The yellow men of TQ1 Company march up the motorways and into deepest Northamptonshire for a rendezvous at Garrison Sixfields, not the perfect venue to spend a friday night but certainly more agreeable than the decaying brutalness of the gulags of Accrington and Exeter nonetheless. Those places of desolation and pain should be shelled or allowed to be training grounds for tanks and missile practice. This might actually IMPROVE the house prices in these squalid areas.
Back to back wins have seen the Gulls climb a few places more above the drop zone and with normal progression it should herald a few more wins which would be enough to secure our league 2 status. Predicting a win this friday would be foolish after all, we are due to face a side who have won 15 of their home games, 5 more than leaders Gillingham and the most in the division. In addition, they have the best home defensive record in the league having only let in 14. A few weeks ago i would have put this game down as a certain loss with no attempts at goal however, that was then and this is now and although i still expect us to get beaten, i am expecting a more combative, aggressive and purposeful display than i have seen for much of the season and there is no reason why we can't get something out of the game.
What formation is Knill cooking up for this one i wonder? With Downes rebuffed on his return from suspension at the continued expense of MacDonald and Tommy suspended, who will be thrown into the melting pot on saturday i wonder? Tensions must be simmering and we best not hope that the competition for places boils over or we'll have a Gordon Ramsay-esque whirlwind on our hands! :-o
Gordon Ramsay is great isn't he? He's a bit like me in some respects in the way he over uses the words 'sh*t' and '****' except that i can't cook. I love watching his kitchen nightmares show more to laugh at unbelieveably dense Americans than to see if they can turn their restaurants around. Surely if they had to call on GR in the first place then, presumably having seen the show before, they already knew what the problem was? Err, your food tastes like monkey sick and the head chef needs sacking. I'm not an expert on the catering industry but from seeing the show, seeing my restaurant empty every night and seeing how much food is being wasted then i think i can work that out for myself without having to be told to f*ck off every 5 minutes. Americans. :no:
Masterchef is the British equivalent, professional, reserved and complete with stuck up, poncy 'food critics' sat there quaffing the 'samples' and moaning that the food is a minute late! You've not even paid for it you miserable upyourownarse toffs!! They sit there taking about 7 years to put the fork / spoon of food in their mouths before spending another 7 years rolling the bloody stuff around their mouths before eventually swallowing it. F*ck me, i'd hate to go out for summat to eat with one of those cretins as we'd be theer all bloody neet!! First they'd peruse the menu to see which looks the more minimal yet most expensive dish, then they'd select a beverage, a poncy wine maybe or a mineral water from 2 miles beneath the arctic ice . Then they'd complain how long the food took to arrive, spend the best part of next week eating it and then after they'd have lengthy discussions with the head chef about presentation and taste issues. In the taxi on the way home they would go on about how it felt on the palate and i'd have to interrupt and tell them i'd had enough and that the only pallet i knew of was the ones full of radiators shrinkwrapped that i had to use a forklift to raise up onto overstock at half 3 in the b*stard morning when i used to work at B&Q!!
Look, get yersen down the Peter Tavy Inn, order a roast beef and yorkie puds washed down with a pint of Tribute and you can't grumble. No need for all this kerfuffle and insatiable appetite for producing food specifically to satisfy the cruel b*stards who think it's somehow acceptable to force feed ducks and geese or to take away newborn calves away from their mums, keep them crated up so they can't move and then just slaughter them willy nilly like a piece of meat. Well i suppose that's what they are at the end of the day, a piece of meat. At least you know what you're getting from a Dartmoor farmer, excellent humane husbandry and finishing and proud of it and if one has no respect for animals then i doubt they have any respect for anyone else deep down. No need for the Michelin stars, good food is good food and if you want to pay well over the odds just because of it then feel free. :slap:
Sorry about the mini pro-animal welfare protest but in the words of Emet, it makes my p*ss boil!!
I've now got B&Q in my head now. I had some great times there messing about and some not so great. I worked on the gardening section at first despite knowing as much about the subject as i do about football. I was more T*t than T*tchmarsh and i literally knew absolutely nothing about gardening. I always used to get someone else to give advice whilst i just lifted, stacked and pushed stuff. We had a bloke called Mike Crapper who worked there and i couldn't resist getting on the tannoy to call him to the timver saw but accentuating the surname each time. It was childish but funny but not as funny as someone who turned up 5 minutes before closing on a friday night wanting a hundred flagstones when 35 minutes later i was expected to have gotten home, had a shower and got into Doncaster for a night out on the razz. It was that funny that i could and SHOULD have damaged his vehicle and then spat on the floor in front of him to show my displeasure. Unbelievable. Sundays were always a nightmare too, i used to arrive for work about 9.40 am and there would be a queue of customers waiting to get in! All i can say is that if there was ever an alien invasion and they wanted to take away some humans for experimentation then by all means have that lot of sad w*nkers. 
I then went on to nights and we used to shrinkwrap balls of masking tape and play footy with them in the aisles but ENOUGH! Now onto our hosts for the evening - Northampton Town. They have seemingly inflatable ex Gull Bayo Akinfenwa who has 16 goals like our Rene but our Rene won't pop when pin-pricked. That's not real Bayo, it can't be, it's out of proportion, it's otherwordly, it's huge, it's steroids? Whatever it is though, it seems to be working. He and Clive Platt form the basis of an attack that is the equivalent of Jordans chest - no, not a right pair of t*ts but a massive pair of bouncers. Bayo & Platt - discreet personal security services should be their business venture when they retire from football. Two huge blokes those two and a real threat ( although we coped really well with them in our game at Plainmoor just before Xmas which i went to DON'T YOU KNOW.
o:) )------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TICKETS & TRAVEL:
Jump on the big yellow fun bus everybody who doesn't want to or can't drive to Northampton, it is sure to be a whole lodda fun and as usual don't forget your Nintendo DS and your anti-psychotic medication. The fun begins at Paignton Railway Station which is actually what EVERYONE who leaves Paignton from there says funnily enough, and it leaves @ 1.30pm.
Torquay Coach Station @ 1.45pm
Newton Abbot, Penn Inn @ 2pm
Exeter Services @ 2.20pm
Fares are £30 for adults and £15 for under 12's.
If you are interested then please contact 07861 907090
Tickets for the game can be purchased on the day of the game priced at £20 for adults, Over 65's are £16, Under 18's are £8, Under 7's get in FREE , Adult disabled is £14 whilst Junior disabled is £7. Carers /Companions are FREE.
Kick off is at 7.45pm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sixfields Stadium is a 7,653 all seater affair with good views of the playing area from the away stand which is behind one end of the goal. I've only been the once when we won 1-0 thanks to a Jason Fowler strike on the opening day of the our promotion season under Leroy. The sun was beating down, no such luck this friday though, and i recall seeing loads of people sat on top of a hill that overlooks the opposite home end watching the game for free! If memory serves me right i parked at the clubs car park outside the ground which is still the case i believe and Sixfields is situated on an out of town complex which has the usual fast food outlets etc so don't park around there or you may get fined or even clamped.
Apparently there is a pub called THE SIXFIELDS TAVERN which accepts away fans and it is the only one nearby situated on the leisure park but you can go to the Ten Pin Bowling Alley for a drink and Sky Sports too. Last time i went i didn't encounter an problems and remembered it to be a decent day out as days out following Torquay go.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANDY'S TOWN OF THE DAY: NORTHAMPTON
I'm a bit split down the middle with this one as i've been to a few places around Northants but never to Northampton itself although i used to work with someone from there and they told me it was a sh*thole. It's not a place that particularly invites you to visit yet it doesn't sound like a craphole either.The town thrived on making shoes and leather in the 18th century which is why they are nicknamed the Cobblers but in terms of historical sights there isn't much to see in the town itself. There are some really nice quaint rural villages with inviting pubs in the surrounding areas but not too much to see and do should you be making a day of it. I'm not Northamptonshire Tourist Information you know!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ref for this one is DARREN SHELDRAKE who i recall reffed us at Plainmoor at the back end of last season when we beat Port Vale 2-1 in what was my first ever home game. He sent one of their lads off AND gave us a penalty which Howe converted so i like him. I was also right about the refs tendency to give red cards in our last match v York which i'm pleased about, not so pleased that it was one of our players he sent off though!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a tough one to predict as they are on a real roll but oddly enough i don't believe they are that good a side despite their record. Impressions are that they like to use players like Langmead et al and get balls in the box at every opportunity and make it very difficult given their aerial and physical presence but we dealt with it admirably until the dying seconds at Plainmoor and can do so again. I also think they play some football on the deck too so are a good all round side, solid if unspectacular.
I'm going to go for a 2-1 defeat as i feel their physicality will just prove too much on the night although if we can nick a draw i'd be over the moon.
I've been ill since January and haven't improved too much, still got swollen sore glands, pains everywhere, tiredness and generally feeling rotten but apparently with glandular fever type viruses it can sometimes take up to a year for most symptoms to completely disappear and even then some dodn't go completely so happy days. That said, i made it to Rochdale and Accrington and i'll be there on friday night too rough as hell or not, i'll have to make myself better by consuming the merchandise my dealer Bengull brings me each away game, on the shortish journey home. Nod nod wink wink Ben.
It's going to be bloody cold and dark but it will be the first night game i've been to involving us this season so a bit different. There are two things i don't understand about this fixture though:
1. Why was this game switched to the friday?
2. Why do all the other league 2 friday games kick off at 3pm whilst ours is the only one to have a 7.45pm kick off? I'd say with the distance involved then ours should have been the first penned in for 3pm and most certainly not for 7.45!!
Any answers to these questions would be great. Well bang goes another thread and it i feel it was a poor one this week and i apologise, i've got a lot on this week and still feel like death so i just thought i'd get it out of the way early doors and then it's done so it is ill thought through and lacks inventiveness and humour but i'll try harder in future.
Well, can't wait to see the Gulls in action again in my first game since Accy away and i am very much looking forward to it and hopefully bumping into some of you, not on purpose though, that's just plain rudeness! :na:
I'm not sure how many of us will be making the trip and it's kind of hard to guess, what will we say, around 200?
UP THE GULLS!!!!!!!
NOTE: Bengull is a confectionary retailer of the highest calibre, well in the Brixham area at least. The merchandise in question is a bag of beer bottle jellies that i cannot get up here in the frozen wastes of the north and so he is my supplier and i look forward to receiving the sweeties each away game so i may consume them on my way home. Oh and he also does drugs too.
Joking :~D
DON'T FORGET TO LOOK AT NICKGULL'S MATCH PREVIEW ON THE MAIN SITE PAGE ONCE HE HAS PUT IT UP THERE, FOR YOU FOOTBALL CONNOISSEURS!!
