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Last weekend was the sunniest and warmest February weekend since the dinosaurs ruled the planet, and that’s going back a bit. It was all rather bad timing for me, though, as I had a bridge weekend with the boys from Leeds, which meant that, for most of the weekend, we were indoors, emerging only occasionally, like moles from their holes, blinking and squinting in the sunlight.
I did excuse myself from the bridge table on Saturday afternoon, to enjoy an entertainingly efficient performance by the City. We could have done without the sun there, actually – on a cloudy day our seats are the best in the house, but at this time of year we have the sun in our faces for most of the game. It’s just as well we go well equipped with a variety of stylish headgear, my own Australian bush hat attracting many an admiring glance. Anyway, we saw off Sheffield Wednesday, 2-1, to keep alive the hopes of promotion after the previous week’s upset at QPR. Guy (one of the bridge boys, and a lifelong West Brom fan) came with us, and pretended to enjoy himself… although City’s win coincided with a rare defeat for his team.
Other interesting footie results were Newcastle’s thrashing, 4-1 at Aston Villa (Keegan’s really up against it now), and Man City’s win at Old Trafford. All the talk before that match was about whether City fans would disrupt the minute’s silence (to comemmorate the Munich plane crash 50 years ago), but they didn’t. Typically, Man United took the credit for the City fans’ behaviour by claiming that it was due to them each being given a scarf on the way in.
This is a critical stage of the season for many clubs. From here on in, the league tables become more stable, with the clubs in trouble staying in trouble, and the clubs that are doing well (like City) beginning to feel more settled on their lofty perches. Others, like Bristol’s other club, can begin to hope for mid-table mediocrity, which, to be fair, would be a fair achievement for Rovers in the 3rd division, where they are already punching above their weight.
It’s also, obviously, a tense time for managers. Already this week Ian “Pretty Boy” Dowie has been sacked from Coventry, and Bryan “Smiler” Robson has been relieved of his duties at Sheffield United. Robson clearly saw the writing on the wall, and felt he might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, so rounded on the fans as being to blame for the Blades’ poor performances, thereby breaking Rule 431 of the football managers’ text book, “Thou shalt not piss off your own fans”. I felt a bit sorry for him, miserable sod that he is, given that they got a very respectable draw at West Brom on Tuesday in his last game in charge, but hey-ho, what do I know?
So, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets for the next casualty of the ridiculous management merry-go-round. My money’s split between The Messiah, and Ian Holloway at Leicester City. I must admit to loving every minute of Leicester’s difficulties, having made a small wager with my friend Dave that my City would finish higher in the league than his. At the time I thought I was being foolishly optimistic (one’s support for the Club often makes one blind to the obvious likelihoods), but now I’m almost certain of the win.
Which is more than could be said of the bridge at the weekend, when Leeds won the Ashes, yet again. So confident were they of doing so that they didn’t even bring the trophy with them to Bristol. Ah well, I’m off up there at the weekend, for Graeme’s 50th, so at least I’ll get to admire it on his mantlepiece.
We had one of our regular bridge meetings at the weekend, which was almost spoiled by the glorious summer weather. The Leeds boys decided to let the train take the strain (to quote an old, and totally inappropriate, slogan from British Rail). They got as far as Birmingham before being told that services south of Brum were subject to disruption because of heavy rain and flooding. Sure enough, they were turfed off the train and into a mile-long queue for coaches. After a happy couple of hours, they got onto a coach, which inevitably joined an almost static queue. Long story short, they ended up spending the night at the motorway services somewhere on the M5, finally reaching Bristol at 10:00 on Saturday morning, having left Leeds some 21 hours earlier. Fortunately, the Dunkirk spirit had prevailed, and they had made lots of new friends in the face of adversity, including one woman who spent the night telling anybody who would listen about the various ways in which she had exacted revenge on her ex-husband. Most satifyingly, she had let herself into his house when he went on holiday, spread a sackful of cress seed throughout the (fully carpeted) house, watered it in, and turned the heating on. Ex-hubby returned from his fortnight in Torremolinos to find a well established cress farm where his lounge had once been.
Anyway, back to the bridge. Pete and I obviously thought we stood an unusually good chance to regain the trophy, playing against the sleep-deprived zombies from Leeds… but, sadly, it was not to be. They drew on all their reserves of guile and ingenuity to beat us narrowly at the death.
The silver lining to a tarnished, but enjoyable, weekend was the extraordinarily exciting end to the Open, with Padraig Harrington winning in a play-off against Sergio Garcia, who had led throughout. I had a small amount of money on Harrington, at 25-1, so what with him winning and Els (another of my picks) coming 4th, I ended up £92 better off. Nice.
Anyway, after the journey up to Leeds, things got very much better. The Bridge (ostensibly the reason for our thrice-yearly gatherings) was good fun, as always – the first 3 hands yielded a grand slam, followed by 2 small slams, which was remarkable by our rather pedestrian standards. Over the course of the weekend, the trophy was narrowly retained by the Leeds boys – they didn’t seem overjoyed (maybe they were hoping for an excuse not to have to display it in all its garish tackiness for another few months….).
The coveted trophy, with other tasteful objets d’art.
A good weekend was made even better by City’s win against Doncaster Rovers, courtesy of an 88th minute goal by Jamie McCombe, who, at 6′ 7″ is an inch and a half taller (and even better at football) than I am. This was City’s second consecutive away win at the death (last week it was Crewe), and the excitement is definitely now tangible. Literally. Saturday sees a HUGE game at Ashton Gate, against Nottingham Forest – win, and we go 7 points clear in 2nd place, almost guaranteeing promotion: lose, and Forest climb to within a point of us, with the playoff lottery beckoning . My only regret is that I couldn’t make the short trip from Leeds to Doncaster for the game – it had been part of the plan, but I was outvoted. Not surprisingly, I suppose, given that my companions consisted of a West Brom fanatic, a Brighton supporter, and a founder member of the “I Hate Football and Everything Related To It” Club. So I had to make do with a walking tour of Armley instead, a strange, alien sort of place, which, despite its nickname of “Charming Armley” seems completely devoid of any redeeming features. Still, the company was good.
Our journey home was long, thanks mainly to the built-in delays that they put into the Sunday timetable (presented as good news by our friendly “train manager” – “we’re scheduled to be here at Derby for quite a while, so plenty of opportunity for you to stretch your legs, maybe have a cigarette, perhaps even take in a movie at the nearby cinema…”), but very pleasant, with lots of space (twice the size of train that we had on the way up for half as many punters – sort it out, Mr Branson….). I read a Sunday paper from cover to cover, whilst listening to the whole of “Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards”, the recent triple album from Tom Waits – what luxury! I love the Sunday papers, not least for the little side stories, many of which are probably made up, like the one about a man in Virginia who was murdered for refusing to buy an evangelical CD from a Christian street vendor. Dear oh dear…
The weekend started with a train journey to Leeds. Normally I love train journeys, and I once enjoyed the world’s longest train journey, from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Express, which took a week – wonderful, and at the end of it I didn’t want to get off. But 3½ hours in Cattle Class on a Virgin Voyager would be enough for any rail enthusiast.
How do they get away with it? 6 wagons provided half as many seats as there were passengers, sorry, “customers”. And, while the population is steadily getting taller, Richard Branson is steadily reducing the legroom, so that by the time we reached Leeds, I was in considerable discomfort, despite being one of the privileged punters who got a seat. Even my attempts to stretch my legs by taking a stroll along to the buffet car, sorry, “on-board shop” were thwarted by the volume of standing cattle in my way. Mercifully, the train was “only” 20 minutes late – the guard, sorry “train manager” seemed to think that this was good, crediting the driver for his ”superb defensive driving” which had got us there 10 minutes sooner than we might have done. Oh p-lease, it’s a train, not a Formula 1 car – how do you drive a train “defensively”? OK, it still beats slogging up the motorways, but how I sometimes long for a return to nationalised public transport, complete with legroom, guards and buffet cars. OK, the tea was shite in the good old days, but, trust me Mr Branson, it still is. And it now costs over 30 bob.
Planning a trip to Leeds, to play bridge with some old friends, we decided we’d let the train take the strain. Unsure what time we’d be able to get away on the Friday afternoon, we thought we’d better explore an open return, i.e. one which allows us the flexibility to chose the train that suits us at the time – not much to ask, really. Trouble is, this little jaunt on Virgin’s iron horse would cost us all of £272… each!
There are, of course, alternatives. We can opt for a “Saver” Return, for “only”£83.10. And that’s as cheap as it gets, however far in advance you want to book, however specific you are about the train you want to catch. Or we could go by car, which would cost a fraction of the train fare. It’s really not right, Mr Branson.
On a brighter note, things are going even better for City. Notts Forest lost on Tuesday night (at home to Doncaster, and were booed from the pitch – lovely!), and City won the night after, in a confident, flowing display away to Chesterfield. That puts us in second place, 2 points clear of Forest, with a game in hand. So that’s nice, and excitement is mounting in this household (well, at least in ¾ of it) prior to tomorrow’s home game against Brentford. Promotion is definitely a possibility!
Ashton Gate, home of Bristol City FC
