CLASSIC KTE: Spot the ham at The Pan

CLASSIC KTE: Elvis Presley’s Greatest Hits

OK, these may not have been his globe-smashing mega-hits but they certainly sound like things we have heard many times before!

CLASSIC KTE: AWAY TO BARROW

Might as well finish what we started! This is the epic story of the away trip to Barrow, an astonishing fifteen-hour marathon in a minibus for the Rooks fans. At least we were being managed by the saintly Ibbo and we could support with pride.

Chris Mason

“BACK IN 1994, I sold a kidney just to ensure the Chairman could put fifty pence in the light meter” says a man with a receding hairline, Levellers t-shirt and standing next to The Chuck Wagon awaiting a portion of chips, practically rocking back and forth with anticipation like a child with ADHD. He says this with pride and stature, swelling his (already enormous) chest and wallowing in self-congratulatory smugness.

“Ah yes, but I went to Barrow” I reply, and instantly win Top Football Lewes FC Trumps, leaving our kidney-lite fan to admit defeat (and keep a watchful eye on his potassium intake).

Because travelling the breadth of Britain to watch a team rooted to the bottom of the Conference, with barely two first-team players fit and available, knowing that even getting a point will rank amongst the larger shocks this side of the electric chair, is to gain a lifelong badge of honour.

Steve Ibbitson had taken over after Kevin Keehan resigned ignominiously a few weeks beforehand after fourteen consecutive defeats. Previously a youth coach with the club, the likeable pint-sized northern hero had reignited the passion that had been missing all season. At last we had someone to get behind.

Minibuses are painful at the best of times. You’re jolted out of your seat so often you leave head-shaped dents on the roof. You daren’t stick your hand down the side of a seat to retrieve a seat belt in case you come across a decades-old boiled sweet or a bullied schoolchild. You can’t even listen to the soothing tones of some snotty punks like Pulled Apart By Horses because of the constant drone of the engine.

To travel on a minibus for seven hours in one go, with only a paltry McDonalds pit stop to relieve one’s sore buttocks (there’s no Sudocrem in a motorway services WHSmith, and I asked!) you genuinely wonder whether the inner sanctum of the Underworld is just a clapped out LDV whizzing around, with Russell Brand’s Ed Milliband interview as the in-transit entertainment. My Helly Welly!

Gareth, bless him, was supposed to come, but he had one too many Kopparberg ciders the night before and with a 6am start from The Dripping Pan, he was never likely to make it. “Get out of bed you useless female reproductive body part” I yelled down the phone to his voicemail but to no avail. We set off with fourteen patrons, Roger, esteemed ex-groundsman, with his hand on the joystick… no, I wasn’t sitting next to him!

Part of the reason I was desperate to visit Barrow was the fans, who were a bonkers bunch. They visited The Pan earlier in the 2008/9 season and were responsible for the first “Keehan Out!” of that miserable campaign. Such was the mutual bonding and good humour of our northern friends, we clapped each other at the end, rather than the shower on the pitch.

I knew a couple of them having gone to watch Barrow play Eastbourne. Young Jon T was supposed to kip round my house before the Boro’ game, allowing a mighty drinking session on the Saturday. Unfortunately he did not get off the last train at the station. It transpired he got smuggled in to a friends’ Travelodge and slept in a cupboard, spilling a can of Guinness down his fleece. Northerners scare me.

We arrived shortly after 1pm at Holker Street and should have spent the first half an hour doing yoga to relieve our stiff joints (steady on, I know the thrum of an engine can get a man going but still…) Instead we piled into the bar and began our own relaxation therapy which involved necking as much weak lager as possible.

Unfortunately, early doors, we were harshly down to ten men and the player sent off was the only experienced player in Steve Ibbitson’s hastily reassembled squad. Did the referee not know we had risked life and limb pelting up the motorway? Luckily, we were only 1-0 down at half time and I halted the drinking, if only to avoid the ignominy of peeing into a Lucozade bottle in the back seat every five minutes on the journey home.

Jon T took a break from leading the Bluebirds’ choir to join us for a chat in the comfy bar about life in Barrow, which seemed to comprise painful shifts in Morrison’s, two festivals in the summer to relieve the misery and rain. Lots and lots of rain. As he said this, the patchy spitting had turned into a downpour and he let out a sigh as he looked out of the window and said “Well at least we got a few hours of sun last Thursday”.

By some miracle, Lewes only conceded one more goal. Football’s a strange game – we lose 2-0, barely register a shot on target and yet us Rooks fans were as pleased as punch. Our young team, most of whom were only just out of diapers, acquitted themselves marvellously and the Barrow fans even gave them a standing ovation as they entered the bar for a post-match meal.

Jon T came bounding over and congratulated us. For travelling so far, for supporting the lads, for singing a few songs and for supping their beer. Ibbo graciously offered every travelling fan a pint, the kind of gesture which made him such an icon of our club.

In an interview a few years ago, Ibbo declared the Barrow game as his favourite moment managing the Rooks, citing the dedicated supporters and the extremely gracious Barrow fans as reasons for making the day quite emotional and a perfect picture of what non-league football can mean.

We refused Ibbo’s offer of a drink, citing the seven hour return leg as a reason for hitting the road once more.

KTE Issue 14

CLASSIC KTE: Barrow AFC visiting The Pan

While we are on a bit of a nostalgia trip (to a time when yes, the manager was crap but we had such fun) I thought I’d post one of my all-time favourite pieces from the best set of fans to have ever visited The Pan.

Step forward Barrow AFC, who delighted The Philcox with the first chant of “Keehan Out” back in the inglorious days of 2008 and who ensured the banter was of such top notch quality. Even in the gentlemanly exteriors of non-league football, rarely do you get two sets of supporters clapping each other home. Such wonderful bonhomie from our northern friends.

Some of their supporters had traveled by plane. To a Lewes match! It would have been less surprising if they took a flying carpet. But they won 3-0 and had the time of their lives and none of us on the terraces could begrudge them their joy.

We stayed in touch with a few of their fans and Elaine, one of the travelling support on that fine day, wrote a piece for us about supporting the Bluebirds across the land.

Chris Mason

AS WE TRAVEL ON THESE marathon journeys around our sceptre isle we have certainly had some interesting experiences to put it mildly.

Our match against Kidderminster was one of the funniest. As we were bowling along merrily on our way, ten miles from Kiddie – the coach broke down! We all piled off and stood by the roadside with banners and flags flying and thumbs outstretched in the vain hope that the passing cars would do the Good Samaritan bit and ferry us to the ground.

Not a hope in hell. Well, would you? Even our team coach passed us by! One car did stop and give us the number of a taxi company and our coach company organised a replacement coach for us but it wasn’t going to arrive until 14:30. We didn’t want to chance that.

Some then set off to walk the ten miles, some decided to wait for taxis but then divine intervention from above! The local bus service stopped and picked us up – much to the consternation of the local passengers. We then regaled them with the Barrow A.F.C. song repertoire as we headed for Kiddie and guess who we found waiting at a stop further down the road? Yes, the hardy hikers who had set off to walk.

At one stop there was an elderly lady, very smartly dressed in her fur coat with a very worried expression on her face when she saw the passengers crowded on her bus. A seat was quickly found for her and I think it must have been the most enjoyable bus journey she has had in a long time as she was laughing and clapping along to the songs. Given a chance, I think she would have come with us.

The funniest part was when the bus drove down their high street and everyone was coming out of the shops to watch their bus driving along with all these people on board singing, clapping, waving scarves and flags. It must have looked like a scene from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

The coach was quickly repaired and the diagnosis was (and I kid you not) – A SCREW LOOSE!

Some of the lads had fluorescent waistcoats on with handwritten titles as we had trouble at the Northwich game the Tuesday before due to our own stewards. The legends included “N.V.F.C. Armed Response Unit”, “Mangy Dog Patrol” and “Crowd of One Control”. Ten minutes before the end of the match they went to the front of the crowd and stood with their backs to the pitch and led the singing like orchestra conductors. An excellent day and we won 1-0 too!

Lewes are special to us and we still talk of the day we visited The Dripping Pan as the best one ever.

Good luck for the rest of the season.

KTE Issue 3

CLASSIC KTE: Keehan victory plate

Rummaging through the archives I came across this… from our first victory in the Conference against The Mighty Yellows of Oxford United. It didn’t matter that they displayed “all the attacking prowess of The Wombles on LSD” as our friend Ollie The Poet put it. We won 2-1 after coming from behind and history was made.

The moment was immortalised in this exclusive Franklin Mint production. Most certainly a collector’s item!

Chris Mason