It's fair to say that Tom, Cliffey and myself enjoy a spot of football now and then.
We usually satiate our soccerlust by playing various editions of FIFA, cheering on our fantasy teams on the Sky Sports website, and occasionally even going to Varsity to actually watch a game.
Last week, however, we decided to step it up a notch.
We decided that we would go to a proper football ground and watch a proper football match like proper fans.
The hard part was deciding which team to see. Cliffey lobbied for Everton vs. Blackpool, but the tickets would have been expensive, and the journey long. And I wasn't too keen on taking a pew in Goodison Park anyway.
Perhaps, then, we could go and see Cliffey's other team, Huddersfield Town, in action? They were in Exeter this weekend, and though Devon was a fair jaunt away, it would surely be a grand day out.
But no, too far. So we eventually settled for Hereford United vs. Lincoln City; Tom had family in Hereford, and as such he'd been to a few of their games before. He promised cheap and plentiful tickets and a relatively short drive. Plus, in all the games he'd gone to, he'd never seen his beloved United score a goal, so that would be nice for him.
So on Saturday morning we set off. Cliffey and I made it fairly clear that the music we wanted to listen to didn't feature anyone from N-Dubz, and so it was a relatively pleasant drive. We stopped at Tesco to get some food for the road, and my insistence that real men didn't buy pre-made sandwiches lead to rather a lot of crumbs in Tom's car. This is mostly due to my method: tearing off chunks of french bread and wrapping them in slices of discount ham, while tasty, is admittedly a slightly flawed way of doing things if you want to keep the surrounding area tidy.
A couple of hours and many, many jokes about Hereford later we arrived at Edgar Street. It took us a while to find a parking space - it must have been peak time at Heli-Beds - but we eventually found a spot, paid our £14, squeezed through the turnstile, and took our place at the side of the pitch.
Unfortunately, in spite of all the sportsmanship ("Booooooooo! Ya fat shit!"), witty and creative chants ("Come on Hereford!") and the opportunity to be amongst other people who really appreciate fantastic football ("What a shit kick!"), the game ended 0-0 so it was a bit of a waste of time really.*
But in spite of this dull performance**, we still enjoyed ourselves. Which just goes to show that the joy is in the journey, not whatever it is you're going for.
Unless you're on your way to any match that doesn't involve Hereford United. The Huddersfield and Everton matches were both veritable goalfests, with Huddersfield thumping Exeter 4-1, and Everton coming from 3-2 down to beat Blackpool 5-3 in what was probably a very exciting match.
And, to top it off, Tom has still yet to see his favourite West Country team score. On the plus side, he did get to drown his sorrows in an ice cream sundae and some illegal salad at Harvester afterwards, so he was in a good mood for the Mario Party 2 drinking game.
More on that another time.
Joel.
*The 'official' sources will tell you that Lincoln won 1-0 but I was looking at my programme when the 'goal' was 'scored' so as far as I'm concerned it was goalless. The BBC, as well as both clubs' official websites will tell you otherwise, but you know what? I was there.
**The only one who was really making any effort at all was the old man running back and forth with half-time snacks. He was a HERO.
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