CHORLEY 3 BARROW 1 Northern Premier League Premier Division 23 August 1994 by Graham Murphy
"Is this it?" "Is this what?" "Our junction, you berk. What do you think I'm talking about?" "Well, I don't know. Perhaps you meant that blonde in the Porsche who just came up behind us flashing her headlights. I thought you weren't going to pull over for her." "Yeah well, I only let her pass 'cause I didn't want to embarrass her by revealing the full power of my engine." "What! This old heap? You must be joking! An Austin Maestro goes quicker than this pile of junk. Anyway, she was probably your type of woman." "And what exactly is my type of woman?" "Easy." "Hey, watch it! Less of your insults. Just remember how many matches I get to in a season in this so called old heap. It's never broken down, has it? Anyway, fast driving has just as much to do with technique as it does with sheer speed." "Fancy ourselves as Nigel Mansell now, do we? For Cowps sake, stop wittering or you'll miss the turnoff. You're like an old woman sometimes. Look, here it is... junction 27 - Standish and Parbold. Pull into the inside lane and start signalling." So I checked my mirrors and moved into a gap between a caravan and an articulated lorry just as we drew level with the countdown markers to the exit ramp. The driver of the caravan must have been a bit upset about something because I saw him gesticulating in my rear view mirror. Then we had to brake a bit sharpish as the lorry was going slower than I expected. As we drew level with the exit lane, I drove into it and overtook the lorry on the inside, getting a black look from the driver. Ah, life on the open road. There's nothing like it. Except perhaps a Barrow victory. But then it looks as though they'll be as rare this season as a British athlete passing a drugs test. Anyway, back to the lorry driver. Sod him, that's what I say. Sod all lorry drivers and any slow moving traffic on the night of a football match. Kick-off at Chorley was at 7.30. We were running behind schedule because we'd got caught up in a traffic jam before we got onto the motorway. A wastepaper lorry had tried to go under a low bridge without realising that his load of cardboard was piled up higher than the bridge. So as he went under it, the lorry went through no problem. But all the cardboard was skimmed off the top to form a layer of small boxes and sheets on the road about three feet deep. It was half an hour before the road was clear, So I wasn't in the best of moods as we were going up the M6. And smart-arsed remarks from my navigator weren't going to help much. Not that he cared anyway. He wasn't the one who had to write a match report and get all the players names right. We'd never get there in time for a programme, so how would I know who was playing? How would I know what had happened in the game before we got there? Well, hopefully there'd be no goals so I could just ignore the first part of the match. But then I'd have to write to the Ed at Give 'Em Beans! and let him know that I'd missed another kick-off. As I've said before, it's a lonely, dirty job following Barrow AFC, but someone has to do it. We were nearing the top of the exit ramp. "Which way is it off the roundabout?" I enquired of my navigator, whose head was buried in the atlas and who had been unusually quiet for all of the last sixty seconds. Such a prolonged period of inactivity for his mouth meant only one thing. He wasn't sure of which way to go. "Left?" I enquired tentatively. "Right," he said. So I started to indicate left. "No, right, dickhead. As in turn right." "You said left." Well, if he can lose his rag, so can I. "No I didn't. I said right." It was too late. I'd already turned right off the roundabout. "You didn't. I said 'Do we turn left?' and you said that that was right." "I meant turn right, not right as in okay." He was really wound up now. "You really are useless sometimes. Prat. Look, turn right here - towards Wrightington." So we drove in silence down this 'B' road towards Wrightington village. It looked quite familiar. "This is the right road anyway," I said. "No it isn't. The road we should have gone on is on the other side of the M6, you dope. We should have gone through Standish, left at the lights, right by a pub and the ground is off on the right after two or three miles. Not that you would know where Chorley's ground is." He was talking about last season's trip here when I got confused about my whereabouts and ended up chasing a car with an EO registration across half of Chorley only to end up in the grounds of a hospital. He only knows this because he read about it in Give 'Em Beans! and he only came this time because he reckons he knows how to get to Chorley's ground. Well, we'll see how clever he is when we get there. "That was a cheap remark," I replied. "Anyway, there's a pub. It's probably the one that you're thinking of." So I turned right. "Now where are you going? This isn't the right way." "But you said that we turned right by a pub. And I remember passing that pub before. So it must be the one you were talking about." "No it isn't you idiot. We're on a completely different road, @®$£#ø!£!" Well, there was no need for that. Just because he's got an anal fixation, it's nothing to do with me. I'm just the driver. So I kept quiet. Then I realised why the road looked so familiar. It was the way to Camelot Theme Park. But fortunately there was a sign at the 'T' junction saying 'CHORLEY 6.' We'd soon be there. And we were. But unfortunately we weren't. Not at the ground anyway. But we were in Chorley. At a set of traffic lights which led onto the A6. "I remember this bit," I said. "I came this way the last time I got lost." "A-ha! So you admit that you're lost then." "Well, all right, if you put it like that. But I think we turn right and follow the Manchester signs through the town centre." "Okay, well go on then." I looked up and realised that the lights had already changed. This being a Tuesday night in Chorley, there was no one around to honk their horn at us, so I pulled onto the A6. "Go across the roundabout and turn right at the electrical shop," my navigator intoned in a superior sort of way. "Yeah, yeah. I know." Smug ß@$*@®¶! A couple of miles further down the A6 and the homes of Chorley were disappearing behind us. But there hadn't been one electrical shop. "Okay, smartarse. Where's this shop then?" That's shown him, I thought to myself. "We passed it a mile ago. It's closed and has been boarded up." "Well, why didn't you say something?" I glanced at my mirrors and did a U-turn on the deserted road. Well, it was deserted when I started, but before I was halfway into the manouevre, another car came haring along and started flashing his lights at me. "Oh sod off!" I snarled. "Temper, temper. Don't let everything get on top of you or you'll end up feeling like a whore at an orgy." "Very funny," I said in a tone overlaid with as much irony as I could manage. We were soon at the ex-electrical shop. The lights were on red, so we had to wait until we could make our left turn. "Why can't we turn left on a red light like they do in America?" I asked no one in particular. But my navigator couldn't resist a reply. "They don't actually," he sneered. "Don't what?" "Turn left at a red light." "Yes they do. Don't you remember? When we went to Florida. Everyone behind started honking their horns at us and it was ages before we realised." "It's a right turn at a red light in America. They drive on the other side of the road. If they tried to turn left on red, there'd be a lot of accidents." "Oh, right, yes, but you know what I mean. It's the same thing as turning left here and then we wouldn't have to wait until there's no traffic on the road at all. We've already missed the first fifteen minutes of the match. I don't want to miss any more." Well, if they've been playing like you told me, it'll be 3-2 to Chorley by now." The lights changed and we turned left. "Don't forget to turn right at the Leyland DAF factory," my navigator warned. It was the only direction he'd got right all night. "Yes, okay, I know." "Then right at the crossroads and find somewhere to park." "Okay. Don't go on. I'll park over there on the left." "Right." "No, left." "That's what I meant. Over there on the left." "Oh, let's not start that again," I pleaded. He was quiet as I parked the car. We grabbed the scarf from the back window and made a mad dash down the road to the turnstile. The gateman told us that it was still 0-0, but there were no programmes left. We'd no sooner got into the ground when Chorley scored. By the time we'd got to a place on the terraces, they'd scored again. And within ten minutes of that, they scored once more. Thoughts of bad luck omens flashed through my mind. It was the first game my navigator had been to, and no sooner does he walk into the ground than we are 3-0 down. "Looks like your lot are in for a stuffing," he said. "And against such a crap side. There's more space in Chorley's defence than you'll get on a mission of the Space Shuttle." He was right. It was bad. But we won the second half with a Chilton forty yard free kick. There's nothing worse than the journey home after a bad defeat. "What did you think of it?" I enquired. "Get a defence and you might just stand a chance of avoiding relegation. Remember, the first priority of a successful team is a sound defence. If you spend all season trying to outscore the opposition, you'll get lots of goals. But the chances are you'll lose more matches than you'll win." We went the rest of the way home in silence. Originally appeared as 'The Road to Chorley' in issue 021 - January 1995