Cod Almighty | Diary

You must have come in a Hackney

27 December 2021

Miss Guest Diary writes: I've been thinking about my mother quite a bit recently – mainly because one of my Blundell Park friends has recently lost his mum and will have had to spend his first Christmas without her.

My mum died many years ago so I can focus on the happy memories these days. She was a great one for reminiscing, especially about her deprived childhood growing up in the 1920s as one of 12 children, meeting and marrying my dad and their experiences in London during the war. When I moved to Watford in 1977 my mum surprised me one day mentioning that she had been to a match at Vicarage Road.

I knew she had no interest in sport so I was intrigued. Apparently, one Boxing Day while she and my dad were courting they and another couple jumped into a black cab and went to see my dad's team, QPR, play Watford in the Third Division South. Some research has enabled me to pinpoint the day: 26 December 1935. Watford won 2-1. What struck me most about this story was the idea of my parents – never very well-off - taking a taxi all the way from Ladbroke Grove to Watford, and presumably back again. How long would it have taken before the M1 existed? How much would it have cost?

As regular readers will already know, I have inherited my mum's love of reminiscing. So, in the absence of any current Town games to write about, here are a few of my Boxing Day memories.

Boxing Day 1990 – my first year of watching Town – was the perfect preparation for the many years of misery and disappointment to come. A dismal 2-0 defeat at Reading in the pouring rain, where the main point of interest was watching the poor sods on the open terrace become wetter and wetter before the stewards took pity and allowed them to join us under cover during the second half.

The next Boxing Day game which sticks in my mind was against Derby at the relatively new Pride Park, not least because we parked in the directors' car park by mistake and were offered the option of being ferried to the turnstiles in a golf buggy. It was very much a scratch team, comprising five centre-backs, three wingers, a full-back and a striker playing in what the match report describes as a "4-everyone else formation". Two goals from John Oster and one from David Soames, coming off the bench to score his one and only goal in professional football, saw Town 3-1 winners. One of those victories which are all the sweeter for being totally unexpected.

With yesterday's game lost to Covid and the previous season played entirely behind closed doors, the last Boxing Day match I attended was at Macclesfield in 2019. If you think Town's current run of form is bad, at that time Town were languishing in 20th place and hadn't won a game since September. They also hadn't scored a goal in the previous six games so the 1-1 draw that day lifted our spirits somewhat. Of the 16 further games played before the season was cancelled in March, Town won seven, drew four and lost five, finishing in a respectable 13th place.

When you're calling for the manager's head or complaining about the new owners concentrating on improving things off the field instead of splashing out on a new striker, just remember what happened to Macclesfield. Be grateful we still exist as a professional football club and don't have a naff media "personality" running the gaff.

And who knows what bargains Paul Hurst will pick up in the January sales. UTM