CLONING The answer to the UniBond's attendance crisis? by our Science Correspondent
As Barrow fans we are used to good attendances at Holker St. Many games attract at least a thousand; most a few hundred more than that. However, UniBond League matches in general attract disappointingly low crowds. None were lower than those at Knowsley United where attendances often struggled to reach three figures. In the words of a Knowsley official, "Sometimes I don't know how we survive. The local kids make more from nicking hub caps and selling them than we get at the turnstiles." It's a similar picture elsewhere with the likes of Winsford United, Buxton and Frickley Athletic finding it almost impossible to dispel their 'one man and his dog' image. However, thanks to an astonishing scientific discovery, the days of matches being played in front of empty terracing could soon be over. The story begins at Llanellan Rd, home of Colwyn Bay, another club where the terraces are often very bare. But in recent years the home support has been boosted by the flock of sheep in an adjacent field. The woolly ones often take a break from their grazing to amble over to the boundary fence whenever Colwyn Bay are playing at home. Bay's manager, Bryn Jones, takes up the tale. "It all began shortly after the club moved to Llanellan Rd in 1994. At first, only one or two sheep would stand by the fence and watch whenever there was a match on. This soon became half a dozen and before we realised what was happening, the whole flock was lined up watching the game. You can often tell whether or not it's a good game by the way they say baa. It certainly creates an atmosphere, especially when hardly any human supporters bother to turn up." Earlier this year, one of these Colwyn Bay supporters, a six year old ewe which cannot be identified for legal reasons, was taken to the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh for a series of experiments on its spatial and cognitive awareness processes. Here, early in 1997, an amazing discovery was made, purely by accident. During what should have been a routine experiment aiming to find new ways of administering fertility drugs, some cells were accidentally removed from the ewe's uterus and left in a test tube. To the scientists' amazement, the cells started to divide and replicate. They were injected into eggs that had their nucleus removed and the eggs were placed in some of the Colwyn Bay sheep. One of the eggs resulted in a pregnancy and the birth of a perfect clone of the six year old ewe that started it all off. Within days of the news of the clone leaking out, the Roslin Institute was besieged by the chairmen of half of the clubs in the UniBond League. "It looks as though the days of 50 or 60 turning up at Alt Park could finally be over," bleated the Knowsley United official, "provided our most loyal supporters get themselves cloned." Spokesmen for other non-League clubs expressed cautious optimism over this remarkable discovery, looking forward to the prospect of their fans cloning themselves and ultimately boosting gate receipts. Barrow's assistant manager, Franny Ventre, put a new angle on the discovery. "It paves the way for producing clones of our players which means we won't have any squad shortages. If half the first team are out through injury or suspension, there's nothing in the FA rules to forbid cloning." But not everyone is so enthusiastic. FA secretary Graham Kelly said "Cloning players isn't exactly in the spirit of the game, is it?" A spokesman for the Vatican was outraged. "The consequences don't bear thinking about. Imagine some deranged Boston supporter cloning Paul Bastock, for example, or Marine making clones of their crowd stewards. This sheep has opened up a whole can of worms. It's a Frankenstein monster which should be destroyed immediately before it gets out of control, whatever the effect on the attendance at Colwyn Bay's next home game." Meanwhile, the cloned sheep, which is now seven months old, has begun watching Colwyn Bay matches. The first match she saw was in the FA Trophy and she's joined the Colwyn Bay Supporters' Club already in case they get to Wembley this season. And despite the secrecy surrounding the exact cloning process, Knowsley United fans appear to have perfected it already. They had a home gate of more than a hundred recently. The author, a Mr Gibson of this parish, accepts absolutely no responsibility for any lawsuits for malicious tittle tattle, libel, blasphemy, or treason. Any resemblance to any real sheep is purely coincidental and the result of cloning. But all the people are real and were put in deliberately to this issue 031 - September 1997 article with no other purpose than to offend.