| The football ground loomed
up on my left looking lonely and dejected as though someone had ripped
out all its sink units. The Town must be playing away today - I wondered
if it understood why nobody bothered with it every other Saturday.
I parked the car and tried the main gates - they were locked. Down the road there was a gap in the hedge. I remembered the gap. One Tuesday evening, a larger than average crowd - there must have been almost five-hundred in there and I was commentating for Radio Derby when we saw a small boy, eleven or twelve years old, squeezing his way through the gap in the hedge. 'Fred,' George Bonsall shouted. 'There's a lad down there coming in through the hedge.' Fred Shaw eased himself out of his seat and sighed. This wasn't what he was here for. His job, as a lifelong fan, was to play hell with the Matlock players and shout abuse at the referee - he hoped someone would take over in his absence. |
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