After a few false starts in the Midlands, Martyn Meredith moved to God's own peninsula and became one of the chosen few. This is his story...
The LONG and WINDING ROAD A football fan's search for glory
It seems like a long way from Fellows Park, Walsall, to Holker St. via Molineux, Villa Park and the Hawthorns; hundreds of games, lots of goals, loads of players - some great, some good and others utter crap! Some good times when the goals are flying in and your team is playing well when you think "Yes, this is it... we'll definitely win something this season, even if it only the Wheelgrinders and Clogmakers Auto Windshield Cup!" But a lot of the time the football is rubbish, especially if you've supported some of the teams that I have over the years and you know you're going to win ßµ¿¿*® all again. So bad that the only thing to talk about after the game is how good or bad the beer is in the bar. Usually it's as bad as the football was! But that's what you put up with if you are a football fan; a proper fan who turns up every week, even though you know deep down that it'll be just as bad as last week. "Don't know why you keep going to watch that lot, they never win anything," says your missus. "If they lose today you'll be in a bad mood all weekend." You mutter something under your breath as you make a quick getaway out the front door to the sanctuary of the Sports and Leisure Club to have a proper conversation about football. But there is the sort of fan who only turns up when the team is in the middle of a fifteen game unbeaten run or we've got a good draw in the Cup. These are the fairweather fans, a different breed from the diehard supporter, although even a diehard fan will sometimes wonder "What the ƒ*¢#¡>¿ hell am I doing here? I could have stopped at home to watch Wigan v. Castleford on 'Grandstand'." Yes, some games are that bad, but a true fan knows that good times are just round the corner and if we can just get through this season without getting relegated we're bound to win something next season. You even find yourself saying daft things like "I'm glad we got knocked out of the FA Cup in the first qualifying round by Bridlington; now we can concentrate on the league." You've just got to keep hoping and dreaming otherwise you might just as well stay at home and watch Grandstand, or worse still, go shopping with the wife! Because there are a lot of sad men who do that on a Saturday afternoon, wandering aimlessly round Marks and Spencers saying "Yes dear", "That'll suit you, love" and other such pathetic phrases. These are the lost souls, ex-rugby fans who gave up going to Craven Park after the last 40-0 hammering. So just be grateful God created Saturday for football, or you could become one of them. My quest for glory started in 1968 when I went to see Walsall v. Shrewsbury in the first round of the League Cup. Walsall won 4-0. Colin Taylor, who could hit a ball like Bobby Charlton, scored two. I was hooked after that and soon we were top of Division Three, five points clear at Christmas. "This is it," I thought. "Second Division next, then Division One and Man. United, Liverpool, Everton... we can beat them all." "Dream on, soft lad! It won't last; they've been a bit jammy so far." said my old fella. I should have listened; he'd seen it all before. By the end of February we were in mid-table and going nowhere. But there were some great games to remember. Defending an unbeaten home record against Bury, we were 1-0 down with two minutes left. On came our sub who scored with his first touch and made the winner in injury time. Brilliant! Other games included drawing at home to Liverpool in the FA Cup. They had Smith, St. John, Yeats, Callaghan, and a young Emlyn Hughes; we got stuffed 5-0 in the replay. Jimmy Greaves came with Spurs and scored the only goal of the game. There was West Ham; Moore, Hurst and Peters, and even Moscow Dynamo with Lev Yashin all in black in goal; we got hammered 7-1 that night! We even played a team from 'up North'; Barrow. Don't remember much about that game, except that it was chucking down and Walsall won 3-0. Brian Arrowsmith has since told me he was playing in that game. We never did get promotion, but we escaped relegation a few times. Well, it keeps the fans interested to the end of the season, doesn't it? Being too young to go to away games, me and some mates would, every other Saturday, go to either Wolves, West Brom, or if we were really desperate, Aston Villa, who were our deadly enemies. We saw Everton's 1970 champions win 3-2 at Wolves, with Derek Dougan getting sent off again. We saw Arsenal's double winners win 1-0 at the Hawthorns, playing boring football even then. There were players like the Doog, Jeff Astle, Tony Brown, Bobby Hope, John Osborne, Dave Wagstaffe, and the best of the lot, Peter Knowles, who gave up football to become a Jehovah's Witness. "Where's your Bible, where's your Bible, where's your Bible, Peter Knowles? In your handbag, in your handbag, in your handbag, Peter Knowles." But all those big names disappeared when my old fella got a job in Vickers and we had to move to Barrow. "Barrow! Where's that? Somewhere near Newcastle, ain't it?" my mates said when I told them. "But they've just been kicked out of the league!" That was the worst bit; what was I going to do on a Saturday afternoon? "We can always go to Carlisle or Preston," said my Dad. Effing great, I'm going to live in some dark nether world of pigeon fanciers and meat pies, with no football, just some game called rugby league. It's life, Jim, but not as we know it. Anyway, there I was doing time in Vickers' Training School for the mentally deranged when another inmate, Terry (if you can't get the man, get the ball) Kendall said "Get yourself down to Holker St. this Saturday; we're playing Stafford Rangers." I may as well have a look, but it's a bit of a come down from Moscow Dynamoes. Walking up Holker St. looking for the crowds going to the game, I can't find any; maybe it's been called off. Get to the ground; no, it's still on. Where is everyone? Ten minutes before kick-off and there's about two hundred there. A few more turned up and the game started. Well, a sort of game started; it wasn't like any football I'd seen before, the ball was in the air most of the time and when it wasn't it was out of play. Barrow's team seemed to be full of Scotsmen, but there was a local playing centre forward. Willie Hogg! "You can tell he's really a cricketer," says Terry as Willie blasted over the bar and the Holker End from inside the six yard box. "This can't be happening," I thought. "I must be in a nightmare. I'll wake up in a minute in the Hillary St. End at Walsall." After a few weeks, I'd recovered enough to go back and after a few more games I'd become a regular supporter, taken in by Terry saying "It will definitely be better next season." There was one game when I saw a man walking solemnly across the pitch carrying a piece of turf on a spade. "What's he doing?" I asked. "He's putting the corners back," I was told. Was this scene some strange Northern custom? Taking the corners away after every game and locking them away in a secret cupboard. No, it was the fault of the speedway; that pointless sport where people chase each other round a track on motorbikes, waiting for the rider in front to fall off so they can be in front. Things began to improve slightly with Brian McManus and Micky Taylor, but got even better when Vic Halom arrived. Here was a team that played good football and had some good players; Keith Kennedy, Frank Gamble, Steve Brooks; 41 goals from Barry Diamond, and, of course, Cowps. I was actually watching a team that won a championship. This is better. But while all this was going on, Walsall were beating Man United in the Cup, getting promotion and later on reaching the semi-finals of the League Cup, drawing 2-2 at Liverpool, but losing the second leg. All this when I wasn't there. Just my bleeding luck, I must have been some sort of Jonah. Back in Barrow Vic Halom decided going back to Rochdale was a good career move and the football went downhill. Was this when Brian Kidd arrived? I can't remember. I must be trying to block it out of my mind, he was that bad. Just how did he become Alex Ferguson's right hand man? What we needed now was some kind of saviour and after a lot of praying Sir Raymond Wilkie was delivered to us. He gave us back our pride and a team to be proud of. Higgins, Gilmour, Wheatley, Carroll and Cowps again. Wembley was in reach but snatched from our grasp. "That's it," everyone thought. "We'll never get that close again." But promotion came next, along with the brilliant Kenny Lowe. Watching Barrow was a bit like riding a roller coaster with the club going up and down more times than a whore's drawers when the Navy's in town. Before you knew it, it was FA Trophy time again. We were lucky to survive the early rounds, especially against Metropolitan Police when we could have been 3-0 down before we started playing, but we beat the dirty ß@$*@®¶$. Serves them right, as one of their players kicked Sir Raymond at the end of the game. Maybe our name was on the Cup, as the smartarses on 'Match of the Day' say. Colne Dynamoes, the moneybags of non-League football stood between us and the twin towers. We couldn't slip up this time, could we? Of course we could, but Billy Gilmour sent us on our way and we were almost there. Second leg day arrives, and I'm a bag of nerves. I can't eat my breakfast and I can't get off the toilet; what must the players be feeling like? During the game the tension was unbearable. I should be enjoying this, but I'm not. Too many disappointments in the past, one daft free kick given away, one stupid back pass and we'd be out. I'd seen it all before. But Kenny Lowe got the ball thirty yards out. What's he going to do with it; he's not going to shoot, is he, he is, he has... IT'S A GOAL! The noise is unbelievable. Fellows Park and Molineux were never like this. It's funny how many complete strangers you jump up and down with and dance around with when a goal like that goes in. "Come on ref, blow the frigging whistle! Oh $#¡*, they've scored. How long left? About two minutes and a bit of injury time." They must have been the longest two minutes ever. I feel sick every time one of their players gets the ball. "Blow the ƒ*¢#¡>¿ whistle!" And then it's over, we've done it. We're going to Wembley. I can't believe it. What a feeling; better than drugs, better than the best sex you ever had; it was like that Bryan Adams song 'I Thought I'd Died and Gone to Heaven'. Everyone was talking football over the next few weeks. People who hadn't been to Holker St. for years, if ever, were making plans to go to Wembley. Even my mother-in-law was going! But for the true Barrow fans, the fans who'd kept going to Holker St. when the club seemed about to collapse, it was even more special. If it wasn't for them, there wouldn't even be a Barrow football team. Even the unofficial Barrow rugby fanzine, the Evening Mail, put us on the back page. There was even mention of it on Radio Cumbria in between the lamb bank and morning mart! The great day arrived; we're on our way to WEMBLEY! We shall not be moved. A few pints in the Greyhound pub, a chat with some Leek fans, nice blokes and then the walk to the stadium. "We've got to walk up Wembley Way. We can't come all this way and not walk up Wembley Way." And there we are walking towards the twin towers. Pinch me someone, just to make sure I'm not dreaming. We got to our seats before the teams came out. Barrow came out waving to the crowd, looking relaxed. Leek looked nervous. We're going to beat these, they've bottled it. The game began and Leek had an early chance which Macca dealt with easily. We took over and should have had a penalty with almost our first attack. The goal before half-time was a classic and the noise below the stadium was terrific, with half the population of Barrow either going to the toilet or buying a hamburger! Macca made two unbelievable saves early in the second half. If Peter Shilton or Gordon Banks had made those saves, then they'd be shown on the box all the time. Kenny Lowe was superb, running the game. Roy of the Rovers scored again and then God flew through the air to head in and we were in football heaven. The cup was ours! We'd played the best football that I'd ever seen a Barrow team (and quite a few other teams as well) play. I'd forgotten Walsall and Wolves, Dougan and Astle, Moscow Dynamo and the rest. This was my team, we had won the Cup at Wembley and we were doing a lap of honour round the pitch, the same pitch that Bobby Moore had run around with the World Cup and where Matt Busby had held the European Cup aloft. It couldn't get better than this. This is what all those cold wet nights standing on terraces up and down the country was for, All those 4-0 and 5-0 hammerings, all the disappointments were worth it for this moment. Ray Wilkie was King and Cowps was God! Hallelujah! Of course, things didn't work out as everyone had hoped. The King died and God retired and the football deteriorated. One minute up, the next minute down. It's a funny old game, as some ex-London footballer keeps telling us. But one day we might walk up Wembley Way again, we might get in the Conference, we might get our new stand, Procky might lose his suntan and Terry (if you can't get the man, get the ball) Kendall might buy me a pint. DREAM ON, SOFT LAD, DREAM ON!!!??? Martyn Meredith Issue 022 - May 1995