Sixty in Stockport

There are good and bad times to reach a 'significant' birthday. Those of my schoolmates whose birthdays fall in balmy April, for example, will have been ‘celebrating’ their 60ths in a virus-induced lockdown. And, for once this year, I'm really quite glad that mine falls in bleak mid-January, as I was able to mark the start of my seventh decade by, you know, going outside, to places.

New Forest Yeti

Everyone loves a good old cup run.  It gets the blood pumping and when it involves trips to football grounds you wouldn’t normally get to or think of visiting it can also broaden your horizons as well. And as my horizons are currently my front room and my back yard, here's my post-season take on some FA Vase exploits from this season that sparked off some of the kind of old school hi jinks at the lower rungs of the senior game that are light years away from the greed-fuelled, phoney VAR controversy of the Premier League. You're welcome.

Italia '79 - Sutton United & the Anglo-Italian Cup (Pt 2)

Welcome back. So, after all the thespianism to get you in the mood, the second instalment of my musings from way back when actually concentrates on the journey and the match itself that decided the Anglo-Italian Cup final in 1979. And if you’re still awake at the end of this one, have a gold star and consider that’s another couple of hours few minutes of Coronavirus isolation you have got through. The difference in boredom thresholds will be minimal.

Two for the Price of One

These certainly are surreal times we are living in. A fortnight or so ago the Gandermonium faithful were trooping down to GGL for their staple diet of National League football. To be fair the professional programme had already been cancelled and the fixture with Hartlepool was being widely touted as being potentially the last game in London for some time. Fast forward a couple of weeks and that prediction has sadly proved true.

Italia '79 - Sutton United & the Anglo-Italian Cup (Pt 1)

For many years now, we've had to put up with regularly having the tales of our silly adventures 'Top Trumped' by some of the older heads amongst the U's support with the refrain "Yeah, but it wasn't Italy for the Anglo-Italian Cup was it?". The bastards. Naturally, since we started doing this tosh again, we've been trying almost as long to get them to put some of this down in writing. That way, if nothing else, we can get some hits off these lurid tales. Finally, thanks to Covid-19, it's happened.

So without further ado, we'll hand you over to your guide on this little journey. One Mr F. Frake Esq.....

The Last Game in London

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says “may you live in interesting times”.  Well, that all depends on how you define interesting doesn’t it? And if you find an endless carnival of death, crisis and chaos a turn-on then you must be having the absolute time of your fucking life right now. If, like me, you prefer a bit of peace and quiet, a nice cup of splosh, a custard slice and some old black and white episodes of On The Buses on the box then you have pretty much had a gutful of “interesting” as it goes.

Flowery Twats

We live in strange and troubled times ladies and gentlemen. Our nation's leaders are a set of bumbling fuckwits & liars, the country is being battered by a succession of increasingly oddly monikered storms, Dukey has abandoned his mission to save the planet and has instead taken to educating our youth, that Coronavirus bollocks is going to kill us all to death, fucking Love Island is STILL on the telly and, worst of all, we've not got anyone available for the Halifax away blog. What we need is a hero. A white knight on his firey steed, fresh from the fight to race to our rescue. Or at least to fuck off up to Yorkshire and do a blog for us if nowt else.

Coronation Virus

With the usual reprobates that frequent this blog to detail their adventures watching the mighty Sutton stuck back in that leafy hamlet known as the PROWS, I have offered to guest for the midweek trip to what the TV reports suggest is the only part of the Calder Valley not under water, i.e. The Shay, home of FC Halifax Town.

An Interrupting Phone Call

Finally, our second win of 2020 has arrived. And what better place to have it but at Hayes Lane, home of Cray Wanderers Bromley. And if you thought that recently was a so so run of form for us, then you only have to look over to these Kent boys to find some real bad form as Bromley were currently on one solitary point gained over the last seven matches. Form worse than Chorley, fact.

Welcome Back Desmond

Ok, it's been a while since we've seen a Desmond round these parts. Think it was back in mid-August when we welcomed one of those Northern teams who showed us how to exactly take a set-piece not once but twice in a row as we shipped in two simple goals to the powerhouses that are Chorley. Of course it was expected as Chorley were to rise up and up through the table. Or not.