21-1 to the happy bloke
When I "wor a lad" you didn't talk about mental health issues. At university, I struggled with depression and turned to drink, not to any shrink. Going to see a psychiatrist was for pansies and, coming from a working class mining town like Kirkby-in-Ashfield, doing something like that was the last thing on my mind.
Decades later, having got more experienced, maybe a little wiser, but certainly more data savy, I started coming up with my own techniques to cope with mood swings and the danger of spiraling into the emotional abyss. One key ritual I now do is a review of the day that has just passed by and audit the things that happened that made me happy and ones that triggered a shift towards a bad mood.
Things that made me happy are savored like goals scored, things that made me sad, analysed to think what went wrong and how I could have done better - like a defensive coach might look at a video of a goal conceded.
So, on trips like this, I get a daily score which is usually a pretty fair reflection on how good the day was.
Well, Saturday, 28th October 2022 was one of the best ever, a whopping 21-1 win to the happy bloke in me. Many thanks to my old mucker from university, Jake Holloway, for many of them.
Richmond Park is Wonderful
The day started with a good long (for me) walk in the huge, awesome natural phenomenon, fairly central in the vast London metropolis which is Richmond Park.
As Sir David Attenborough, who perhaps not surprisingly, lives in Richmond, has repeatedly said, all we need to do is basically "let nature be" and the re-wilding process will take hold and restore any damage we have done.
It's always good chatting with Jakey, but doing so in such a magnificent setting, with so many of nature's gifts randomly joining us momentarily as we went, ticked lots of happy boxes.
Match One - AFC Wimbledon 3 Harrogate Town 2
After returning back, a little out of breath and with feet hurting a bit, and refreshed with a lovely big flat white from one of Richmond's cool cafes, I caught an Uber to take me to my first match of the tour, Wimbledon v Harrogate.
When I realised Arsenal v Forest was a Sunday game, freeing me to watch another game on the Saturday, I first considered Brentford v Wolves, as I have a good mate who's a Bees fan and, of course, I'd never been to their news stadium. But Simon was working away and, let's face it, tickets for their compact ground would have been hard to come by, so the decision was made for me really to go to Wimbledon.
Now I had been to see Wimbledon before, at Plough Lane in 1985. Forest had drawn them in the FA Cup 4th round and the tie at the City Ground had ended 0-0. It wasn't a happy night for us travelling Forest fans though because instead of the long anticipated, but ultimately elusive FA Cup glory for Brian Clough, we were hoping for, "The Dons" had themselves a famous victory winning 1-0.
But *this* was not the Plough Lane Wimbledon play on today.
Indeed, this in not even the same AFC Wimbledon club that played there that day either.
The story of what happened to the club between then and now has to be one of the most amazing in football history and it would take a book to describe properly.
In a nutshell, the previous owners, short of cash, had a crazy, immoral whim of refranchising the club to a new location where they thought they could attract more fans. Initially they wanted to move the club to Dublin, Ireland, a city of a million people with a lot of football fans who, the thinking went, would love to watch regular, live Premier League games. ("The Dons," amazingly, were a top flight club by then.) The move got rejected by the Football League, so the owners moved the club to Milton Keynes instead. (Talk about getting second best!) So, at a stroke, AFC Wimbledon became Milton Keynes Dons and all of their history and success got transferred to the bland town too. All their adoring fans who'd watched them for generations... well who cares about them?
Incredibly, a consortium of local Wimbledon fans refused to give up and, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the club was reformed and set off on a remarkable journey up the vast English football pyramid until they regained league status once more, in 2011.
But don't take my word for it. Here's Dave, a Wimbledon fan of 55 years, who's lived through it all.
Their latest achievement was to redevelop an old speedway stadium, miraculously also on Plough Lane, and build it into a very neat and compact little football ground.
I arrived early so I could watch Manchester City win 1-0 at Leicester without goal monster Harland for once in the appropriately named Phoenix Club. A very nice bar with big screens and lots of excellent beer choices. The inside of the main stand doubles up as a kind of museum to their remarkable history and the outside is like a street food festival with an impressive variety of choices.
In one of those "it's a small world" reminders, I bumped into a couple of Forest fans (I presume father and daughter) who had come down to unsuccessfully get a ticket for the Arsenal match.
So I spent an hour or so milling around chatting to a few long standing Wimbledon fans about their proud achievements. I took my pretty perfect seat, bought the night before on-line, near the players tunnel close to the half way line and got chatting to a few more Don regulars.
So, AFC Wimbledon v Harrogate Town. This was their first ever meeting as Harrogate were only in their second season in the football league and coming from Yorkshire they'd never met before in any other competition either.
I was pleasantly surprised that in the Wimbledon line up was a name I actually recognized, an ex-Forest player, Chris Gunter but the first half was a bit of a struggle. This is the fourth tier of English football, remember, and neither Wimbledon or Harrogate were flying high. Talk of avoiding relegation dominated the conversation of the regulars sat behind me.
"This is a 'must win' for us". "If we lose this, I think we might go down."
Somehow, Wimbledon managed to contrive a goal though and at half time they were just about deserving of a 1-0 lead.
After more chatting with more great fans at half time, it was back for a classic second half.
Within minutes Harrogate equalised and then, to the horror of the locals, went 2-1 up ten minutes later. Harrogate had brought a good 200 or so fans and made a lot of noise inside the very impressive 7,000+ attendance.
The manager, John Jackson, had to do something and he made a few substitutions to try to change the course of the game. One of them literally stood out. Kyle Hudlin is 2.06m tall and posed problems from the moment he came on. But with six minutes left on the clock, Wimbledon were still trailing.
Then, it happened. It seemed like someone turned the intensity knob to max and Wimbledon started pounding the Harrogate goal. The equaliser came and, two minutes later, the winner.
The outpouring of joy from the Wimbledon faithful was a joy to behold and brought tears to my eyes.
"We love you wombles, we do. We love you wombles, we do. We love you wombles, we do....
Oh, wombles, we love you."
So the 92-club worm has turned... I'm back up to 65 now.
Marching on together, we're going to see you win!
Still buzzing with so many "happiness" goals, I set of to Central London to meet Jakey and Dougie to watch the later Premier League games, Fulham v Everton and Liverpool v Leeds.
Upon arrival at Waterloo station, I had to have a quick pint at the brand new glitsy, Brewdog Pub along with its peculiar slide where Jakey had told me to meet him.
I sat right next the the exit of the slide and supped my pint as a very motley series of people were delived to my feet, one after another. Lots of little kids, followed by big adults. The mat at the end had words to the effect of "There is no need to Grow Up" and everyone was certainly emerging with a big childish grin.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, out popped Jake! Definitely a very happy moment!
We then scuttled across to a Canadian sports bar called the Maple Leaf to meet up with Jake's good mate Dougie and an evening of more beer and more football and more conversation.
Fulham v Everton was instantly forgettable but in the next game at Anfield, Leeds took an early lead after a terrible Liverpool back pass only for Mo Salah to get the predictable equaliser soon afterwards.
The script was set for Liverpool to score two more in the second half to seal their win and their inevitable rise towards the top four. But it was a script that Leeds obviously hadn't read as they clung on and then scored the winner in the 89th minute.
Joy for everyone apart from the Liverpool fans and I was transformed back to being a 12 year old supporter of Don Revie's great sides of the 70s. So, more "happiness goals" for me.
21-1 eh? So what was the goal "against"? It was a bizarre twist. After a few pints watching the football I needed a leak, obviously, but there had been an accident on the stairs leading to the downstairs toilets and so the whole bar was prevented from paying a visit. Let's just say that my frustration with the situation grew as my bladder became more distended but this was only a minor spot of shame on an amazing day.
All in all, great to be back in good 'ol blighty!
