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Our fifth Premiership outing of the season see’s us play our third away
game, the venue this time, Pride Park Stadium Derby. We haven’t had a
trip to this part of the Midlands for over 5 years and that game saw
Newcastle win 3-2 with a memorable late comeback.
That game in April 2002 was also remarkable for more than the said
comeback, for me it was the first away game I took the missus on. I told
her I had decided against the VIP treatment and that I thought it best
that she experience an away game like I would normally have if it was
with Dave and too her credit, this was met with great enthusiasm and
excitement.
A phone call to Keith Barratt a week or so before the game, had us both
booked on a Toon Travel coach and with two tickets in the away end
dropping through the post at about the same time, we were sorted.
The chances are most of you won’t know much (if anything) about Keith
Barratt and his Toon Travel coaches. I think the best way to describe
them was, anything goes and despite strict laws imposed on football
supporter coaches in the UK after the bad days of the 70s and 80s, most
of these laws were broken. For example, he let people smoke and drink
alcohol on the coaches. Now I’m not taking about turning a blind eye to
people bring on Coke bottles half full of vodka, he let people take on
as much booze as they wanted. You regularly saw lads carrying slabs of
lager on for themselves and a few mates. All he asked was that everyone
had a good time and didn’t cause any trouble once down at the away game,
so naturally everyone was happy to oblige him with that.
With Toon Travel trips, Keith always liked to get his merry travellers
down to their destination as early as possible before kick off. So
despite this game being a Saturday 3pm kick off, everyone had to turn up
at Newcastle Central Station for 7am and an immediate departure. Instead
of the usual scramble getting onto the coach for the best seats, as I
had a lady with me, we were let on almost first and were able to bag the
seats behind the driver with the extra leg room. Champion. So shortly
after 7am just as our coach was headed out of the Central Station, the
noise of 50 beer cans being opened simultaneously greeted us, the away
day had started!
After drinking a modest four cans of Stella each the coach pulled into a
pub car park on the outskirts of Derby at about 10:30am. Now in the UK
there isn’t the 24 hour drinking laws like we have here, normally a pub
doesn’t open till 11 or 12 on a Saturday morning but good old Keith had
used his contracts from previous visits and the pub manager was rubbing
his hands waiting at the front door to let us in. Obviously he was
breaking the law but the prospect of 3 or 4 coaches loads of thirsty
Geordies was worth the risk.
Four hours of good quality drinking in the pub then occurred. Something
similar to this (Newcastle
fans in a bar pre-match on a Toon Travel trip) but I’m sure you get
the idea. We were all canny pissed by the time we had to head back onto
the coach to take us to the ground.
The first half from what I can remember (granted it’s hazy) was a non
event and finished 0-0. At the half time interval we were standing in
the back of the stand, when out of nowhere a bloke was sick all over the
missus’s new white adidas trainers. She’d only had them 2 days and it
was the first time she had worn them! After much swearing at the bloke
from me, he grunted some sort of apology and the missus naturally upset
trudged off to the toilet in an attempt to clean them.
The second half of the game exploded with goals, we were 0-1 and 1-2
down but two goals by Dyer and LuaLua in the last 2 minutes won the game
for us. Cue fantastic celebratory scenes in the away end, resulting much
more singing and drinking on the way.
Anyway the missus must have enjoyed herself, as she went to 3 more away
games and even one in Europe (Marseille semi-final) with me. Who says
romance is dead eh lads?
Back to 2007 then. I'm not normally a fan of Monday night games, it's
not fair for the travelling fans having to take time off work for what
should be a weekend game in my opinion. However, after all the
international games these last 10 days it's probably a blessing we are
playing on the Monday night, as it'll mean any little niggles or
tiredness the players come back with should hopefully be cleared up by
kick off.
It was great to see Michael Owen scoring goals for England and not
getting injured for a change wasn't it? To me he looks very close to
being back to his best, he took all his goals like the world class
striker he is. Hopefully he will continue in this form and if so he
does, he could be too much for the Derby defence.
The 4-3-3 formation has been a major talking point under Sam Allardyce.
Some people like it and some people don't, I can see pro and cons in it
myself and will reserve judge until the team has played more games with
it. My only worry is I don't think Viduka, Owen and Martins get the
right service they need with only 3 midfielders. However, Mark Viduka
has apparently slightly hurt his hamstring in training and this might
force Big Sam hand, meaning he'll revert back to the 4-4-2 but we'll
see.
Still being unbeaten in the middle of September is a strange feeling in
these last few years but a feeling we are long over due. Derby away
should be a very winnable game and if we are top 6 material we need to
pick up points here. |
