If only the match day stewards at Bromley FC were more au fait with Macbeth, they would have realised early on that tussling with anything arboreal and mobile will not do you any favours. Their pursuit of an Xmas tree with two legs around the terraces did indeed come to nought although unlike Macbeth and perhaps thankfully, the corpse count remained at zero. Instead they kept us briefly entertained with their Benny Hillesque chase sequence until they realised that there was no danger of a one tree pitch invasion nor was the tree about to give anyone the needle (BOOM!) and they relented. The tree could stay; whacking up the mighty Saints’ reading on the festive-ometer and making those team colours Santa hats you see in the crowds on televised games look, well frankly, autumnally amateurish.
Pining for a goal (BOOMBOOM!). The stewards seem suitably spruce (I’ll get my coat)
And so the tree, purchased on Bromley market by our erstwhile hardcore support and allowed in by some clearly unsuspecting turnstile operator proved to be the main entertainment. It danced for about 20 mins which I have to say is a testament to the stamina and strength of its human chaperone. If they ever bring back the 70s epic, ‘Superstars’ then dancing with a very big Nordmann Fir (if my eyes didn’t deceive me) will surely be one of the taxing rounds that our sportsmen face. After that it sat, undefeated behind the goal, keeping in time to the various festive and less festive and more abusive chants which rang out.
On the pitch? Oh yes…there was a game. I think we were distracted but in general, on a pitch with a few beach like qualities (I’m talking sand rather than donkeys although the latter would have conveniently continued the festive theme), the mighty Saints were doing ok against the team second in the league.
Sadly in the second half with their only on target shot, Bromley made summat out of nowt (as we say back in Lesta) and were ahead. Despite some last gasp efforts there as to be no equaliser for the mighty Saints.
The tree had to take a breather amidst all the excitement; taking advantage of the seated area we were now occupying. Clearly it was’t quite used to 90 minutes of shenanigans and indeed hadn’t been able to refuel at half time; the draft babybio not being available that day.
A Christmas tree’s eye view
So sadly the tree couldn’t bring us festive fortune and I faced up to yet another nul points weekend. But with trees on the terraces, an invitation to a London pub from the boys, which with due deference I had to turn down due to promising to by home by 7pm and a fantastic chat about footballers of yesteryear on the train I couldn’t help but think………HOHOHO.
Match Stats
Bromley 1 St Albans 0
Attendance: 1006 + 1 tree
Snacks consumed: 1 packet frazzles (needs must)
Lager consumed: 1 pint Stella on the train (doesn’t matter how middle class you look with your Guardian, everyone fears a train lager drinker), 1 pint oranjeboom.
Away goalden goal tickets purchased: 2 and I think one of them was a winner but was too distracted to do anything about it.
Yuletide Fox