The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Quorn on 9th April 2005.
It’s the morning of Tuesday, March 22nd and I awake to the sound of a steady downpour. Excellent! It means that Townsend Meadow will take a stud and we won’t be subjected to the lottery of a bone hard pitch later that evening for the visit of Coalville Town. Our visitors on the day are having a fine season with only five defeats all season and a record breaking first-ever FA Cup run. Of course one of those five defeats was against the mighty Warwick but the match represents a real test for us. There is little to choose between the teams early on but Racing Club gradually assert themselves and look the stronger side as the match progresses. Queue Coalville taking the lead just before half-time! Oh the injustice of it all!
The second half arrives and Warwick up the tempo a notch and continue to have the better of a tight match. Mystic Marcus decides upon three substitutes at once including the arrival of one Mr Crowley fresh from Bedworth United (OK…Bed’orth if you locals insist!). The script is written for a free kick from 25 yards slotted home within a couple of minutes of his entry onto the pitch. Four minutes later and it just gets better! Jam, having another excellent game (how we missed him last week!), twists and turns into the area and wins a penalty which is slotted home by Aaron (who needs Tom when I’m here to take ‘em?) Shanahan. Two-one it remains with Racing Club being fully deserved winners. It’s only Coalville’s sixth defeat of the season and remember that one third of those have been inflicted by Warwick. The chant “Can we play you every week?” springs to mind but, then again the last time I said that, at Rushall Olympic last season when we inflicted a double on the ‘Pics, they regrouped and this season are champions by a country mile so now watch Coalville go!
Coalville are nicknamed “the Ravens” on account of their origins in the Leicestershire village of Ravenstone. We kept ourselves entertained in the closing stages with a series of awful puns. As the match drew to a close, we weren’t counting our Ravens! But we were definitely going to Crow about the win! What a Carrion! On the subject of funny stuff I heard a joke the other day which has a loose affinity with one of the major sponsors of Non-League football and which I’d like to share with you if you can stand it…and as long as you promise not to be offended! A bloke wanders up to a pretty girl in a night club and says “My names Bond”. She replies “Yeah right, James Bond”. And he says “No. Uni-Bond. I’m here to fill your crack!”. Am I allowed to say that? If not, our programme editor will have censored the punchline and you’ll have to ask me what it was (mine’s a pint!). And of course seeing as the lady in question must have had subsidence at her residence there’s nothing untoward about it anyway…it’s just your warped minds! Now I just need a word-play on the name “Travel Factory Alliance” and we’ll really be in business.
I spotted a football fanzine on sale at Tamworth the other week. As you might be able to guess from the style of my ramblings, I must say that I prefer the articles in fanzines as compared to the majority of official club programmes. In most cases official club publications tend to be rather dull, with the standard “welcome to the players, officials and supporters of blah blah blah” kind of stuff. Never a hint of criticism and never any clue about what’s really going on behind the scenes at the club concerned. Fanzines on the other hand owe nothing to the club of their devotion and are often quite critical. Of course the standard of fanzines can be variable and I’ve seen some bad ones down the years (bitter jibes at the expense of the local rival which you’ve heard a million times before are invariably unfunny).
Tamworth’s fanzine is the pun-tastically named “Four Bleats to the Bar” (think about it – clue: they’re nicknamed the Lambs). Surely that name almost justifies a magazine by itself? Some fanzines have been going for years now and are extremely professionally produced. The monthly magazine “When Saturday Comes” started life as a general football fanzine and has evolved into a nationally distributed magazine. It retains a fierce independence that is not normally exhibited by the mainstream media who, by contrast, rely on the football industry for their livelihood (symbiosis I think it’s called for the biologists amongst you). You can’t bite the hand that feeds you can you?
See you next time (if the Editor-in-Chief let’s me back on!)
Keep the faith!
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