September 29th: Middlesbrough v Leicester City (Championship)
At midnight, I give up - there's no way I'll last until the coach arrives at 4.55am without sleeping. So I set my alarm for 2.30...
I wake up at 3.22, with my alarm clock several yards away from where it started, which means a rushed preparation for the day. I manage to leave the house at 3.53, meaning I have 62 minutes before the coach leaves. Regular followers will know that achieving this time would beat my current personal best of 63 minutes, and is well inside my most recent time of 69 minutes. Better get a stride on then.
I manage to arrive at 4.52 (59 minutes - a new personal best, and my legs hurt), and I just make the back of the queue as the last few passengers are being loaded. I sit about six seats from the front, right in front of some noisy little bastard whining at his parents. Everyone's soon asleep, though (didn't even need the chloroform I have in my bag) and I remain in that state until London. I enjoy breakfast at around 7.45, slightly more so because there's a woman at the next table frightened of letting her bags, which are a yard away, out of her sight for even a fraction of a second. She's been to London before, clearly.
Later, across the road, I watch with perverse amusement as a couple, easily in their early 60s, wrestle mentally and physically with the logistics of carrying about ten heavy bags between them. After a good two minutes of swapping and struggling (and falling backwards into the path of a bemused passing motorist) they finally decide on a configuration that works and make for the door of the station. Unfortuitously, the male half of the double act has become so cumbersome and ungainly with the sheer quantity of rucksacks and holdalls wrapped around his anatomy that he cannot fit through the double doors leading inside. Such is the delicacy of the balance, it's now down to his equally clueless sidekick to rearrange the bags yet again in order to ensure both that he can fit through and that he doesn't topple over. Moments later, the two are struggling towards their departure gate. Meanwhile, I'm amazed to realise that I've managed to keep a more-or-less straight face throughout their (presumably frustrating) ordeal.
With another hour to kill before my coach departs, I decide to wander in a direction chosen entirely at random, and end up walking in a 40-minute circle. Well that was fun. Back in the coach station, I walk through the departures building and towards the waiting area. I find myself quickly repelled by a strong smell, and retreat to find a seat near the appropriate gate. It seems someone has used part of the coach station as not only a bedroom but also as a toilet. It's not long before the 'Wet Floor' signs are out and the culprit is 'removed'.
I sit on the uncomfortable metal bench and wait. In the following minutes, as a young woman in an indescribably short and, considering the weather, inappropriate dress sits opposite and a man talks loudly into his mobile phone nearby, I make very brief conversation with a very nervous woman sitting to my left. And then the doors open.
As the coach pulls away from Victoria, I hear (through my half-sleep) that there will be a driver change at Leicester Forest East. Now that's annoyed me. Not for long though, because I fall asleep again and the next thing I know we're at Woodall services. Here, passengers are instructed very clearly not to bring hot food back on board, and to be back at 1.45 because the coach will be leaving then. So at 1.47, the last two passengers finally stroll back and climb aboard.
[I really hate it when people cannot follow a basic instruction. I hate it more when people, like this driver, accommodate such people by not fucking off at the right time and leaving the twats stranded.]
Around York, a woman whose age I'll estimate at 141 gets up from her seat, shuffles a little towards the back of the coach, then turns round and sits back down again. Presumably she decided against a toilet visit shortly after her initial opposite decision. Whether this is because she forgot where she was going, or she pissed herself and thought a toilet trip was now unnecessary, I couldn't guess.
Eventually, the coach pulls to a stop in familiar surroundings, and I see it again. Back in February, I described the following as the most soul-destroying words in the English language:
WELCOME TO MIDDLESBROUGH
Nothing in the intervening period has changed my mind.
A walk through the centre of Middlesbrough soon brings me to the off-site MFC club shop. Just the place to buy a mug. As I browse, I get talking to Keith. He's the security bloke here, and is a unbelievably nice man. Both Lauren and Alex are also very pleasant, although Lauren appears to know very little about what's going on around her.
Not far from the ground, I'm spotted by someone in a passing car - now I'm driving around with Paul, Janice and Helen. Owing to the fact that he's been here several times before, Paul knows exactly where to park. After an unusually convoluted trip around what appears to be an abandoned industrial estate, we're finally stationary. And almost alone.
We walk down to the ground before 7pm, and outside the ticket office we meet Cherie, my tour guide from my previous trip to the northeast. Eventually we make our way inside and to the seats. Shortly before kick-off, the seats around us fill up and I end up going to the seat named on my ticket, which is in the very back row.
The stewards spend the first twenty minutes of the match trying to get people to sit down, but give up after that when they realise nobody's going to listen. There's some decent noise being created, I'm happy with that. What I'm not happy with is the person who keeps making that awful stink. It's the sort of smell you'd expect from someone who's been eating lamb madras for every meal all week. Fortunately, the first half ends just at the point when my eyes are watering, and as there's an empty seat by Cherie I relocate back to where I started.
The second half represents an entertaining battle but it's the 83rd minute before any breakthrough is made. Matt Oakley centres for Lloyd Dyer to place a deflected shot into the back of Brad Jones' goal. During the following celebrations, I somehow get tangled up with the bloke next to me and almost rip the hood off his coat. The next ten minute period produces some nervy moments but City hold on for the first away win of the season.
On the way out, I say my goodbyes to P, J & H (it's quicker this way) and walk into town with Cherie for a quick drink in a nearby pub. As before, she gives me a lift back to the bus station and we part company again. Inside is Alan, trying to figure out which stand the coach departs from. One board appears to say stands 28-31, which are upstairs, while the one next to it suggests stand 33, which is across the road on the opposite side of the station. I'm pretty sure the 00.15 coach from Middlesbrough to London has always left from upstairs, and upon investigating we discover a couple of other people hoping that's still the case. We talk for the next hour until the 426 overnight service arrives, and I take a seat at the back - and fall asleep.
I cannot see Doncaster, because I'm asleep. That is, until the noisy cow sitting next to me starts talking loudly to her equally noisy family members. In my dazed state, I neglect to shout "it's half past two in the fucking morning! I've got work at 1 o'clock! Shut the fuck up!" in her face. Luckily for her, there's no further disturbance until London, where I have to get off anyway. Noisy bitch.
Another early morning breakfast (6.35) followed by a trip to the newsagent to pick up some reading material, and a trip to the little HMV in Victoria railway station (where I grab a three dvd pack of kids' films for £7 - that, along with the Simpsons game on Xbox 360 will keep Maniac Jr quiet for a few hours), before wandering back up to the coach station to witness a man reading - out loud and to himself - the sides of all the visible coaches.
Time to make a move towards the right gate. I sit down for a bit, and the girl opposite apparently notices that I'm observing our surroundings in much the same way she is - with amusement. Suddenly, she parks herself next to me, introduces herself as Jess and starts chattering away. She's inoffensive enough, and very small, so I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt. Good decision as it turns out, because she's a nice kid.
Within 20 minutes of boarding the coach, I'm asleep yet again and only woken by the driver's announcement that we've arrived in Leicester. A weary stumble up the road and a bus trip later, I'm home at 11.32am. An hour and a half before I need to be at work...
Final score: Middlesbrough 0 Leicester 1
Time: 31 hours 39 minutes
Ticket: £26
Coach: £24
Total: £50
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