The superfan has been off your screens for a month now, due to illness, holiday and pitches that were waterlogged one week and frozen the next. But he did get to another eight games, including one in The FA Cup and two in The FA Trophy.
Standing out in the rain for two hours at that Sunday morning game in Regent’s Park probably didn’t do me any good and I was seriously under the weather by the following weekend. I’d arranged to stay a couple of nights in Bournemouth, but couldn’t get down by train on Friday night due to a fatality on the line at Woking.
To avoid any possibility of having to walk the four miles to Christchurch’s ground from the station for their Vase tie with New Milton, I decided to watch AFC Bournemouth’s League Two fixture with Chester City instead. Darren Anderton, capped 30 times for England, was playing the last game of his career and crashed home the Cherries’ winner two minutes from time. It couldn’t have been scripted better.
By this time I had a streaming cold. A couple of tissues had been reduced to soggy nothingness within five minutes of the kick-off and for the rest of the game I dripped over everyone sitting near me at the back of the East Stand. It was truly miserable.
Hundreds of games were called off due to waterlogged pitches the following weekend. I thought Hayes & Yeading United’s FA Trophy tie with Grays Athletic was safe and then some bad news came through via Ceefax at 1 o’clock. It was looking desperate until the lady on the other end of the ‘phone at Honeycroft confirmed that the Uxbridge v AFC Wimbledon tie was definitely on.
The pitch was in very good nick, despite hours of heavy rain, and the home side edged a thriller 2-1 to advance to the Second Round. I got another drenching on the walk back to West Drayton station and the Paddington train pulled out as I stepped onto the platform. There were hundreds of Dons fans there by the time the next one arrived.
After one stop that train was taken out of service due to a 'technical fault'. We all had to get off. On the Sunday I went to Whyteleafe for Crystal Palace’s The FA Women’s Cup tie with Reading and found the place deserted. With the pitch covered in puddles, a postponement was hardly a surprise.
Hayes’ Trophy tie was rearranged for the Tuesday and I got to see it this time, the home side gaining an impressive 2-0 victory over their Premier opponents. I was on Xmas leave by now and saw pointless Sporting Bengal lose 3-1 to Croydon in a Kent League game at Mile End the next evening. Then I had four solid days of coughing and went to see the doc. A 'chest infection' meant I would be on antibiotics for a week.
I spent three nights over Christmas with my sister Kathy and her family in Sevenoaks and hadn’t expected to see any football on Boxing Day. But Becky, my niece who likes West Ham, was up for driving to Bromley to see their Conference South fixture with Welling United (1-3). Kathy came too and got the hot chocolates in at half-time. The announcer caused some chuckles by saying that the next home game was against "Hampton and Waterlooville".
I was back at Hayes Lane the following afternoon, this time on my own, for Cray Wanderers v Kingstonian, a top-of-the-table clash in the Isthmian Division One South. It was an entertaining game, K’s winning 4-2, but I hadn’t been so cold at a game for years. When I set off for Bromley South station afterwards, I thought I’d be waking up in intensive care.
I was contemplating giving up football at least until April, but I’ve been to another two games since then. I saw Maidenhead beat Hayes 2-0 at York Road on New Year’s Day and Charlton draw 1-1 with Norwich at The Valley in The FA Cup Third Round on Saturday.