Dreams of Salford.
Well, I woke-up this morning – as they say in all the best Blues songs – drove to Lancaster and parked my van near the railway station. A recently re-nationalised former Northern train on the Barrow to Manchester Airport service then took me from there to Salford Central.
I lived in Salford during the 1970s briefly and today gave me the chance to walk along Memory Lane along what I remember from then to be the Main Drag: Chapel Street.
I went in the first pub I came to – The Bell Tower.
Back in the day, the locals called this place The Angel. That’s because they sold Groves & Whitnall’s `Dark Angel’ in there.
I lie, It was actually `Dark Amber’ but there we go…
I walked further along the main drag after that.
I passed the Rovers Return, feeling smug that I knew the pub on TV’s Coronation Street and its fictitious brewers Newton & Ridley was based on Groves & Whitnall’s real brewery by the side of the River Irwell on nearby Regent Road. Not many people know that…
I wandered past the Town Hall and then towards Ford Street. There, a watering-hole I frequented all those years ago – The Church Inn – was still open. Nothing had changed: perfect cask beer from local Salford brewers Threlfall’s; Henry Shaw’s and Walker & Homfrey’s. They even had some Watson, Woodhead & Wagstaff’s Mild which had been brewed on premises I had noticed across the tracks on Irwell Street as my train had pulled-in to Salford Central. Spoilt for choice – but I sampled a couple.
From there, just before Sacred Trinity Church back down Chapel Street towards the station, I caught a number 93 bus from Blackfriars Road to Moor Lane, about three miles away. There, Salford City’s Old School ground was just a short walk from the bus stop. As I approached it, I was stopped by four men wearing green medical scrubs and what we probably all recognise nowadays as PPE: Personal Protection Equipment.
“’Ere Mate!” mumbled one of them through his face mask, offering me what looked like a ticket of some sort. He had a very strong Mancunian accent and fading ginger hair was visible under his green surgeon’s cap.
“Do yer work at the hospikal? Wanna stay in an hotel for free? I’m Dr Scholes by the way…”
“I’m wearing a pair of your shoes!” I interrupted. He gave me a pitying look and pointed towards his three colleagues.
“This is Dr Neville; Dr Beckham… and Professor Giggs!” (the other men – two of them quite swarthy – all nodded at me in a friendly fashion.) “If yer don’t want to stay in our hotel – how about a free operation instead?”
One of the other gowned figures spoke. This was the taller of the swarthy ones whose green scrubs couldn’t disguise the fact he had a lot of tattoos. To my considerable surprise, he had a soft, almost effeminate Southern voice. (This was totally at odds with the blue skin etchings and piercings I imagined were hidden under his protective clothing, for what it’s worth.) But he was very clearly very enthusiastic:
“We’re quite new at this game – we need the practice. How about it, then? I’m a dab hand at Vast Ectomies!”
“Don’t you mean Vas-ectomies?” I suggested.
“Not when he does it!” said the ginger one – and they all fell about laughing before he managed to explain, eventually: “There’s a lot of plumbing down there mate – easy to snip the wrong bit!”
“You’re surely taking the piss!” I said to be met with a chorus of sniggers.
“Nah!” said Dr Beckham, “It’s not us who’s takin’ the piss! It’s our patients! Shame of it is, the last one I done, he couldn’t piss at all at the end of the operation – cos I cut through the wrong bit!”
“What did you do about this?” I asked, feeling quite outraged on behalf of this unknown patient – or victim if you prefer.
“We sent for our Consultant” said the other swarthy one in a distinctly Welsh Accent. “Mister Roy Keene is a specialist – he can remove your wedding tackle even without an anaesthetic!”
I scuttled away, leaving them literally helpless with laughter and ignoring their shouts of “Your appendix maybe, mate? Gall Bladder? Tonsillectomy?” as a particular image as shown as the cover photo on this feature passed through my head.
Once I’d escaped, I bought a match ticket and watched the game with at least three thousand other Shrimps fans.
We were three-nil up after barely twenty minutes and won eight-nil at the end of the day.
At the back, Christoffer Mafoumbi was strong and assured in goal. A svelte-looking Adam Buxton played a blinder at full-back. Andrew Tutte bossed the midfield and never booted the ball away, threw his toys out of his pram, kicked anyone or swore even once at a team-mate – or the referee for that matter. And up-front, the imperious Jordan Slew scored a perfect hat-trick (header; left foot; right foot) to make it an unforgettable all-round performance from the lads.
There was free beer for everyone at half time – and Vegan pies with mushy peas and gravy.
And it didn’t rain. Didn’t even threaten to. This, in Salford of all places…
Even better, the train back up north to Lancaster was on-time and I was able to sit down all the way on it.
So this had been a truly great day out.
Sadly though, then I really did wake-up this morning and realised that the experience I had dreamt about was simply far too fantastical to be even vaguely believable.
I mean: everybody knows that the trains from Barrow to Manchester Airport don’t stop at Salford Central, don’t they?…
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And dreamland is as near as any of us are going to get to a real football game for the foreseeable future, isn’t it? Morecambe should have been playing Salford City today at their place, having drawn their previous encounter at the Globe Arena on what happened to be my sixty-fifth birthday last September. This is the only time the clubs have ever played each other so this week’s Memory Lane is the shortest one ever.
P.S. Thanks to Tom Paterson for the image. If you want to see more, click on the following link and discover some of what we once came up with together in reality in the not so distant past:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/680255062515411/
Morecambe 2:2 Salford City. League Two. Saturday 7th September 2019.
The Ammies Throw It Away
Salford City visited the Globe Arena today to play the Shrimps for the first time ever. They were also seeking their first-ever win away from home in the EFL. City’s rise from obscurity to the football league has been well documented. The fact is that the so-called Class of 92 have adopted this club – in the spotlight of huge TV coverage including a documentary on terrestrial channels at prime time and all sort of other media hyperbole. I suspect this leaves most of us who have absolutely no interest in Manchester United or its Old Boys completely cold. The Ammies (pardon?) have had a silver-spooned entry into the EFL which other teams which have had to get there under their own steam and with limited resources such as Cheltenham, Newport County, Accrington and ourselves at Morecambe can only stand back and envy. Surely it must be easier to succeed when you have the backing of multi-millionaire celebrity footballers than it is to fail. Looking a little further afield, you wonder how the supporters of Bury FC must feel given the familial and other ties between the Neville brothers and their home town club – where was any tangible support from the famous duo in the Shakers’ hour of need?
Anyway, Salford arrived at the Globe Arena in sixteenth position in League Two; four places and two points better-off than today’s opponents. City have only lost one of the six League matches they have played this season; the Shrimps have lost three. The stark difference in resources between the two clubs can be simply shown by the fact that whereas ex- Fleetwood Manager Graham Alexander was able to sign Sunderland defender Jack Baldwin; Leicester City’s defender Sam Hughes and Luton striker Jake Jervis on-loan last week on deadline day until the end of the season; opposite number Jim Bentley has signed precisely nobody.
It was bright but breezy as the match kicked-off by the North Lancashire seaside. It was an open game to start off with but Barry Roche was forced into the first save of the game after nine minutes from a shot by Danny Lloyd. John O’Sullivan had an effort blocked for Morecambe shortly afterwards and Kyle Letheren was forced into a save from George Tanner after eleven minutes at the expense of a corner. But play quickly switched to the other end as Richard Towell took a shot which Lloyd managed to get a touch to and divert past a stranded Shrimps’ goalkeeper with just a quarter of an hour played. Two minutes later, Jake Jervis could have made the lead even more emphatic for the visitors but was unable to get a shot to dip sufficiently as it crossed Big Baz’s bar. Twenty-three minutes were on the clock when Aaron Wildig fed Lewis Allesandra but Morecambe’s leading scorer missed the target on this occasion. The visitors continued to look livelier and should have gone even further ahead after half an hour when referee Josh Smith adjudged Ritchie Sutton to have handled in the Shrimps’ penalty area. But Lloyd fluffed his lines with a shot which came back off Roche’s bar and was cleared. With 38 minutes on the clock, Shaun Miller got in behind the City defence but a player who has looked short of confidence in recent times shot over when well placed. In keeping with the flow of the game so far, though, Salford Captain Adam Rooney had the last chance of the first half but his shot right at the death was fielded well by Roche in the home goal.
Jimbo must have come out with some choice words during the break because the hosts went straight onto the front foot at the beginning of the second half. Aaron Wildig played in Miller who this time made no mistake as he belted the ball past Letheren to make it all-square after just three minutes. Miller turned provider twice in quick succession after this, playing-in Allesandra in the forty-ninth and fiftieth minutes – the Salford goalkeeper denied him both times. But there was not to be a third time lucky for Letheren and he was beaten again as Allesandra netted to turn the game on its head within five minutes of the restart. The visitors rallied a bit after that and started to create a few half-chances of their own. Baz was the busiest of the two goalkeepers, saving from Jervis and Rooney by the time just over an hour had been played. With the wind back in their sails, the visitors made it all-square after 66 minutes. Lloyd scored direct from a free-kick which Morecambe’s veteran goalkeeper spilt into his own net: it should have been a routine save. He redeemed himself with only a couple of minutes scheduled to play, however when he saved a second penalty, this time getting down low to spoon-away Towell’s effort. It had been awarded when the lumbering substitute Adam Buxton brought-down Lloyd – the City Manager responded to the miss by immediately taking the player who had been thwarted off.
So the match ended all-square with City becoming the draw specialists in League Two: this was their fifth draw in a row in this competition. They have only themselves to blame. To miss one penalty is unfortunate; to miss two in the same game is unforgiveable. Morecambe must be given some credit for getting their noses in front at a point when they looked well beaten. But their all-round performance still gives reasons for concern about the Curate’s Egg nature of the current team: good in parts; bad in others. The point means that they stay in twentieth position; Salford, meanwhile, go up one place to fifteenth.
Oh – and by the way, City are called `the Ammies’ because they were once known as Salford Amateurs. Make a note of that – you never know when it might come in useful…
Morecambe: 1 Barry Roche (C); 5 Steven Old; 3 Luke Conlan (Y) (2 Adam Buxton 72 mins); 16 Sam Lavelle; 12 Ritchie Sutton; 27 George Tanner; 15 Aaron Wildig (33 Jordan Cranston 81 mins); 6 Andrew Tutte; 7 John O’Sullivan; 8 Lewis Alessandra (11 Kevin Ellison 84 mins); 24 Shaun Miller.
Subs not used: 21 Mark Halstead; 9 Cole Stockton; 18 Rhys Oates; 23 Tyler Brownsword.
Salford City: 12 Kyle Letheren; 2 Scott Wiseman; 6 Carl Piergianni; 10 Danny Lloyd; 8 Lois Maynard; 16 Jack Baldwin; 17 Richie Towell (13 Sam Hughes 88 mins); 20 Emmanuel Dieseruvwe (25 Joey Jones 76 mins); 9 Adam Rooney (C) (21 Devante Rodney 76 mins); 22 Dan Jones; 32 Jake Jervis.
Subs not used: 31 Ewan McFarlane; 29 Jake Beesley; 15 Cameron Burgess.
Ref: Josh Smith
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