When it comes to the first away game of the season, we always knew we were in for a long bastard of a trip. Admittedly I’m still scared from that journey to Hereford from 4 years ago after nearly boiling to death on the way home, so originally I was just buzzing we didn’t have to travel the 342898724 miles to Wales(ish).
However when it dawned on me that we’d be spending nearly 2 fucking hours on the dreaded A17 stuck behind tractors, caravans and various other carrot crunching machinery I was less than happy.
As the National League are the benchmark when it comes to being organised, professional and forward thinking we of course had to wait until early July for the fixtures to come out. By then all of Maynard’s busses were on a day trip to Flamingo Land, so I tried to shop round and get another company for the day.
The cheapest quote I got was £2,400… fuck that. £48 a head to fill 50 seater? I mean I love this club but I don’t love it that much. Especially when Kings Lynn charge near 20 fucking pounds to get in. Fuck Stephen Cleeve.
So a 16 seater job it was with super Malc and his trusty sidekick DJ it was. Mind they did end up being late so, I suppose they’re due a fine..
One of the main problems when you only have a 16 seater though is the ratio of fat lads to single seats. Sadly we had 3 single seats, but 6 or 7 fat lads. So to say it would end up being a tight squeeze would be a really kind way to put it.
Alas come 2am Saturday morning, I was wide awake. Tossed and turned for another hour or so trying to get back to sleep but couldn’t. Even tried listening to one of Rhys Evans’ interviews but even that couldn’t send is to sleep. Come 4am I thought fuck it, I’ll try and knock one out, that should send is to kip. It didn’t.
On the plus side, at least I definitely wasn’t gunna sleep in and miss the bus. Also meant I was up and ready in time to enjoy a 7am beer!
Usual breakfast buffet from the Commissioners was inhaled by me and Humey before the rest of the lads showed up. Much improved bait from them I must say, solid 8/10 this week. Eggs were a let down but they always are.
After shoving as much beer and ice into the coolers as physically possible we we’re ready to go! Until of course I realised I’d left wa speaker in Davey Hanson’s taxi (thankfully Davey’s sound and dropped it off straight away) and Humey’s cooler fell apart, much like Lee Clark’s managerial career. Come 10 past 8 Malc had landed and, we were ready to gan!
As it usually does, the journey down flew! Naturally the beers were flowing early doors. Pieface had gone from “Na a can’t be arsed to drink the day” to being 11 bottles deep by the time we’d hit the A17, so impressive stuff. Parker though, had already won best dressed for the day.
Of course no bog on board a 16 seater, so the jug we had from Telford a few Months back was a life saver. Mind that still didn’t stop us diving into lay-by’s about 10 times for pisses. On one of those occasions, Malc the driver and Pieface nearly had a fight to the death over some bait. The specifics escape me but I think one of them ate the others bait, so fair play.
Before we turned off onto the A17 though we did call in at Blyth service station. Most of the fat lads headed straight for Greggs, and we got some funny looks drinking bottles of lager shouting at the bloke behind the counter at Burger King asking him ‘politely’ to open up 10 mins early but alas, he did not. The fucker.
Right before we left though we did bump into the team bus! A big gold shiny thing that was pretty difficult to miss. Naturally the lads got a good reception coming off the bus, apart from Rhys of course. A few shouts of “Where’s Fenton lads?” was either laughed off or just awkwardly ignored by the board members.
After the delightful trip down the A17 that mostly stunk of cow shit (surprise surprise) we landed at whatever Kings Lynn’s ground is called (can’t be arsed to even google it as I just don’t care) for about 1.15pm. Decent timing considering Malc and DJ were hauling near 500 stone of fat lads and crates in the back.
Of course none of us were organised and bought tickets online, so we wondered over to the ticket office. £17 for a non-league game is a fucking joke.. so we all went about getting on the cheap however we could. I tried the “Student please, I know I’m ugly as fuck but I am a student!” and managed to get in for the price of £15, bargain!
Naturally we headed straight for the bar once we finally got in. Can’t exactly remember what they had on tap other than that triple filtered Stella Artois for £4, which isn’t bad considering we were to close too London for my liking. Only down side was the plastic glass. Solid 8.5/10 for the pints though.
That being said, the bait left a lot to be desired. Coppen got what looked like a log on chips with a bit of ketchup for about £4, and ended up hoying it up just a few minutes later so that leaves automatically makes it a 0/10.
By now the rest of the Delaval lads had landed, despite Chrissy Lee nearly losing his jacket out the back of the convertible. We chatted wa usual bollocks for an hour or so and discussed over several pints the great mysteries of the world such as When’s Graham Fenton joining? Who’s Fents gunna bring in? and some intense debate about how many cans we’d need on the way home.
By the time the game started the heat was fucking unbearable. Most of us were hoying water over wa heads to cool off. Sensible thing to do might have been to switch from pints to drinking water but I was about to watch a mangerless Blyth Spartans team play, so for the sake of my sanity I kept on drinking.
I’ll be completely honest when we went 0-1 down after 2 mins, I pretty much lost interest. Early doors Kings Lynn looked the much better side and we didn’t really do much to threaten the goal. If you’ve seen the highlights you can see Alex Mitchell keeps us in it early on, made a few decent saves to keep us in the game.
As the first half went on we looked a bit more comfortable and even got forward a bit . Don’t really recall a proper shot on goal. Our build up play for the most part was just poor, constantly gave the ball away in midfield with sloppy passing.
On the stroke of half time a group of Kings Lynn fans walked past us with one of them turning to his mate to exclaim “FACK ME THESE NORTHERN CUNTS FACKING STUNK”. This coming from a chap who looked like he hadn’t seen his own cock since 2005.
Sadly the 2nd half wasn’t a great improvement. We looked a bit better going forward and even had the odd shot on target but alas, we were well beaten by a pretty decent Kings Lynn side. I know they scored a second, but I honestly don’t remember when or who by. Highlight of the game for me was Michael Liddle’s Cruyff turn.
Once the game was done with, we were pretty buzzing to get out of the sun and fuck off home. Walking out the ground one of the Kings Lynn officials was ripping of the ‘Kings Lynn vs Blyth Spartans’ sticker from the board outside the ground and was making a right dick of it. Parker stepped into to help with his geet big arms and successfully removed it.
Of course some delightful local woman had start recording him thinking he was ‘smashing up the ground’ crying “I’M SENDING THIS TO THE POLICE”. She felt a bit daft when the Kings Lynn lad told her he’d asked him to do it. Still didn’t stop the husband calling us a “bunch of Northern cunts”.
Honestly delightful folk in that part of the world. Came across 2 people in the ground (one being the photographer) who seemed like a half decent human being. The rest were a horrible set of fuckers. Solid 1/10 rating for those toss pots.
The start of the journey home on the A17 was a painful one. Most of us fat lads had wa tits out and were still burning from the heat. Only thing of note that happened on the first stretch of the journey was Pieface having to jump out of the bus to be sick to amusement of everyone. Mind after having travelled that far to watch Blyth get pumped like that, I probably could have been sick as well.
Thankfully once we got off that absolute cunt of a road the beers had cooled, the tunes were on and the mood was lifted again. Especially when Pieface got his tits out. DJ Morton was on decks most of the way home playing some beltas (unless you ask Coppen who was obviously dying to hoy some MC on).
Bumped into the team bus again at Weatherby and gave them the same stick asking where Fents was. This time a bit more pissed and obnoxious. Malc and DJ were kind enough to buy the lads a bottle of ice cold water each. Shout out to those 2 legends.
By the time the lads got us dropped back off at home it was near 10pm (I think?). Me and a few lads went for beers at Parkers and contemplate wa lives while some of the boys went down Blyth for a few pints, even meeting up with Rossy Teasdale the legend of the Waterloo.
By the time I walked in the door it was past 1am, nearing a full 24 hours awake. To say I was fucked was an understament.
Thankfully the next morning however, I was blessed with a only a mild hangover. After catching up with the group chat to see which slag Hendy had ended up with, I spent most of the day asleep bar waking up now and then to wind Hendy up for simply just existing. Mind you Pieface summed the day up perfectly.
And that was Kings Lynn away, 2022. Never going back. Never doing a 16 seater again as were all too fat. Still, what a day. Roll on Buxton!
#HowayBlyth #VivaGrahamFenton