D'oh!...
GUISELEY v BARROW (postponed) UniBond League Premier Division 12 February 2000 by Graham Murphy
I've just been to Guiseley. And I came straight back again. What a waste of a Saturday afternoon. A 210 mile round trip for nothing. Well, that's not strictly true. I did stop off at the motorway services on the way back to get a Valentine's card and one of those cheap bunches of flowers for the Welsh Dragon. So it wasn't entirely wasted. But I wouldn't normally have gone all the way to Hartshead Moor services on the M62 for that little errand. There's nothing quite like the awful sinking feeling you get when you turn into the car park at a football ground to find that it's completely empty. The predominant emotion is pure embarrassment, the thought that you're the only person in the entire world who doesn't know that the game's been called off. Why didn't I check Teletext before I left home? Oh please, please tell me that notification of the postponement wasn't on Teletext until after 12.30pm, then I won't feel so much of a prat. As I got out of my car I remembered that I'd done this once before, travelling all the way to Horwich on a cold but sunny January day, only to find that a series of hard frosts had made the surface unplayable. Peering over the fence at Guiseley it looked like this time the pitch was waterlogged. One goal area was roped off and it looked a bit swampy there and in the corners. Yet there hadn't been that much rain in the previous 24 hours. And I've seen games played in much worse conditions, notably a Barrow v Gateshead match on a Boxing Day that was played in a torrential rainstorm in conditions more suited to synchronised swimming than football. There was a notice in the window of the cricket pavilion. 'GAME OFF' it helpfully advised. But the way it was written it might as well have added 'YOU STUPID TOSSER, HAVE YOU NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE THAN WASTE IT SPENDING FOUR HOURS ON THE MOTORWAY GETTING TO A GAME THAT ISN'T ON?' There was nothing else to do so I walked back to the car. As I got there another car pulled up. The driver rolled down his window and in a broad Yorkshire accent enquired, "Is't game off 'en?" "Aye," I replied, slipping easily into the local vernacular, "It's off. Looks like the ground's waterlogged." "Gerraway. Never. Eet can't be. No rain t'morning though there were't hail shower reet enough. That were queet heavy like." "Aye," I nodded sagely, appreciating his thoughtful analysis. "I've cum all't way from Keighley!" he exclaimed, as if it were equivalent to a journey from the very ends of the earth. But then I suppose Keighley to Guiseley is. "Aye. It's a rum do," I answered. Speaking Yorkshire is a doddle. "Yer reet enough there lad." And with that he wound his window up and drove off down the road back to Keighley. A couple more cars drove in and I did some frantic hand signals that made me look like a demented dervish. The drivers got the hint and swung their vehicles round without stopping. It was back to the M62 and my Valentine's Day errand. I picked my daughter up from the cinema when I finally got back to Wrexham. She'd been to see Leonardo di Caprio's new film, 'The Beach.' "It was crap, Dad," she told me, "I wish I hadn't gone." Yeah, I knew just how she felt. Originally 'A Wasted Journey' in issue 044 - March 2000