A despatch from the back of beyond. And further...
RUNCORN 0 BARROW 0 UniBond League Premier Division 7 December 1996 by Michael Gibson
It's like a setting for a low budget science fiction movie. No obvious town centre. Row upon row of 1970's style 'new' houses. Meandering pedestrian trails crossing dual carriageways on elevated walkways. Grassy mounds to provide 'landscape' features. Chemical factories churning out every pollutant under the sun. Except you can't see the sun for the haze of pollution that hangs over everything. A road system that resembles a plate of spaghetti which has already been attacked by stomach acids. And eleven creatures wearing a uniform that looks like they're straight from Star Trek: the Next Generation. Oh, sorry, that's the local football team warming up for today's game against Barrow. And I thought I'd stumbled on to a film set for the X-Files. Runcorn is most definitely weird. Looking at a map doesn't help. It just serves to confuse you even further, especially if you're looking for the town centre. There are supposedly two railway stations. There are. Four miles away from each other. Whoever built the railway couldn't find the town centre either. One of the stations, simply called Runcorn is on the main Crewe to Liverpool line and is fairly near(ish) to the town. The other, Runcorn East, is in a field miles from anywhere on the Chester to Warrington line. Beware of grazing cows and sheep when boarding or alighting the train. This station is possibly slightly closer to Northwich than it is to Runcorn. It's easier to fly round the world in a hot air balloon than it is to find Runcorn's ground from Runcorn station. A subway led invitingly into a dark, dank tunnel that went under a dual carriageway and stank of p¡$$. A couple of signposts indicated the whereabouts of various bus stops. Apart from that there's not much else to indicate what planet you're on. There was a canal nearby. And the football ground is in Canal St. The quickest way to the ground would be to go down the canal. But there were no barges or pleasure craft in the vicinity, so I'd have to swim. But I didn't know what direction to swim in. Apart from that, the water looked none too pleasant. It probably contained a noxious cocktail of sodium hydrochloride and sulphuric acid. Fortunately, I bumped into three lads from Dalton who were on a pub crawl on their way to the game and I made the ground seconds before the kick-off. If you go to a game at Runcorn, a word of warning. Watch out for the painted yellow areas on the terraces. You're not allowed to stand in them. And Runcorn employ stewards whose sole purpose in life is to patrol these areas as if they were the Berlin Wall and prevent people from occupying them. I found this out as I attempted, for the first time in my life, to sell a few copies of Give 'Em Beans! away from home. Now selling it at Holker St. to your own fans is one thing. But at Runcorn? Has the Ed taken leave of his senses? Don't all shout at once. I just hoped he'd brought his rottweiler with him. I was mystified by a strange looking species around the edge of the pitch. They were about four feet in height and wearing those white coats that scientists wear when performing highly dangerous experiments. The initials ICI were emblazoned on the backs of their coats. Could this be a disappearing race of pygmies whose growth had been stunted by the local pollution? Mulder and Scully should take a look. The game? A goalless draw. Originally part of Michael's 'Awaydays Up North' in issue 030 - April 1997