I’m not going to lie. This is a good one, and it’s not just because of the Magic of the FA Cup (TM).
My last two games have been goalless draws. Last time out at Chorley it was still entertaining enough down to the company I was in and the weather conditions the game was played in, alongside the spectacular old stand I sat in. The game before that at Solihull was, let’s be honest, dire. At least the fans kept me entertained because it was, quite easily, the worst game of football I have ever watched. This past weekend needed to give me something to remind me why I do this… and boy, did it.
I wasn’t even planning on going to a game on Saturday. As I was working in Leicester my plan was to stay at my Dads and find some kind of online feed to watch City against Swansea in the afternoon before rocking up to my gig at night. My general feeling of lethargy and laziness was not exactly helped by fainting in the Fosse Park branch of Asda on the Friday night.
I was just idly looking at Quorn sausage rolls one minute (I’m not a veggie, I just really like Quorn), and then I was on the floor the next. Two very nice ladies who worked there helped me, up, sat me down and gave me a cup of tea with seventeen sugars in it. I think they thought I was drunk, which probably wasn’t helped by me insisting that I wasn’t drunk even though they never asked. Because as everyone knows, the more pissed you are, the more you deny it. After a while they let me go about my business and drive back to my Dad’s.
Compare and contrast the reaction of my wife to this news to how my Father dealt with it:
WIFE: “You need to get some proper rest. You’re working too hard, and probably need to see the doctor. I’m very worried about you, you really need a holiday.”
DAD: “You’d best have a jaffa cake.”
But much as I’d have liked to feel sorry for myself and lounge on a sofa eating biscuits on Saturday afternoon, a mate came calling. That mate is Lloyd Griffith, and he is one of my very favourite human beings. I always feel that my combo of comedian / writer / wrestling promoter is pretty neat (more on that in a minute), but his is even better: Comedian / actor / opera singer. He genuinely has the voice of an angel: one of my favourite memories of the Fringe this year was Lloyd and Charlie Baker singing the Tetris theme tune together on stage during a Gamer Gamer show that I was hosting.
As well as being bloody funny and a smashing lad, Lloyd happens to be a Grimsby supporter. He’s such an enthusiastic fan that if you spend any time with him I can guarantee that you will then always look out for their score on a Saturday from that moment onwards. He’s even had chance to commentate on his team recently, something that I’ve done in the past with City (vs Loughborough in a pre-season friendly) but he’s been trusted with proper games as he’s actually, you know, good at it.
Lloyd messaged me to ask if I was doing a game, so I had a quick look at the fixture list and decided upon Northampton vs Northwich in the second round of the FA Cup. Whilst I chose it mainly because of it’s geographical proximity to both of our gigs that night (I was in Leicester, Lloyd was in Stafford and Stoke), it also happened to be the tie of the round.
Northampton are currently turning heads in League Two despite the club being in dire financial trouble. They’ve got an unfinished stand that they can’t pay for, HM Revenue and Customs issued them a winding up order over unpaid taxes in October, and their players have gone periods without being paid during this season. But they’re playing good football and sit in a promotion spot, level on points with top team Oxford United.
Then there was their opponents, Northwich Victoria. The lowest ranked team still in the cup, they ply their trade in the Northern Premier League Division One North and are no strangers to financial peril themselves, nearly going bust twice since the turn of the century. They’re based not too far from where I live, sharing a ground with their local rivals Witton Albion (whose stadium it actually is). Northampton’s unfinished stand and owed money will certainly resonate with Vics fans, as they opened a new stadium in 2005, only to have to sell it and see it demolished seven years later. A splinter group of fans even formed a new club – 1874 Northwich FC – that plays in the league below the Vics.
Before I set off for the game I had to do a radio interview for TalkSPORT about Leicester City and various other things with Georgie Bingham and Micky Quinn. I remember Quinn as a player, terrorising defences for Portsmouth, Newcastle and Coventry. It was at the latter where he made his biggest impression on me as it was around that time that I realised growing up in Hinckley that Leicester’s biggest rivals in my eyes would always be the Sky Blues. They were pretty good back then, too.
Interviews like this often come in through my agent. I’m the only comedy circuit regular who is a City supporter, as far as I’m aware, so with them doing well at the moment I get asked to do the occasional thing here and there (presumably because X Factor winner Sam Bailey costs too much). I sense towards the end of the season when we go twenty games without winning (knowing us, that will happen) that I’ll get called upon once again.
The interview didn’t start too well, as I was introduced as a comedian (correct), writer (correct) and wrestler (oh no). You’re left with two options when something like this happens: just agree with it, or correct the interviewer. I did the latter, and felt bad about it but they were pretty nice. I even offered Micky the chance to train to become a wrestler, although he insisted that he would be better at the Sumo variety. When asked to explain how I felt about our season so far, I stated that none of it is real and I’m clearly just dreaming or in a coma. I was only half joking, but at the time we sat second in the league. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen to us.
As I left for Sixfields, it was blowing a serious gale. So bad was the weather that I heard on the radio that a lorry had been blown over on the M1, so took the A5 down to Northampton from my Dad’s. I never speed anywhere (fear of losing my license keeps me on the straight and narrow) but at least seventeen cars warned me of the speed camera van that I drove past, including one flashing their lights as I was pretty much next to it. If I hadn’t seen it by then then I’m certain that my cataracts would have missed your lights as well, bucko.
I parked up in a little car park in a field next to the ground for £3, just as Manchester City looked like they would lose away at Stoke. This would give Leicester chance to go top of the table again with a win at Swansea, but I wasn’t expecting that to happen. I wandered over to the stadium in the ever-increasing gale and waited for Lloyd. As I stood there, two chaps manning a burger van kept trying to convince me to buy food from them, like market traders trying desperately to shift the last few bruised bananas of the day. At one point one of them just shouted “oi you in the hat! Buy a bloody burger!” It seems someone is familiar with the Simpsons subliminal / liminal / superliminal gag.
In the car park by the way, there was a sign for the nearby McDonalds. It merely said “ten seconds this way”. Who is reading that sign and thinking “unless it is ten seconds or less away then I am not going there”?
We’d expected to spend £20 on tickets, but it was only £15 on the day. I learned at FC United a few weeks ago that you have to sell tickets for at least £10 as part of FA Cup rules, what with the away team taking a percentage of the money and all. You can only sit in the West Stand (where we chose to head) or the North Stand (Dave Bowen Stand) at present, with the South Stand reserved for away fans and the East Stand just a shell, frozen halfway through its development.
I grabbed a hot dog and Lloyd had a cheese and onion pasty (he’s a veggie) once we were inside. I knew that he had been doing some work for EA Sports recently with regards to their FIFA games, and had been lucky enough to interview people from all around the world, including the strongest player in the game – Football Neutral favourite Adebayo Akinfenwa – plus various coaches and some lad called Lionel Messi. I am not bloody joking. Apparently the Argentinian magician (and arguably the best player of all time) took a shine to Lloyd. I told you he was a good lad.
We talked about me having to do that radio interview as I’m possibly the 274th most famous Leicester fan in the world and the previous 273 were all too busy or expensive. I put it to Lloyd that I think he’s the most famous Grimsby fan out there, to which he corrected me: Thomas Turgoose (of This Is England fame) is, but they’re now mates, bonded over a love of Grimsby Town. I love it when stuff like that happens.
We got to our seats and Lloyd pointed at something. Behind the North Stand stood the Sixfields Tavern, and there seemed to be smoke coming out of it. Lloyd insisted that it was on fire. It didn’t seem to be a lot of smoke, so I let it pass. In the away end, one of the Northwich fans threw a very unimpressive flare onto the pitch, and a bored looking steward slowly poured a bucket of sand on it like a high school caretaker.
There was now a lot more smoke pouring out of the pub. Lloyd pointed out that it was definitely a fire, looking at where smoke was coming from within the building. When I asked him how he knew so much about it, he told me that he loves fire engines. Seriously. Like I enjoy football stadium architecture, one of the circuits best comedians genuinely loves fire engines.
The teams took the field and kicked off, but I’ll be honest: as the situation in the pub escalated, it was very difficult to concentrate on the match. It wasn’t just like that for me and Lloyd, everyone struggled. You were instantly aware of the humour of football fans though: I didn’t hear a single person express their worries for anyone inside the pub (it turns out that nobody was hurt, everyone was evacuated quickly thanks to the stellar work of the staff there), instead everyone tried to one-up each other with jokes about the fire.
“Well, better book somewhere else for Christmas dinner”
“I didn’t ask for my steak to be THAT well done”
“Hello, is that direct line?”
Then there was an audible “ooh” from everyone in the crowd as flames started to leap out of the building. It made for a very surreal atmosphere indeed. Here’s a picture Lloyd took (and follow him on Twitter – @lloydgriffith )
All of this meant that I couldn’t tell you much about the first half an hour or so of the match, even though it wasn’t bad. It’s just tricky to look at anything else. We did notice that the stewards in the East Stand were having to wear hard hats though as it;s still a construction site, and the flags in there were blowing around violently. Also, a Northwich fan was thrown out for setting off another smoke bomb, presumably jealous that the pub fire was getting too much attention.
At one point Northampton threatened their smaller opposition and the Cobblers fans started singing “You;re Going Down With The Tavern” which made me genuinely laugh out loud for a good five minutes. Lloyd chose this moment to sum up the surreal nature of the afternoon:
“A few days ago I was in Barcelona at the Nou Camp interviewing Lionel Messi. Now I’m in Northampton watching a pub burn down. I love football”.
One fire engine kept driving around and not parking up, leading everyone – because we all noticed it – to speculate that he was that weird kind of lost, where you can see where you’re meant to be but can’t physically get there because of the tiniest of road closures. Lloyd knew exactly what type of engine it was as well. I asked him if he ever fancied being a fireman and he said he did, but after taking some preliminary tests he was, and I quote, “dangerously scared of fire”.
At this point in the game, Northwich were on top of their higher-ranked opposition, with Northampton struggling to get any real chances together and the Vics playing without fear. They had a decent chance through Howard before their keeper Mason Springthorpe was drawn into a couple of good saves from rare cohesive Northampton attacks. Then in the 44th minute the whole of Sixfields was shocked as Jimmy Ball put the visitors ahead with a volley from a corner in front of the Northwich fans. They rightly went utterly insane as the players celebrated with them.
We went into the half-time break with the minnows in front and the pub still ablaze. That’s a sentence I don’t think I’ll ever type again. With a gale force wind whipping through the stadium (and fanning the flames) we were treated to a handful of fans trying (and failing) to chip footballs into the boot of a car parked in the corner of the ground. I checked up on how Leicester were doing an they were two-nil ahead away at Swansea, meaning they were also top of the Premier League. At this point I thought I might actually be dreaming all of this.
The wind showed no chance of slowing down as we kicked off the second half, with it making every dead ball a tricky prospect. The Vics keeper took abut three minutes to take one goal kick as the stiff breeze kept moving the ball just as he made his run-up. Home favourite Ricky Holmes was brought on in the 59th minute, and this gave the home fans chance to sign his name set to the Spandau Ballet hit “Gold”, giving rise to one of the more catchy songs I’ve heard this year.
Four minutes after his arrival though and it was 2-0 to Northwich. Richard Bennett nodded home after great work from Brian Summerskill, dispossessing Buchanan and seeing a fantastic cheeky lob rebound back off the bar for his team-mate to double their advantage.
Credit both sets of fans here. Nobody in the home end turned on their team despite an upset being on the cards, and the away fans turned up the volume and backed their side as loudly as they could, albeit without any smoke bombs or flares now. It was part of the FA Cup script that Vics keeper Springthorpe would now start playing out of his skin, stopping Taylor from pulling one back with an absolutely out of this world save.
With the Cobblers fans also cranking up the volume as their side chased the game, Lloyd found a novel way of joining in with songs without feeling like he was cheating on his own team. When ever the home fans sang a song, he would replace “Cobblers” with “Coldplay”. He kept this up for the rest of the game. If only we were watching Derby so we could have been watching a Chris Martin on the field to make the reference more accurate. It certainly fit in every song though.
In the 82nd minute Northwich brought on Muhammed Ali. The announcement of that name certainly got everyone’s attention, and while we were still processing that Northampton finally found a way past Springthorpe. Sam Hoskins eventually got the final touch on a shot that ricocheted through the six yard box to bring the Cobblers back into the match. The atmosphere was now rocking, and the pub was STILL on fire.
Lloyd pointed out that the Northwich players heads had visibly dropped after conceding, and he wasn’t wrong. Two minutes later the game was level, with former Leicester midfielder Nicky Adams teeing up Jason Taylor to head home. The place went nuts and even the stewards in front of us stopping jubilant fans from getting onto the pitch were dancing and singing.
We’d barely sat back down when Northampton broke Northwich hearts with a winner, just four minutes after being 2-0 down. Ricky Holmes twisted and turned on the right wing and used the outside of his foot to curl in a wonderful cross right onto the head of Dominic Calvert-Lewin to power a fine header into the back of the net.
For those who doubt what the FA Cup means, the reaction to that goal said it all. Sure, Northampton were expected to win but getting to the third round is enormous for them. The crowd were as loud for that goal as they would have been for one against much bigger opposition, and you could see how distraught the Northwich players were on the field at letting their lead slip, especially their keeper who seemed close to tears.
Calvert-Lewin should then have added a fourth as both sides still went toe to toe, but conceding three so quickly had really blunted Northwich and there was no way back for them. The Cobblers fans chanted “Shoe Army” and the wonderful “We’ve Got No Pub But We’re Beating You” as the final whistle sounded and we were told over the tannoy that due to an ongoing incident that the North car parks would not be accessible for some time. A few wags said “what incident?”
The Northwich keeper sat in his penalty box, head in his hands. He was applauded by both sets of fans, as were the rest of the Vics players. As the away fans left the ground, a section of home fans sang the name of their opposition out of respect. Me and Lloyd were giddy at what we’d seen. A comeback, a great atmosphere and a pub burning down. The magic of the FA Cup, indeed.
Summary
Northampton Town 3 (Hoskins 83, Taylor 85, Calvert-Lewin 87) vs Northwich Victoria 2 (Ball 44, Bennett 63)
Attendance: 3,837
Cost: Ticket £15, Parking £3, Hot Dog £3.30, Bovril £1.80
Fun Factor: 9/10
Jim Smallman - The Football Neutral 