in a place like Emley on a Monday evening while I wait for the team to arrive? There's more excitement in the United Club on a Sunday lunchtime than there is in Emley on a Monday night. Or any night, come to think of it. At least I didn't have to worry about my usual problem. No, not that one... getting a programme. There were hundreds of them at the turnstile. About 150 Emley supporters were already in the ground, but no-one from Barrow, at least no-one I recognised. I'll apologise now to anyone who was there for 7.30, but I honestly felt like I was the only Barrow supporter who had bothered to turn up. Well I knew that the team was going through a bad patch, but no other supporters at all was a concept I had difficulty coming to terms with. So what to do? Read the programme. Okay. That took about fifteen minutes and there's still no sign of the Barrow team. Flippin' 'eck, I thought in an impression of a Yorkshire dialect, this is a lonely dangerous job following Barrow. But I suppose someone has to do it. What can I do next? My gaze wandered up to the sky. It was a lovely late spring evening. A few clouds, scarcely a breath of wind. Quite different from my last visit here when it was raining and I was freezing to death. Last time it had also been pitch black, but in April it is still light until eightish. I noticed that the giant TV transmitter, which looms over one end of the ground, is not just your bog standard ordinary type of TV transmitter - all steel sections. This one has an elegantly ugly concrete jacket all the way up to the top. I shifted my weight from one foot to another. The PA turned off the dreadful Palm Court Orchestra album which was on its third repeat and becoming extremely irritating and announced that the Barrow team had phoned in from Birch services, so they were expected to arrive in half an hour. Didn't Samuel Beckett write a play about this? No, not about Barrow AFC at Birch services, I mean about waiting for a long time. Waiting for Godot. That was it. Two old men standing around waiting in some dustbins. As opposed to an anorak standing around waiting to see some dustbins. Oh satire thou art not dead. Vladimir and Estragon they were called. No, not the dustbins, the two old men in the play who spend the entire couple of hours just filling in time, looking back on the past and imagining some fictitious future, like Barrow returning to the Conference and this football match actually starting this side of midnight! Perhaps I could hum some Wordsworth. "Oh look," I said to myself, "The other side of the ground backs on to a cricket pitch." I hadn't noticed that before. So that's why there's no terracing down that side of the ground (yes, really interesting. For Cowps' sake, get on with it! Ed.). Just then, a couple of members of the National Supporters Club were wandering along the bottom of the terraces. Perhaps there might be enough of us to make up an eleven and we could get the game started. I'm sure a forward line of Hill, Leitch and Murphy would strike terror in someone's mind. Probably Mick Cloudsdale's. "The Barrow team have arrived and kick-off will be at 8.30." the announcer announced. "Unfortunately, the car with their kit in is still on the motorway so we are trying to find some spare gear for them." This was starting to get silly. I could imagine the scene in the changing room. There'd be more confusion than at an Ann Summers party in a convent... "Gimme that jockstrap, it's too small for you." "No it isn't!" "I want the number nine shirt, I score more goals with that on." Then Mick comes in. The banter dies down as the players gradually realise he's standing there. "Right then lads, I'm a bit worried about our defence. Any ideas?" A voice from the back is heard. "We could sign Karren Brady from Birmingham as part exchange for Doc." "What good would that do?" Mick says as his eyebrows rise in a quizzical expression. "It would stiffen up the back four!" Back in the real world, the PA burst into life again. "And now the teams. The Barrow team are wearing these numbers. I think." The announcer didn't sound too sure. And when he had finished we could hardly believe it. Only Rooney, Hamilton, Addenbrook and Watt could call themselves established first teamers. Mason, Brown and Hoyland were the usual midweek cover for others who had work commitments. But Livingston, Shepherd, Friars and McArthur? Sorry guys, but I'd not heard your names before. Perhaps we should find Mick and offer him that other devastating forward line. Anyway, it turns out that Barrow have had to put a side together from those who arrived first, hence the higher than usual number of young lads in the team. They played in Emley's change strip of white shirts and sky blue shorts. And they did very well to hold Emley to a 0-0 draw. Hoyland played extremely well in goal, making three excellent saves. Senior, named as substitute, had his moment as centre forward in the second half when he came on for Watt, who had to leave the field Kevin Proctor-like with blood gushing from a head wound. The Barrow supporters arrived at half-time, having just spent five hours on the M6. Their entrance increased the attendance by at least thirty per cent, and what an entrance it was! Singing their heads off and chucking confetti all over the place. The ladies in Emley's social club made mounds of ham sandwiches for the Barrow supporters and walked up and down the terraces handing them out. It was like a scene from the Sermon on the Mount. All we needed was for Cowps to appear to give us his blessing. But he didn't. The referee blew for full time at almost twenty past ten. We returned to our respective coaches and cars for the late journey home. Although we'd gained a creditable draw, Barrow's Emley hoodoo had continued. Four times we played them last season and we still couldn't beat them. Maybe this year. Originally appeared as 'Emley Part IV: The Nightmare Continues' in issue 020 - August 1994