Chris Smith continues his trip down Memory Lane, as he recalls happy days, invariably spoilt by football, in the Midlands.  

When I was foolishly asked to put some thoughts together about past trips following the Mariners, I was spoiled for choice about the venues. Having fondly reminisced about weekends in Newcastle, Wolverhampton sprang to mind. Not that it has been a particularly happy hunting ground, but it was always guaranteed to get a good number of London Mariners along and a decent away day was always on the cards.

I’m going back to the early to mid 1990s now, although my first trip there was in 1982 and a miserable 3-0 defeat, which set the tone for a number of away thrashings that year. Some fans of a similar vintage to me would have gone to a League Cup quarter final replay at Molineux in 1980 but my pocket money didn’t stretch to that.

As I mentioned in an earlier missive, we were nothing if not organised and always had a good supply of Boots vouchers to obtain our free rail tickets. The next step was to select our trains. Any football travelling aficionado knew that there was always a rigorously enforced booze ban on trains out of Euston on Saturday mornings, so an alternative route had to be found if the match day experience was to meet its full “potential”.

For my sins, I spent a year living in Reading and still despise the town, but it is a good rail junction and there were trains every hour to the West Midlands and points further north. And, for some reason, it escaped the minds of the powers that be that fans might choose this route to escape the south. I lived in West London so would hop on the tube to Heathrow and pick up the Railair bus to Reading, which afforded me the opportunity of a bacon sarnie at Heathrow and a fatboys at a Reading caff (after all these years I’ve remembered something positive about the place).  A couple of lads would travel out from Paddington and a few more from Basingstoke and Staines. Last but not least, there would be another boarding at Banbury and the regular crowd were all accounted for.

The day really got under way when we made the approach into Birmingham New Street and sang appropriate verses at the multitude of train spotters on the platforms. I can’t quite explain why singing “Where’s your anorak?” and “Trainspotters ha ha ha” would give me such satisfaction but it takes all sorts. In fact, I felt a swelling of pride when one of the lads took it upon himself to chant loudly one day at a volume that made my ears ring. Just in case we come across as a bit anti-social, everyone in the carriage would find it funny as well so we weren’t upsetting anyone. I think we may have found a social grouping even more pitiable than the current Town support. Actually, I lie about when festivities started. The day got under way a bit earlier when the first ring pulls went as the train left Reading. Just to get a bit of practice in you understand.

Wolverhampton was but a further twenty minutes up the line from Birmingham and as luck would have it, we would arrive for opening time or thereabouts and head for the Great Western at the back of the station. You always knew that you were getting close to Wolverhampton due to the rotund passengers boarding the service. It might seem a bit pots and kettles but this observation is borne out by the cartoons in the excellent “A load of old Bull” fanzine. If any pub is worth a plug it is the Great Western. Away fan friendly, fantastic grub and cracking beer at a cheap price. I might be going back 15 years or so, but there wasn’t anywhere else in the country where you could stick a tenner in the kitty and that would see you right for a lunchtime gallon.

Thankfully our trips in the 1990s were at a calmer time for away fans and we never encountered the Subway Army who used to provide a physical welcome for the unwary. As I said earlier, the results were a bit indifferent but we managed to make our own entertainment. We were well supported there and would have a rival sing-song with the Caistor Farmers as we pledged undying love for one another and the Town cause in general. I wonder what happened to them?

As we sang our way back to Reading we were joined by a lonely Chelsea fan on his way back from Manchester, who we mercilessly stung for beers at the inappropriately named Jolly Porter near Reading station. We kept insisting it was his round and he was unfortunately too far gone to realise that he was buying all of them. Well…….

In 1997, we were well on our way to relegation and played at Molineux in our penultimate away game. After going 1-0 down, the home fans taunted us with “going down going down” only for us to equalise through (I believe) John Oster, which prompted us to bait them back with “ Barnsley’s going up” and our 1-1 draw played a significant part in the Tykes’ promotion to the Premiership. It isn’t very often that we would sing a song extolling the Yorkies but you sometimes have to sink a bit for the cause. Before the game, we had managed to get into a pub near the ground and having recognised a Town regular I diplomatically shouted for the fat b****** to join us, only to be reprimanded by a fellow London Mariner. I asked if he would have been offended but he told me seriously that identifying someone like that would cause most of the home support to think they had been summoned.

Neil is a good pal of mine from work and a Wanderers fan, who had decided to travel as part of our party to a home game against Wolves in the early 1990s and was able to confirm to my disbelieving colleagues that some of my fellow fans were crazier than me. He enjoyed the company of our lads so much he almost told me tearfully that had the away fans caused trouble in the Rutland he would have fought with the locals, bless him. I thought it only right that I supported him in the rendition of the Tatter song on the way home:We won 2-0 by the way!

Steve Bull is a tatter

He wears a tatters hat

He plays for Wolverhampton

And he is a lovely chap

He scores them with his left foot

He scores them with his right

And if he plays the Albion

He scores all ******* night!

Wolves did and still have a really good selection of chants including the many versed Yogi Bear song and, much as I don’t like to acknowledge rivals’ skills in these stakes, it is only fair to give credit in their case.

I have a lot of amends to make. We sang it for a good hour. My brother moved three carriages to escape. I now pay for these indiscretions by being haunted by chavs on a daily basis playing their loud cack on their mobiles. What a penance. Incidentally, we have some right herberts following us nowadays….Sorry, I digress. The Ronnie Corbett of football writing.

I missed the away win in 2002, having travelled to Lanzarote but did enjoy the discomfiture of a Wolves fan there who studiously avoided me when he saw my Town shirt on proud display. We beat Wimbledon 6-2 and hammered Palace whilst I was there as well. Perhaps the Trust could pay for me to go on holiday more and results might improve…

Well, it doesn’t look as though we will be playing Wolves for a bit. Despite my singular lack of success with results, I always had a good day out. As with recent years, away games have been about spending quality time with longstanding friends rather than any expectation of a decent result. I think my points tally from Molineux was a 0-0 and 1-1 draw. I wouldn’t have missed it though. A good ground – with character, good entertainment, good fanzine, decent away pub and ticket prices were far more reasonable then. What more can you ask for?

I have known some of the London Mariners for 27 years now which is longer than a lot of our fans have been alive. In a few years, if we attract any new fans, they probably won’t believe the level we once competed at. Great days. I’m glad I was there. Those were the days my friends...