black cats blog She gave it 110% and still came out with nothing

Posted: February 20th 2009
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I have a bone to pick with SAFC (I’m overlooking the fact that we sometimes play a bit rubbish). You see, I occasionally have my applications for tickets for away games turned down. This is because I don’t have enough “loyalty points” to get a ticket. The fact that I travel from Nottingham to watch home games counts for naught. Diddly squat. Bugger all. Sweet FA…
By the rules of the Ticket Office I’m a bit of a part-timer and possibly bordering on the treacherous. I have to accept the fact that other supporters are more fanny than me.
 
I don’t stand a snowball in hell’s game for the N*wc*stle game which is fine. The good folk who run the gauntlet to watch the game from the roof of Sid James’s have my utter admiration and respect. I watched the second half of our last one on the tele in a Dr Who behind-a-cushion fashion as it is. Chopra’s hideous “miss” had me piling behind the settee to avoid the replay. The draw was a fair result.

However, even a large away allocation for what one might presume is a relatively tame fixture doesn’t guarantee me the satisfying clunk through a turnstile. Last season I was denied the pleasure of a mere half hour train ride and copious quantities of beer with 5000 of my brethren to see my beloved Black Cats down the road at Derby. I was gutted not to go and tempted to try my luck at finding a spare in a pre-match pub. At 4.50 on the match day I was quietly pleased when I heard that I’d dodged the bullet of enduring a 0-0 dullfest. Perhaps my loyalty is a bit suspect.  

This season has seen the usual stream of wafer thin rejection letters float gracefully down from my letter box instead of the thud of chunky tickets. When I saw that we only had a 2k allocation for Arsenal my heart sank. My aim this last couple of seasons has been to get round the old skool grounds; White Hart Lane, Goodison and Fratton Park. I only REALLY wanted to go to only one shiny new stadium .That was The Emirates.

I like Arsenal and I loved Highbury; I went a couple of times in my teens. I got one of those proper ground/proper club feelings which seems to be a vibe found only at lower league teams now. I’d met Arsenal’s youthful Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton and David O’Leary after one of our games; it was a few years before my move south and I hadn’t tempered my industrial Darlington accent. Combined with their rich Irish brogues it led to a verbal exchange that even Dr Doolittle couldn’t sort out. And I’d got in through a cash turnstile. Happy days.

 

 

 

I sent off my application hopefully but with a sense of impending doom. In the meantime I endured an unattractive victory ground out against Stoke. This was sandwiched between two Whacky Races style journeys through North Yorkshire and County Durham trying to fend off the fiendish attentions of The Dick Dastardlys and Muttleys of the Potteries who noticed that our shirts were of the more quality red and white striped variety.  I managed to get through unscathed, perhaps a bit more Penelope Keith than Penelope Pitstop.
 
The match itself resembled 22 drunks kicking a can around. Correction – it was eventually 21 blokes attempting the kicking bit and an idiot trying to keep it in order. Has anyone else noticed just how much post – match airtime is now devoted to crap refereeing rather than the game itself? In this case it was Stoke who had a player on the end of a dodgy card but only after a nailed on penalty was denied us. Again (the handball was clearly visible from Jupiter). Thank goodness we won. My feelgood factor was fleeting. I got home to receive confirmation that I shall not to the (foot) ball in London.

 

Cue stamping, bottom lip out.

That’s it…Time to infiltrate the home end at The Emirates.