I didn’t really want to go. I wasn’t meant to go. It wasn’t even my ticket, it was my son’s. But my son has decided to live and work in The Middle East, and after having researched the practicality of a midweek jaunt to Upton Park, he bequeathed to me his ticket to the soon to be historic last game at the Boleyn ground. It was against my will and my better judgement. I felt like a xocolatophobic. who’d found the Golden Ticket.
Until I had had the ticket thrust in my hands, I wasn’t really bothered about the occasion at all. Last game, penultimate game, the game before the penultimate game. It was a game. Period. If someone had offered me thirty pieces of silver I would have bitten their hand off. I couldn’t see past the doom and gloom of an unruly mob running on a full tank of cheap cider and one gulp bottles of beer. I had visions of the queue to the station winding down Green Street like some modern day Jarrow march. Images of ‘fans’ smashing the place to bits to claim their own ‘exit through the gift shop’ souvenirs.
But it all changed. I was going. I had been seduced by the hype, I had been sold (given) the dream. I’d stopped hiding behind the walls of my fears, and now I was going to be able to say I was there.
Who to? I didn’t know.
Having parked up what seemed like a sponsored walk away from the stadium, we headed East from Plaistow. Against my will (power) I was shunted into a pie and mash shop. My strict diet was to take a battering. I was too polite to refuse, and it would’ve been rude not to have finished the two of everything put in front of me. It was a lapse. Scooping up with a spoon the last drops of liquor was another. I consoled myself with the thought that I would go back to eating cardboard in the morning.
As we continued to stroll down the fried chicken scented streets towards The Boleyn we heard the first strains of ‘We’ve got Payet.’ Then we saw the first bottles being thrown like confetti at a Hell’s Angels wedding. Due to bad timing, bad planning or just plain bad karma, the Manchester United team bus had crawled into a bottleneck of drunken morons. Not fans. Morons. Morons consuming alcohol. Consumed by alcohol. Snarling and laughing. Laughing and snarling and safe in the knowledge (?) that they were protected by the rule of mob. A dangerous cocktail of lager induced bravery mixed with inherent stupidity was being served up outside the Boleyn pub. The idiomatic monkeys were clambering on the backs of our bronze World Cup heroes.
We passed through wearing ‘we come in peace’ expressions, went our separate ways (seats), me to the comparative tranquility of Priory Road. There a queue snaked along the Barking road. The prize at the front was a pile of empty boxes, once brim filled with the last ever (extortionately priced) Upton Park programme. I wanted one. It seemed that I was alone with my demands. Most people were walking around with a codgle of them under each arm, no doubt Ebay fodder for the following day. I wasn’t going to queue in front of an empty box, so to my seat it was. Everybody seemed to be making their own documentary of the occasion.
‘This is me walking to the ground.’
‘This is me going through the turnstile.’
‘This is me walking up the stairs.’
‘This me sitting down on a plastic chair.’
Netflix must be shaking in their boots.
I don’t have a tear jerking affinity with the ground like some. It is (soon to be was) the place my team plays. My affinity is with the team. Upton Park is the ‘Ship of Theseus.’ The oldest part is the East Stand, which to me is still classed as new. The fans create the atmosphere not the ground. The atmosphere has been muted since the advent of all seater control and unpopular managers.
Coffee. The hot water tap jammed and hot water was pouring everywhere. ‘Someone’s going to be in hot water,’ I quipped to no-one in particular and no-one in particular laughed.
To my seat. I thought to myself this is the last time I’m going to start a sentence with ‘This is the last time I’m…..’ My seat had a few surprises. It had a sparkly wrist band (pink) a T-shirt (nice) and a poster that we were to hold up as part of a mosaic. On the sheet of paper it promised me that I would be part of a magnificent display if I stood with it blocking my vision as the players came out. (Later on I found out the television cameras didn’t even film it, so I’m still none the wiser what the picture was).
I thought it would’ve been a hoot if they had given the Manchester United fans a mosaic which read ‘We only live round the corner.’ They would have never known.
Unlike outside the ground, inside the ground the atmosphere was amiable. The Romford Drum and Trumpet Corps were loitering with intent. I managed to dodge a bullet from the friendly fire the Percy Dalton look-a-likes were dishing out. Gone were the days of having my shoes filled with dry peanut skin.
I found myself chatting to people I had seen for years but had never spoken to. I laughed and joked with the chap who stares at the back of my head every match. He has seen a lot of changes over the years. Black to grey. Grey to gingery brown and then back to grey. Thick to thin. Now the back of my head had gone full circle. He in turn had provided me with an unwanted running commentary for the same duration.
By pure luck/chance/fate a gentleman sat next to me who I’d been dying to ask a question to for the past fifteen years.
Fifteen years ago I spotted the same man a few rows behind us and I thought he looked like someone off the telly. ‘I’m sure that’s the bloke out of Casualty,’ I said to my long suffering daughter. From that day on I repeated that sentence every time I saw him. For fifteen years. It was a mystery (for my daughter it was misery). I should’ve just bowled up and asked him straight out if I was so sure. But I wasn’t.
Tonight was different. Tonight we were all friends and family. We could say anything.
‘Are you an actor?’ I blurted out to the suspected board treader. He seemed startled but at the same time pleased with my blunt question. ‘Yes I am,’ he replied in a rather grand almost Shakespearian accent. I’d never heard a posh accent at Upton Park before. His face took on a warm glow. ‘Were you in Casualty?’ I confidently continued to interrogate. The glow disappeared as quick as it had come. His face frowned from top to bottom. ‘I’d never appear in one of those trite programmes’ he scolded.
I should have left it there. ‘What have you been in I might have seen then?’ I continued like an unrelenting inquisitive six year old.
He rubbed his chin and gave the question some great thought. Or maybe he was acting like he was giving it some great thought. If he was, he was a good actor. “Game of Thrones?’ he casually offered. ‘Never seen it. I know someone who has though. Which part do you play?’ I was sure that he was too well groomed to tell me to ‘eff off.’ ‘Maester Luwin?’ he unconfidently offered. I shook my head slowly and gave him a blank look. The only thing I knew about Game of Thrones was that my first schoolboy crush Diana Rigg was in it. “Have you acted with Diana Rigg?’ I asked, steering the conversation around to something I knew (a bit) about. ‘Not in that series, but in the past I have played the role of her husband,’ he formerly informed.
I couldn’t resist.
‘Well.. the next time you see her could you tell her that I really fancied her when I was fifteen (she was thirty)?’ ‘Certainly not’ he replied without an ounce of humour. A couple of pounds of irritation maybe.
We then swapped our first match experience stories, mine versus Arsenal 1968, his, versus Spurs 1950. I decided (before he did) to leave it at that and let the septuagenarian thespian enjoy the rest of his evening.
The Romford Drum and Trumpet Corps were on the move. It was touching to see such a mix of age groups all getting together to keep the tradition of the marching band going. It did make me wonder though, how come they are allowed to march all over the pitch in their size nines before a very important game, and yet when I took a short cut across the pitch the day I was on media duty, I got blocked for wearing shoes.
Mob rule strikes again.
Anyway, the band played a beautiful rendition of ‘Abide with me,’ to accompany a video ‘in memoriam’ of deceased ex players and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Then they trampled over the pitch a bit more before making their exit.
We were tannoyed information that the kick off was to be delayed because of the bus kerfuffle. The tension was building. We were running out of things to say. ‘If those fireworks go off wrong we’re fucked,’ the chap to my left said to keep the conversation going. ‘Glad that bloke with a bird’s nest on ‘is ‘ead ain’t playing,’ came from behind.
Battle was about to commence. I’d never heard ‘Bubbles’ sung so loud. And with such passion. The atmosphere wasn’t electric. It was much more than that. Nuclear. The ref’s whistle was drowned out by the emotional rendition of our anthem. The game was set in motion. They were off.
Fortune had favoured the brave. We were brave. We had won. And won well.
We were promised an exceptional show after the game. It was ok. Anyone who had been to Disney wouldn’t have been impressed with the fireworks, and anyone who had been to a rock concert or a Tomorrowland festival wouldn’t have been impressed with the light show It was baffling that so much time was given to interviews with ‘ok’ players. Anton Ferdinand. Carlton Cole. Really? Most of the former ‘Hammers of the Year’ had something in common …. they’d all buggered off to Tottenham or come here from there past their peaks. The taxi cabs carting them around were doing more damage than my shoes but no-one said anything. Too much was made of Di Canio’s goal. I would have liked to have seen footage of quirky things that have happened over the years that maybe had been hidden away from the memory. And where was Carlos? Joey? Peter Eustace?
The rain was unrelenting. The heavens had opened up and left a tap running. The evening was taking on the feel of a school reunion. Razzmatazz shouldn’t have been on the evening’s agenda. It was a night for heart and soul. For a lasting longing look at the past. The team had given us a glimpse of the future. A bright future.
And so to the finale. A faux pas of epic proportions. A punk band in their 50’s. Murdering Bubbles.
A video depicting Sir Bobby turning the lights off and the stadium reduced to darkness was a great touch. It’s a shame he couldn’t have pulled the plug on those noisy oiks a few minutes earlier.
And that was it. Well nearly it. I had to visit the gents before my return hike up the Barking Road. At the end of the toilet there was a wall mounted trough with two happy hammers relieving themselves and joking about their game of ‘Piss Jenga.’ The trough had a blockage and it was only surface tension that was keeping them both dry. ‘I reckon one more ‘Jimmy’ and the geezer will cop the lot,’ one jested. It was definitely time for pastures new.
Definitely.
PS. The first thing I did when I got home was to google Maester Luwin. The actor’s name was Donald Sumpter. He has a list of credits as long as a orangutan’s arm. One of them was The Bill!
He kept that quiet. I didn’t feel so bad about accusing him of Casualty now
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