Frantic finish

February 16th: Bristol City v Leicester City (Championship)

Excruciating. It's the only word to describe the bus trip from home to Fosse Park. At the front of the bus, three young mothers sit and talk. Nothing offensive there. However, at the back sits their gathered offspring. Now, I hate kids as a rule but one kid is never a problem. Seven, however, is a nightmare, even if you don't have to talk to them. To make things worse, one woman spends five minutes talking to the driver, which of course delays his departure from the stop, elongating my torture around these pint-sized future humans.

[Fuckwitted old sow. If you're spending more than ten seconds interacting with a bus driver, then catching a bus is clearly beyond your capabilities. Find a new mode of transport and stop annoying me.]

I meet Helen at Pizza Hut, where we have time to sit and eat before setting off down for Bristol. As we sit there, we agree we both hate kids. Wonderful.

As we hit the M69, a question rises in her head: What is Britain's shortest motorway? Well, I think the only way to find out for sure is to text Any Question Answered. Six minutes afterwards, we find out that the shortest motorway in the country is the A635(M) in Manchester. That was exciting.

As the journey goes on, we chat generally about a variety of subjects. I notice at one stage that on our tickets is the phrase 'Seats in this stand have no backs and some seats have an obscured view.' Now, hold on a moment. No back to the seat, and possibly an impaired view of the pitch? For twenty five quid? Sadly, any suggestion that it's some sort of joke would be silly - there's definitely £25 missing out of my bank account.

We come through heavy rain around the Evesham mark, but fortunately the weather improves before we arrive in Bristol. We find the football parking with little trouble, although talking to the young lady in the high-vis jacket (ostensibly there to give directions) is not so facile. Her instructions are something like "turn left just before this gate, follow it right round and [indecipherable gibberish]". We turn left. We follow it round. We try to make sense of what she said afterwards, to no avail. We end up near the goods-in door of the nearby warehouse. Not what we were looking for.

After a swift reversal, we decide that she must have said something to the effect of "turn left again and then [indecipherable gibberish]". But still there are no clues as to where we should park. Eventually, the gibberish-spouting young lady's colleague appears from a crack in the wall or something and tells us to park near said crack. I'm slightly dubious about parking so close to what appears to be a transdimensional portal from which people in high-vis jackets just emerge as if from nowhere, especially in the dark, but that's where we end up anyway.

We walk to the ground, around it, past it and back again before locating the club shop. I've become quite good at locating the mugs very quickly, and tonight is no exception. We walk back towards the door we came in, only to be told we can't get out that way. Good job they didn't tell us at the counter, we might have saved a few seconds there. Fuckers.

The gates open at 6.30. Ashton Gate is an interesting venue because you're presented immediately with the unusual experience of going from the 21st century (barcode readers for the turnstiles) to 1981 (shitty seats with no backs, for fuck's sake) within the space of a few moments. Helen tells me of a sign in the toilets that warns of a possible lack of water at busy times (presumably this means during games, which raises the question: why bother having taps in the first place?).

Clever girl that she is, Helen decides that we'll be sitting near the front so as to avoid sitting behind the supporting pillar near the front. Cleverer still, she makes sure she gets the seat directly in front of said pillar so that when she leans back on her backless seat, she can just rest on it.

The public address system crackles for a moment, and it's a few seconds before I realise that somebody is trying to convey a message of some sort. What that is, however, is utterly beyond me. I hope it's not important.

As you'll be aware, there's a new form of entertainment this season whereby player/coach Chris Powell takes a series of penalties against substitute goalkeeper Conrad Logan before every game. Unfortunately tonight, we have a jobsworth twat of a groundsman who approaches Powell before he can make his run-up and kicks the ball away from the spot as he converses with him about how damaging it is to a football pitch if you play football on it.

[Full marks to Logan for performing a series of dives, pretending to save penalties that weren't being taken, while all this was going on. Very funny.]

The game that follows is an even, fair and often fast-paced contest. Several chances go to waste for both sides in both halves - posts are hit, shots cleared off the line, close range saves are made. Late in the game, the home side throw a few attacks at the City box, but none of them are successful.

The electronic board goes up. Five minutes of injury time to be played. Edge of the seat stuff (yet people are still leaving). Moments after we enter time added on, disaster - David Clarkson's shot finds it way to the corner of Chris Weale's net.

Fucking fucking fucking shitting fucking shit. I don't fucking believe it.

From the restart, the ball is laid back to Michael Morrison. He gives it to Jack Hobbs, who lofts it upfield to substitute Yann Kermorgant. Yann heads it on for Lloyd Dyer, who at the second attempt manages to get his shot on target and past Dean Gerken. Yes!

Several lost moments later I look around and think "how did I get here?" I'm miles away from my seat, almost in the home fans. Helen is also some distance away in the opposite direction somehow.

City were worthy of the point tonight. To lose late would have been harsh. Good result.

Getting back out of the car park turns out to be far easier than finding it in the first place. Exiting Bristol easier still, and far more pleasurable - Bristol is just one giant council estate. How this fucking hole is even being considered to be part of a World Cup bid I will never understand.

Helen's football playlist is an acceptable form of background noise for the journey home. At one stage we even enter meaningful conversation, which for me is almost unheard of on a football day. Astounding really.

After what feels like just a few minutes, we part ways again just after midnight. This is a fun new way of doing things. Don't panic, though, if you're a fan of me getting stranded or lost in faraway locations in the dead of night - I'm almost certain it'll happen again. Sooner rather than later.

Final score: Bristol City 1 Leicester 1
Time: 8 hours 50 minutes
Ticket: £25
Helen's bribe: Ticket - £15
Total: £40