Tuesday, October 30th, 2007...12:27 pm by Bamos

This is a family club, you b*stard…

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And so, we move on. It’s slightly strange that four or five people all look forward to one occasion - and then you, the lucky reader, get to read four or five differing accounts of the same event. This might be where this blog falls down. Maybe we should assign ourselves roles for the afternoon. I should describe the atmosphere and emotion, Rich could describe the quality of the on-site alcohol amenities, and Joe gets to give a full in-depth analysis of why he missed the first half an hour of the game trying to buy a manbag. I’d like this run to be kept up, and then we can eventually get a full analysis of the manbag facilities at various towns around the country. You thought Girl With A One Track Mind was good? Wait until you read the JP Mahon guide to shopping for holdalls, Bloke With One Unused Shoulder.

So. Saturday saw us at Hornchurch once more. I arrived at the appointed pub earlier than the rest of the crew, out of some sense of being a gang-leader and having to make sure I’m there to sort things out. It might be my ever-growing fatherly instinct. Sometimes I find myself moaning about my non-existant wife, dressing like Jeremy Clarkson and clasping small boys on the shoulder and calling them ’son’. It’s a habit that might get me in trouble before long, so the sooner I can actually get a child the better. Yes, this is an open appeal to women with a fertile womb, a chest like Sarah Beeny and hair like Kirstie Allsopp…

Unfortunately I also arrived at Hornchurch with the world’s worst headache, which continued throughout the day, despite numerous attempts at quashing it with vodka and orange and Nurofen. The previous evening I’d celebrated a friend’s imminent move to Denmark by joining a crowd of people in a central London location for drinks and laughter. Unfortunately, the laughter stopped for me once I’d had my iPod stolen from my bag in a pub. Possibly my own fault for leaving the bag on a bench under a pile of coats, but when you’ve had a drink it’s not the sort of thing you really think about. What made it worse was the fact that I’d cornered the guy who stole my iPod as he left the pub, and let him go after drunkenly accusing him of stealing the wrong thing. I’d seen him fiddling around with our stuff, and as he got up to walk away I went over to have a word with him. He was carrying a coat that looked a lot like mine, so I instantly said ‘That’s my coat’. His reply of ‘No, it’s not’ threw my off guard a bit, but I kept up my well-thought out line of enquiry: ‘That’s my f*cking coat, you prick’. Again, he told me it wasn’t. This went on for about half a minute, until he acquiesced to my request that I inspect it.

Predictably, it wasn’t my coat. Feeling slightly chastised, I let go of my grip on his shoulder, and he fair legged it up the stairs and out of the venue. Meanwhile, I checked my bag and coat, to find that yes, my iPod had walked with him. I was far from amused. To recover, I walked out of the venue in an almighty huff with my remaining half a pint, and stood outside with the intention of having a cigarette to calm myself. Unfortunately, in my drunken state all I succeeded in doing was pouring the remaining cider from my glass onto my newly opened packet of cigarettes, ruining them and rendering them unusable. The final straw, I decided to give the evening up as a bad adventure and hastened to get my bus home.

So, it’s fair to say I wasn’t feeling in the best mood on Saturday morning. But I ploughed on and tried to drink through my pain. Gradually, the rest of the team joined me in the pub, and we made our way to the game.

The game itself was awful. Team Bath were the better side, but managed to spurn four or five golden chances to take the lead until Sean Canham (whom I had identified as the ‘man to watch’ before the game) finally fired Team Bath into that 1-0 lead that would eventually see them through. As with the game against Dulwich a fortnight previously, the banter of the AFC Hornchurch fans helped make the afternoon more enjoyable. The fact that they also recognised us from that game and greeted us with hearty handshakes was also much appreciated - although yet more banter about my incredibly high voice wasn’t what I needed with my headache.

The second half was only watched from the terraces by three of our five-strong crew, as Richard and David sampled the corporate hospitality and watched the game from the clubhouse terracing, whilst sinking a bottle of Baileys. Joining them after the game for the tension of the First Round Draw was thus a slightly louder experience than I’d originally anticipated… Watching the draw was a nerve-wracking experience to say the least. As we’ve signed ourselves up to this run, the cheer that emerged from our mouths as Grimsby and Carlisle put themselves out of our potential destinations by drawing each other was heartfelt to say the very least. And the collective ‘WHO?’ as Team Bath were drawn at home to Chasetown FC was another wonderful highlight.

We decided to celebrate the draw by making our way into my favourite Soho pub (with my favourite Soho barmaid), watching some Spanish football and talking about women and Alec Salmond’s ideas about Scottish indpendence. See, we can do highbrow as well as low… This was all going swimmingly until a group of people in fancy dress came in, and an incresingly drunken Richard Browne decided that the way to make friends with this group was to repeatedly pull the stalk of a man dressed as a giant chilli pepper. As we all sat and admired a young lady dressed in a bizarre pixieslut get up, Richard was busy making friends and influencing people. Or rather, convincing them that they should leave before it all went a bit lairy. You’ve got to hand it to a man who can convince 30 people to leave a pub on Saturday evening by being *that* irritating. Bless.

And so, another wonderful day drew to a close. As we all drunkenly meandered off to our various destinations around the capital (myself by accidentally getting on the bus to Ilford before I realised that a) I live nowhere near Ilford and b) the bus I needed wasn’t even a bendy bus, so what on earth was I actually thinking??) I’d like to think that our reflections were of a similar nature. The emotional tribute to Harry Martin certainly dominated my thoughts, but also the thought of a trip to Team Bath in a fortnight, and how to keep certain people away from certain alcoholic drinks.

As I made my way home on the bus, the furthest thing from my mind was the need to replace my iPod. And that is why I love football and the FA Cup and what it can do. Join us at Twerton Park, Bath, on Saturday November 10. It promises to be another great day.

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