BUXTON 0 BARROW 1 UniBond League Premier Division 1 March 1997 by Michael Gibson
Supporting Barrow requires a lot of stamina and endurance, sometimes bordering on insanity. Perhaps I should have known what I was letting myself in for when I decided to go to Buxton. Working until 7am Saturday morning was no preparation for a round trip to the fag end of Derbyshire for a 3pm kick-off, but at least it pays for the train ticket. Mega-strong coffees and cold showers stopped me from falling asleep until I got the 9.50 from Euston to Stockport. Points failure at Nuneaton produced the inevitable delay and meant that just as the train passed Edgeley Park, the home of Stockport County, the Buxton service passed us by. Couldn't be delayed for a few minutes, could it? Oh no, said the ticket inspector. Regional NorthWest would then have to pay Railtrack a penalty, even though it was Railtrack's fault that the London train was late! Clever stuff, this privatisation. The next train arrived in Buxton at ten to three, leaving me ten minutes to make the kick-off. Which was nice. So I played dodge the traffic (easy if you learn to run at 40mph), sped through a crowded shopping centre showing off my neat body swerve technique, and finally donned crampons to ascend the hill up to the ground which makes the north face of the Eiger look like a gentle stroll up a gentle slope in town. I got to the ground just in time and before I was able to catch my breath, the editor of the National Zigger bumped into me and thrust pen and paper into my hand. "There's no one else here," he said, "so you'll have to write the match report." And with that he disappeared! Oh, all right then, I thought, as my breathless panting gradually subsided. The game was a classic, if you like blow football. But the gale force wind was credited with the assist on Andy Green's goal that won the game for us. At half-time I found the editor of G'EB! deep in conversation with Buxton's number one fan, Mrs. Bainbridge, the mother of Buxton's no.4. As the rest of the game degenerated into mediocrity and it looked as if Buxton might gain their first home win of the season, this was an ideal opportunity for me to enliven my report with some inside dope about the Buxton players. But most of them were so new that even Mrs. Bainbridge didn't know them, though she did mention that Buxton's no.10 wouldn't score in a month of Sundays and that her Alsatian dog, Lucy, who was with her, was a better header of the ball. I considered condensing my report to 'Barrow were crap, Buxton were even worse.' The Ed said I should send in a sheet of blank paper. He said no one would tell the difference anyway. I reckon he was showing off in front of female company (He always did have a thing for Alsatians. Asst. Ed.). The match ground on into injury time. My train left at 5pm. The Ed gave me a lift and we made the station in two minutes flat, even though I gave him the wrong directions. The train left seconds after I got on. After such an exciting day, I was so tired that I slept through the stop at Stockport and missed my connection to London. Originally part of Michael's 'Awaydays Up North' in issue 030 - April 1997