Greenwich mean time? Greenwich mess with your head time more like. I really don’t think that ONE extra hour in bed makes up for the nonsense foisted on my little lost fox head this weekend. When I was a kid and first heard that ‘extra hour in bed’ schtick, I thought they meant an extra hour in bed every day until British Summer Time popped up all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Yeah I was a pretty naive (and optimistic) kid back then.
Anyway it all started well; on the agenda was the theatre, a home game for the mighty Saints and Lesta on Sky. A veritable smorgasbord of entertainment.
Friday evening sees TLF off to Stratford (that’s home of Shakespeare not home of the Olympics) for a bit of kulture. Double bonus was that the TLF Parentals had coincidentally booked for the same play, on the same night with seats on the same row. That means dinner at their expense afterwards plus my mum is a dab hand with an empty Oasis bottle and some interval rose wine (if you get my drift….I hope that doesn’t sound rude). In my opinion every weekend should start with some Jacobean tragi-comedy. One minute you’re laughing yer head off at some innuendo and the next you’re watching a bigamist murder his very sweet second wife having been possessed by the devil. Keeps you on your toes.
Which it being the second preview was clearly what the Director, sitting one row down from me was planning for the cast if his sheaf of scribbled notes was anything to go by. Although I did spot he put his pen down whenever grand queen of acting, Dame Eileen Atkins was on stage. Did he know she would be perfect or was he just too scared to give her any feedback? I think we all know the answer to that one. Anyway, one bleak but brilliant Witch of Edmonton performance later, filled with optimism and some evil incantations to hex the opposition it was Saturday morning and I was on the way back to sunny St Albans. If you ever go to Stratford can I recommend you drive? The train back to London chose to stop at every village, hamlet and golf course between Shakespeare Town and the great metropolis. The slow crawl left me very worried about any chance of a pre-match Stella and so at St Pancras I ensured some re-fuelling with a quick trip to the very posh Sourced Market for an eye-wateringly expensive can of lager, hand crafted by hipster pygamies in North London.
VERY expensive and small can of lager
Lost Fox was thus on time, but sadly only to witness our FA Cup dreams implode as the team delivered a bit of a stodgy performance. Even if I could have remembered how to summon up some satanic intervention a la Witch of Edmonton (some words in Latin) I am not sure that black magic would have saved us.
There was a time that I would have put this defeat down to my attendance. Those with a long memory (from a whole two weeks ago) will remember my concern that having not been to any winning Cup games this season, any appearance by yours truly would condemn us to defeat. But in my defence, I would draw my learned friends attention to two key facts. ONE the bar had run out of bacon fries and TWO we were missing star striker John Frendo. The case for the defence rests.
The rumour on the terraces was that this absence was because he had tickets for El Classico (that’s Frendo not whoever is responsible for ordering our bacon snacks). Very strange, didn’t he realise that the Swansea, Lesta game was on telly?
No bacon fries, no clapping or singing in time (thank you HatBoy) and Saints just running around willy-nilly (copyright wolfie). Time to go home and enjoy my blue team on telly……Ah. I think they needed witchcraft on their side even more.
I should have known it wasn’t going to be my day. I’d read the Independent on the train and agreed with Janet Street Porter – TWICE! That never happens.
At least the lager wasn’t lucky – couldn’t afford it very often.
The Lost Fox of Edmonton
Match Stats
St. Albans City 0 Concord Rangers 1
Attendance 953
Losing raffle tickets A modest 5. They were on white paper but Duncan and I know that all raffle tickets are actually purple
Lager consumed 1 over priced can and 1 pint Stella
Snacks consumed NONE. And there my friends is where it all went wrong