Page 108 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

Division club and I’ll talk about that in the next chapter. After that, though, my interest waned once more and a few of my friends who’d previously gone to Roker Park with me for years scorned the team and we never had long football chats in the pub as we’d done in the past. As I was in London and sometimes abroad during the first half of the Nineties I had few opportunities to get to a home game. My brother Graham was still a regular attendee, though, and had a season ticket in the main stand but his enjoyment was gradually eroded by a little old guy who sat next to him and moaned throughout every game whatever was happening. A lot of people have endured such little old blokes over the years. Perhaps they train them in a special institute and then release them among footy fans as a psychological experiment?
We played our first match at the Stadium of Light on 30th July 1997, a friendly against Ajax. I didn’t go to a game there for a good while yet but I could feel the old passion returning. A number of my friends had also had similar feelings and football became a regular topic of conversation again. I watched the epic Play-Off Final against Charton in May 1998 in Ashbrooke Club and when we all eventually left a bloke was sitting on the pavement outside with his head in his hands. In January 1999 I went to my first league match in nearly fifteen years and it was at Loftus Road, which is only a twenty-minute walk from my flat in Ladbroke Grove. Kevin Phillips scored a class opener, smashing a cross in with the side of his boot, and after we’d gone 2-1 behind Quinn was there to get the equaliser in the last minute. It certainly
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