Aberystywyth Town 0 Bangor City 2
Welsh Premier League
Another great time in Aber, not quite as good as the semi-final but in the context of our season a soul-warming experience. Whilst journeying to get to Farrar Road on time I turned up customarily late. As I arrived at the first bus Mash informed me that I reminded him of Baywatch, whether that was Pamela or the Hoff he failed to enlighten me. As I entered the other minibus I was informed that that was the "Krankies" bus, the main difference was their bus contained a few refreshments. The consensus was that our bus was the more intellectual one.
Our journey down to Aber was somewhat uneventful, apart from a spot of roadworks in Porthmadog delaying us for ten minutes it was plain sailing. (Incidentally the road workers drew some interesting hand gesture from Mash, the impertinence of making us a little late!) Bangor's chairman flying past everyone in his sponsored people carrier was a momentary distraction by the Lleyn peninsula.
We arrived in Aber in time for the kick-off of Liverpool Vs Man Utd but I decided to forsake this for food in Weatherspoons. We tried to find a pub about half an hour later but Dewi's directions initially proved fruitless and so we struggled on. Upon arriving at the desired pub we found the match to be goalless, we obviously hadn't missed much. There were quite a few Liverpool fans in the Pub in question and the seemed particularly noisy, they even clapped Carragher's tackles. How many of them would be at Park Avenue later though? As time was diminishing before Bangor's kick-off we departed for the ground.
There were three police vans outside, was there an invasion coming? After a programme and golden goal ticket (54 minutes) were purchased the John Charles lounge proved welcoming. To judge from the pennants on the walls Aberystywyth has a proud footballing heritage. Unfortunately I couldn't find anybody that remembers their Spanish tours, their European Cup matches against Milan, Lens and Volendam or the time they played Cameroon. It will probably remain a mystery and I'd like to think that it will remain that way, sometimes history is better when it stays in the imagination.
The players entered the field of play to a tumultuous welcome. We took our places at the uncovered end. This was a little disappointing; there would be no repeat of the first half of the semi-final, not that I'm superstitious or anything. The question that came to me in the pub whilst watching Liverpool was answered, none of them were here. This question has become rhetorical now, I should know the answer already, a big fat no. I noticed that the pitch marking by the goal didn't reach the goal
posts on either side of the posts. Surely this
contravened the rules of football. If we lost I was going to consult my lawyer, luckily
Dewi is training to be one and he was on my side. The massed ranks of the Bangor faithful saw the blues create a number of chances without scoring in the first half.
Mash indulged in his usual bating of the opposition players, "You got a beard like my missus"was one of the more respectable for polite society, and it amused most of us. There were no goals in the first half so I was still in with a chance of scooping the golden goal prize. The majority opinion seemed to be one of hope for the second half. We all agreed that this game compared favourably with the usual fare this season on our travels.
Dewi poured a lot of scorn at Christian Edwards, his erstwhile hero form Bristol Rovers.
A hurried beer at half -time provided a shot of optimism, surely we would score, how could we possibly fail? We all took our places win the stand and it felt like a reduced reunion from the semi-final as the singing started, which intensified as Bangor attacked more. We then scored through Stotty. More importantly this goal won the golden Goal competition for me, a result!
Now the Aber fans behind us began to sing, I recognised Brad, a teenage Aber fan from T'internet, and he was holding a brightly painted drum. He was also surrounded by teenage undesirables, well they did swear frequently. Captain Bangor produced lollies for everyone, including the police. Unfortunately they declined, appearing human whilst on active duty must be against the rules. The lolly's stick was also a whistle so we all had a jolly good time pretending to be children. An attempt was made to curtail our fun by a person on the tannoy. The exhortation "Could those blowing whistles in the stand please stop" was heard, they'll be banning scarves next. After all you could catch them on a rusty nail, a potential garottement could entail, which may in turn lead to prosecution. In short a legal minefield.
Whilst Aber's staff almost succeeded in aggravating us with their pettiness the Aber goalie certainly did, yet another goalkeeper with an attitude problem. He raced out of his box to ask the Ref to book a Bangor player for kicking the ball away but didn't appear so eager to take similar action after a nasty Aber foul. He was then felled by a vicious onslaught upon his person, as he writhed around in agony one may a have felt some empathy. As he rose quickly moments later to sprint across the area any empathetic leaning transformed into contempt. As you would expect he didn't appreciate reminders about his lack of chivalry. Mash was then thrown out for singing too much, which even the Aber stewards found to be heavy-handed.
After the goal a singing contest emerged, the annoying teenagers attempted to drown our songs out, we shamelessly blew our whistles during their songs. One Aber wag proceeded to chant "How long do you want your hair" at a rather hirsute fan. A comedy gem. Apparently Aber had Jesus in their ranks, I think this was aimed at Edwards as he does have long hair and a beard. As Bangor scored the second we rather shamefully replied in kind. But we also sang the praises of the goalscorer, Marco Addaggio, Marco Addaggio, Marco Addaggio!!!" we roared. What made the victory even sweeter was a missed Aber penalty.
After months of frustration we finally had something to cheer about. Months of frustration were washed away as the good times arrived in Aber. Unfortunately the feeling was interrupted by the realisation that we still had nothing to play for this season, luckily such was the frivolity in the clubhouse with other citizens that such feelings didn't intrude very much. What made my day better was receiving the £25 from winning the Golden Goal competition, I decided to buy everyone on our bus refreshments for the journey home, 'cause that's the kind of guy I am. I even bought Mr Beattie a drink, in Lieu of the lack of Stotty. A rather comical sight was seen when Christian Edwards walked in wearing what looked like tights under his shorts. These ex-pros - wacky!!!!
The journey home was very amusing, drink fuelled discussions took place regarding Bangor's best players. This was followed by an interesting entry from Mr.Pegler about the nature of strikers. Mr. Pegler seemed to think that we were still in the days of flat caps and Stanley Matthews as he was convinced that so many of Bangor's strikers hadn't been centre forwards, merely inside forwards. To use today's football parlance a centre forward is a big, strong target man.
So there ended another wonderful day out with the BCFCSA. That couldn't have been a more stark difference between most North Walian fans and us today. Most would have be passing the time as consumer watching Liverpool Vs United whereas we were experiencing real, live football and having a nice day out too.
