Once upon a time in a Void far far away a young TLF (who back then probably didn’t even know where St Albans was, nevermind that one day she’d live there) shared a house with her old University friend Wilko. Diametrically opposed in many ways they did however share a love of football, Strictly (well after she’d brainwashed him for a couple of seasons), very bad puns, football cliches, innuendo and takeaway. Things were very occasionally rocky – TLF dumping Wilko’s mate for the bloke she briefly (and foolishly) married probably not being friendship cementing. But companionship forged over early morning bagging of a table in the Uni library circa 1991 to revise for your finals and then going into the town for the day plus Friday night vodka-Bacardi and coke (full fat and NEVER pepsi) sessions are foundations you can’t mess with.

Having said all that we are disorganised, busy and not always financially wise best mates and so it was only after 2 years of home-ownership in St Albans, and a mere 8 years since I left the western side of the Void that Wilko or FoTLF (friend of TLF) as he is now known was finally on the guest list. To tie in with both a home game for the Mighty Saints and Strictly of course.

There is a brief worry that things will have changed but that is of course unfounded bollo…nonsense. Friday night involves Indian take away, It Takes Two and full evidence that time and distance have not impacted on our differing body clocks as TLF slopes off to bed by 10pm while FoTLF remains i/c the remote controls until approx 4am.

Satday does involve FoTLF’s debut at Clarence Park, and I think it is fair to say he gets the full non-league experience – fine drizzle as we stand resolute and wet behind the goal, a visit to Andy the burger, the company of nice people, bad puns and Davy Mac on fine form who let’s rip at Ben Martin; ensuring that he scores our winner. Or as FoTLF more accurately puts it, “he leapt like a salmon at the back post to put the Saints ahead.” It wasn’t pretty and the opportunities for football cliches, other than the aforementioned fishy one are few and far between, but it was a much-needed victory and FoTLF potentially takes over lucky mascot status from my godson. Although admittedly that the godson is shorter, aged 7 and therefore meets the lucky mascot person spec a bit more closely.

The last bit of the reunion jigsaw is of course Satday night Strictly. We take over the living room and turn the sound up. Mr TLF is so worn down that even he watches some of it and at one point asks if this is a repeat as TLF yet again predicts correctly all the judge’s scores. “No”, the ex-housemates MAFIA chorus as TLF performs a brief celebratory rhumba-tango-salsa around the living room, “Years of watching. She just knows.” Mr TLF shakes his head in despair and departs the room. TLF and FoTLF chuckle. Nine years, 88 miles (as the crow flies) and very different lives…..And yet it’s like we’ve never been apart.

Friends Reunited Fox

Match Stats
St Albans 1 Wealdstone 0
Attendance: 708
Snack consumption: TLF -1 packet bacon fries, FoTLF – bacon cob and fries.
Lager consumed: TLF two pints.
Loss making and rather soggy pieces of paper with numbers printed on them:12

“We’re all going on a summer holiday
No more worries for a week or two
We’re going where the sun shines brightly..”

Except we’re weren’t. It was not the summer. It was day trip. There was no converted London double decker bus, although I accept that the A2B coach we travelled on was probably more comfortable if less iconic. Nobody (thank goodness) looked like a young Cliff Richard and was bursting into song. And it was raining.

Ever since my slightly less than glowing reminiscences with (dis)respect to Skegness as a seaside destination, the footballing Gods were just waiting to have a laugh at my expense and team up with the Gods of North-East Lincolnshire tourism. Their opportunity came with the the draw for the first round PROPER of the FA Cup as we saw the Mighty Saints drawn away to Grimsby Town FC.

While not the dream draw we had hoped for, Grimsby are a National Conference team and had, in their time graced the Championship and it was the FA Cup, so it had its attractions. There was even a supporters coach at the bargain price of £15. I did waiver at that point (Mr TLF if you are reading this then obvs I really waivered at the thought of devoting a larger chunk of my weekend than usual to football and not you. Honest). Years of school trips had left me mentally scarred – the sickly aroma of barley sugars, the badly timed loo stops, the panic of ending up sitting next to whoever was unpopular that term, or worse being the kid no one wanted to sit next to, the travel sickness, the…..THE TRAIN TICKET IS HOW MUCH!?….Well it’s always good to revisit your youth.

And so I find myself on a coach at 9am, Cleethorpes bound and full of FA Cup hope. We are a motley crew and our very own Lesta boy David Attenborough would have had a field day, “See as the pack leave their usual territory and begin the long trek North. While some have stocked up on supplies through the preceding days, there will be those who will be reliant on their ability to capture a pork pie on the wilds of the A1M. Their yellow and blue camouflage warns off other predators who may otherwise underestimate the group. Once underway the pack engage in typical Satday travel activities, the female TLF has only the sports section of The Guardian to focus on as the dominant male TLF refuses to let the the rest of the cub newspaper leave the lair. While she reads the wider group engage in the traditional pack activities of badinage and football predictions, masking their fear of travelling into uncharted Northern Territory.”

Back in the real world, I find that I really am revisiting my youth and getting back into the swing of the long coach journey. Home made cobs prepared for lunch eaten by 11.30am? TICK. Excess Jaffa cake and jelly baby consumption. TICK. Top up with service station salty snackage. TICKETY TICK.

While the road into Cleethorpes is far from welcoming, the boarded ‘Fun Palace’ neatly summing it up, the good staff of Grimsby Town are the complete antithesis. They want to know how our journey was and they seem genuinely pleased to see us. Clearly it is a law of Grimsby physics that the level of friendless is indirectly proportionate to the level of competence. Our attempts to enter the ground and also the promised Shangri-La that is the away fans’ bar should have been accompanied by the Benny Hill chase theme tune as we are sent to various gates and then find ourselves kicking our heels as we find ourselves so near and yet so far as we come face to face with a locked bar door.

It is worth all that however as we finally make it into Scotty’s. It is not fancy and indeed it has the slight whiff of church youth club 1980 BUT it is festooned with scarves from various teams, the staff are brilliant and they do a fine line in two pint glasses. The beer, pints of wine (good effort Helen) and chat flow freely until it is time to brave the terraces.

Our team are brave, we are loud and proud, the flags are out in force but playing against full-timers is never easy. The mighty Saints do pull a goal back to make it 2-1 and our celebrations are HUGE but as we chase an equaliser we tire and before we know it, it is 5-1. We never stop singing, “I’d rather have sushi than haddock” and “We’ve got the hardest firm in the Conference South, but they’re not here today”, being TLF’s particular favourites.

We board the coach for the long haul home, with fine Twitter words from our hosts and quiches and sausage rolls, courtesy of, yep, Grimsby Town FC.

The journey home is much longer when you are tired and have lost. Lee and I find a brief diversion at the Grantham Services as we query the lack of charcuterie selection and cheese broad (I settle for Mini Cheddars) with the tolerant man at WH Smiths, but really we all just want to get home and so we do by 9pm.

I discover I have missed Jamie Vardy scoring a ninth goal in nine Premier League games, as Lesta win again but I don’t care. I have had a grand day out.

Bracing Fox

Match Stats
Grimsby Town 5 St Albans City 1
Attendance: 2,263
Losing goalden away goal tickets: 1
Pounds not saved by not buying my ticket in advance: 2
Road trip fuel: ALL THE MAJOR FOOD GROUPS – 2 corned beef and red onion cobs, 1 packet bacon wheat crunchies, 1 packet mini Cheddars, a lot of jelly babies and Jaffa cakes, 1 sausage roll, 2 cans Stella, 4 pints Fosters

As my Gran used to say. She also used to say ‘has the school bell rung?’ when I wiped my runny nose on my sleeve and ‘well I go to our house’ for reasons that were never clear, but there you go, that’s the older generation for you. They lived through a world war so I think some random sayings are the least we can allow them.

The flags certainly made an appearance on Satday. Real ones and metaphorical ones. The former were in honour of the mighty Saints 4th Round Qualifying FA Cup game against Weston-super-Mare. In honour of this important fixture (next stop – first round PROPER) Stand By Your Saints had arranged a small but perfectly formed procession from the clock tower to Clarence Park, complete with some of our very fine flag collection.

Things got off to a slightly sticky start as it became clear that none of the grown-ups (I use the term loosely) in our company had the first idea about how to assemble a flag. Fortunately, young people were on hand to assist and under the steely and unforgiving supervision of Mia we successfully managed to assemble two huge flags, limiting the damage to one broken flag pole and one additional ventilation hole (ahem) in one flag.

In addition to Michael and I being in the special needs category when it comes to flag assembly we clearly shouldn’t be licensed to bear flags. Flag bearing is a whole new ball game, well actually it’s not a ball game at all and that’s the problem. It’s more a high altitude game which means that trees, road signs and the occasional market burger van power cable are all constantly getting in your way and tangling with your flag. Trying to adapt to that and employ obstacle avoidance tactics without then spearing an innocent passer-by is not easy. Fortunately no arrests or major damage were caused despite our best efforts but it was still clear by the time we had travelled all of about 1000 metres that we probably needed to regroup, refuel and refocus at the Mermaid. Two pints later and it seemed to me that our flag bearing skills had improved exponentially.

Mr TLF had wisely eschewed (BOOM!) these flag shenanigans in favour of some quality time at home but only after he had paid a visit to his financial advisers, Jennings the bookmakers for some slightly unwise (in my opinion) financial speculation.

While our opponents hadn’t necessarily grabbed the imagination of all the infrequent Clarence Park attendees (the ICPAs), the magic of the Cup was still in evidence with a significantly bigger crowd than usual. Early St Albans confidence did dwindle when we gifted the opposition an equaliser but while it might not have been a classic we were festooned with flags and Norwegians and most importantly we got the result; a Lee Chappell goal clinching in it in the 78th minute. Cue general delight at the thought that we were in the hat for the FA Cup first round PROPER with the added excitement of possible league opposition (or sadly NOT as it turned out but that’s for another time).

I rolled home in my newly purchased and very fine SACFC wind cheater (what a salesman our programme editor is) on the crest of a victorious and Amstel/Stella type wave to find that Mr TLF’s metaphorical flags were out (ooer missus). His Hammers had done the business as had Lesta City, meaning that his double and two single bets had all come in. The subsequent financial return (plus of course the joy that comes with being RIGHT) ensured some tolerance, for awhile at least of my, frequent and vociferous rendition of the classic TLF mash up “Jamie Vardy’s having a Yellow and Blue Army party”. It was only with the arrival of Strictly that flags were officially lowered to half-mast.

Standard-bearer Fox

Match Stats
St Albans City 2 Weston-super-Mare 1
Attendance: 829
Lager consumed: 2 Amstel, 1.5 Stella
Bacon-related items: 1 perfect bacon cob, followed by 1 packet cup winning bacon fries
TLF financial investment: 10 losing raffle tickets, no goalden goal malarkey due to flag duties.

At long last, the time had come. A seaside TLF trip to watch the mighty Saints. And what a destination; no faded front for me, no sleepy genteel retirement village, no mile of mud between you and the water. Nope, turned out that Whitehawk FC play just outside of boho Brighton, ‘London by the Sea’, directly linked to St Albans by the Thameslink line. And it was proper sunny.

I was officially excited. This might seem a little OTT but remember I was bought up in the landlocked Void, where as children we were abused with the idea that a day trip to Skeggy (see aforementioned mud reference) would a) not take long in the car, b) be just like the seaside you saw on the telly and c) be fun. Years of therapy mean that I do now realise there is more to the seaside than unfolding yourself from a four hour car journey, walking at a 45 degree angle into a strong headwind past grimy shops, standing ankle deep in mud with onset hypothermia and then coming home again but I did still decide to eschew (BOOM!) the pier and seafront and focus my attentions on the retail and food delights of North Laine.

All was well…..and then I thought it would be daft to come all this way and now just get on a bus or in a cab and go straight to the ground……not pop down and see the sea…and looking at the map….well the ground doesn’t look that far….and it’s a lovely day for a stroll….I’ll walk.

In my experience tourist maps don’t really have a scale. Or as much detail as you would hope. And the first green blob you see on the map, vaguely in the vicinity of where you want to be, is not necessarily the football ground you are looking for (thanks for that Obi-Wan). The aforementioned stroll did after awhile become something of a slightly stressed fast walk. The only thing I hate more than missing the kick off is missing a beer before kick off and things were starting to look a bit rocky (BOOMBOOM!) on that front (geddit!). (Obviously there are things I do hate more than missing kickoff, like racists or Derby County but at that precise moment as clearly tide and time was waiting for no TLF it was the thing I hated the most).

The home of Whitehawk, ‘The Enclosed Ground’ is described as being in a picturesque setting. If by picturesque you mean “down a very long lane, past so many other sports pitches that TLF thought she might have to settle for a days shopping followed by watching Under 16s rugby” then yes it is certainly that. The footballing Gods were on my side though and there was just time to purchase a pint from the pleasingly functional, no-frills clubhouse, exchange some sea-based puns with Knocky (concerns about whether we would be out of our depth were expressed) before the game kicked off. At this point the footballing Gods decided they must have left the gas on back at home or something and bugg#red off, abandoning TLF, the sadly small Saints contingent and the team to our dismal fate. The team started well but it was pretty clear that they weren’t at their best and that Whitehawk are third in the league for a reason. Caught twice by great moves we went in 2-0 down at half time…could we turn the tide (BOOMBOOM!) Things weren’t looking too great off the pitch either as Chipgate erupted. Zac’s choice of curry sauce, based on the high quality product experienced at Chelmsford proving to be a wrong ‘un.

But culinary matters were soon the least of our worries as the less than mighty Saints shipped (BOOMBOOM!) a further four and a fly landed in my beer. When you’re out of luck you really are out of luck. There was nothing much to do except agree that despite the scoreline our keeper Joe Welch was man of the match and that it is a bit chilly at this time of year when the sun goes in. Oh and then wait for the cab that never comes and miss your preferred train of choice.

By then Brighton wasn’t really floating my footballing boat, just rocking it (I’ll get me coat)

Seasick Fox

Match stats
St Albans City 0 Whitehawk 6
Attendance: 228
Lager consumed: 2 pints Fosters (I know, but the only draft lager they had)
Bacon fries: None….don’t be blaming me for the scoreline…I did manage a fine bit of coffee cake and a lamb, garlic and rosemary sausage roll though. Oh and a few rejected chips…
General despair: quite a bit

For some time now your average, bemused-by-all-the-results Lesta City fan was under the impression that ‘to lose’ was a sausage hailing from the Midi-Pyrenees of France. Not since 29 April had the mighty Foxes experienced defeat and even then we all know that was nothing to do with the quality of Chelski and more about TLF forgetting to wear her lucky shirt.

Reality of course, as any fule kno, is that sooner or later this small, perfectly formed, undefeated-in-10-Premier-League-games balloon, festooned as it is with the old occasional grumpy outburst aimed at the media and more recently some urbane Italian comedy moments will go POP. The lucky shirt can only do so much. As I previewed the home game against Arsenal I did think that the pin was hovering mighty close to the very thin skin of said balloon.

I know football is played on grass not paper but a quick squizz at the sports pages reminded me of the multi-million pound and pacey talent that was about to grace Filbert Way with its presence and as a result hope was in short supply. I like to call it managing my expectations.

And how wise that was although I don’t think it was necessary was for the ref Craig Pawson and his assistant to intervene on behalf of the Gooners; they really didn’t need the help. Which isn’t to say that Lesta were humiliated. In fact we took the lead, had two near misses before Arsenal had even scored and never gave up. Reality is though that they possess a layer of sophistication (thanks for that, the brilliant Amy Laurence of The Observer) that we do not, which means that while our football is energetic, clever and robust when it needs to be, theirs is, to quote from my childhood, betterer on every level. On Satday it was a £35 million layer of sophistication to be precise in the shape of Alexis Sanchez who had chosen his trip to the east of the Void to rediscover his form. At one point we were speculating on how many they would score. I went with 6, Simon went with 7, Arsenal had the decency to stick to 5. Funnily enough for all that it was hard to be gloomy; a sunny day, a ‘whoosh’ of a game (thanks for that Tinkerman), we lost to a better team and finally the lucky blue shirt could answer the call of the washing machine.

As one old lag commented on the way to the exit, “That’s football ‘ent it meduck.”

40 Degree Wash Fox