Almanac English Soccer – League Two: An Aussie Womble

 

I remember when I was tweny years old, back in 1987, I commenced a new job as a receiving clerk for Target at their Southport store on the top end of the Gold Coast in Queensland. I can remember the exact day I started, October 19, because that was the day there was a worldwide stock market crash which dominated the headlines. Black Monday it was called. Nearly $2trillion was wiped from the markets, and it made headlines for weeks.

Above my desk was the only speaker for the back area. It was only the middle of October, but Target was already preparing for Christmas. They must have skimped on the copyright royalties, because they only played about six Christmas carols, repeated over and over. The same six songs played on heavy rotation just above me, every day for over two months meant I was sick of Christmas before November had even started.

My job was to unload the orders from the trucks when they arrived with their deliveries, drag a pallet out onto the dock, help the driver unload the goods, check the manifests to make sure everything was accounted for, stamp and sign it off, wheel the pallet down for the storemen to unload and wait for the next truck to arrive.

Behind the dock where I worked was full of industry and production. Inside the store was a fabrics department with a large measuring table surrounded by rolls of blind and curtain fabrics, where, once you had picked the curtains you wanted, you could have them fitted and cut to size. There were sewing machines behind me and female employees would sit in front of them, making the curtains or repairing clothes that had been brought back to the store. Beyond them were the storage bays with shelves reaching nearly to the ceiling where all the stock was kept. Salesmen from the floor, dressed in ties and trousers would burst through the rubber-plastic doors several times a day, looking for an item that had yet to have been brought to the floor, hoping to make a sale.

I was mates with one of the storemen – Anthony. We both liked the cricket, and when Mike Whitney blocked the final over of the match from Kiwi paceman Richard Hadlee to save the game for the Aussies, Anthony and I were hiding in the entertainment section of the store. We had flicked the channels of one of the televisions onto Channel Nine so we could watch the exciting conclusion. We’d poke our heads above the cassettes and records cabinet we were hunched against every few minutes to see if management weren’t looking for us while we were on the bludge. We’d snicker to ourselves at our bravado, then we’d return to watching the cricket.

A few months later, Anthony and I moved from the Gold Coast to Melbourne. We packed up his panel van and drove straight through on the Australia Day weekend of 1988. Back then it wasn’t unusual for me to wake up in one state and close my eyes in another. I had the freedom and nothing to tie me down, and I pinballed between the Gold Coast and Melbourne for years.

I remember on my lunch time breaks on the Mondays when I was working at Target, I would buy a newspaper mainly to read the sports section. I’d be drawn to the classifieds, because they’d feature the weekend results of English football. There were four divisions to look over, comprising of over ninety teams, and I’d study the results. I knew of Arsenal and Tottenham and Liverpool, famous clubs that were always winning the title or playing in the FA cup final, but not of many others. The papers also printed the results of the round of Scottish football, and some of their names sounded much more glamourous than their English counterparts. Queen of the South, Hearts of Midlothian, Hamilton Academical. To this day, the Scottish club Partick Thistle conjures images for me of a town with fields and paddocks and rolling hills, with barley and wheat crops that flow in the breeze; a one pub town with narrow roads and clipped hedges, where in reality, it’s probably an industrial suburb with coal stations pumping emissions into the air with masses of traffic of semi-trailers and coal trains chugging in and out of. I’ve yet to find out which is true.

Reading the results of English and Scottish football from the other side of the world made me realise how much there was to see and explore; and there were places more enticing than Surfers Paradise. I walked into a travel agency located in the same shopping mall of Target and asked how much it would cost to travel to Ireland. My love of U2 at that stage far preceded my interest of English football: $2800 dollars the agent quoted me, ‘one way only.’ Far above what I could afford on my receiving clerk wages.

In the early nineties I was living in Melbourne, still pinballing between the Gold Coast and Melbourne; the only thing I had to worry about on the weekends when I lived in a flat above a butcher’s shop in Queens Parade, was, where would I have to go to watch Fitzroy play, and which pub I’d drink at afterwards. I could look out of my Clifton Hill flat, and if I stuck my head out the window and twisted my neck far enough, I could see both the Normandy and Clifton Hill Hotels. It was usually one of the two where I’d have my drinks. The ABC had started a new radio station – News Radio, a 24-hour news-based service, and on early Sunday mornings, when there wasn’t much news to report on, they’d broadcast a football match from England, and if I was awake or sober enough, I’d listen to the games.

I was captivated by the professionalism of the commentators, the singing and chanting atmosphere of the crowd they were broadcasting from made me feel I was at the game instead of being 17,000 kilometres away, and the sense of urgency when one of the around-the-ground reporters would interrupt their commentary for the latest updates of the other matches all added to the charm.

‘Arsenal have equalised.’

‘Beckham scores for United.’

‘A header from McAteer puts Liverpool further ahead.’

And just like when I was in Queensland, I’d get the Monday papers and study the results and tables of the divisions in England. By then the Premier League had been created. I’d study all the divisions, which club had won, who had lost, who was in the relegation zone and who was in a tight struggle for the play-offs.

Sheffield Wednesday? Why were they named after a day of the week?

I was living in Sydney in 1996, my pinballing days travelling between Melbourne and the Gold Coast were over. I’d settled down halfway between the two and was in Parramatta. 2KY, the city’s racing station would broadcast a live feed of the Premier League matches every weekend.

One Sunday morning in October, I turned on the radio and listened to the match of the day from England. I’d slept in a bit, missed the first half and had tuned into the last twenty minutes of the match.

It was different to the other games I’d listened to.

What was going on here?

The commentators were laughing and were full of surprise and joy.

‘Who would have picked this?’

‘Chelsea are shell-shocked.’

‘The Crazy Gang has done it again.’

‘They did win an FA cup a few years back. Nothing surprises me about them anymore.

Wimbledon were playing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and were thrashing Chelsea 4-1. A consolation penalty goal in the last minute of the game made it 4-2, and the surprised tones from the broadcasters that Wimbledon could win at Chelsea punctured their commentary right to the end.

This was the season the English clubs searched abroad for inspiration and success. Frenchman Arsene Wenger began his managerial reign at Arsenal and big things were expected from Chelesea, who had brought over an almost entire fleet of Italy’s best players and here they were, getting flogged by a low brow mid-table team that I knew nothing about.

Crazy Gang?

FA Cup win?

I was intrigued.

The ABC featured an hour-long highlights package wrap of each weekend’s Premier League games on Monday nights, and I saw a few minutes of the replay of the Chelsea and Wimbledon match. Chelsea were in blue, Wimbledon were wearing their away red uniform, and the Chelsea players looked battered and bruised and were getting a touch-up from Wimbledon. Chelsea defender Frank Leboeuf had a large bulging bump on his forehead, and the Wimbledon forwards bamboozled the Chelsea defenders and scored skilful goals from well-planned plays. Chelsea player manager Ruud Gullit had to bring himself on to try and halt the onslaught and Chelsea’s last-minute penalty looked a pitying gift from the referee.

I had to know more of this Wimbledon, and I wanted to know more of the names of the players that I’d fleetingly saw when I was watching the replay. Neal Ardley, Efan Ekoku, Vinny Jones and Marcus Gayle.

The British Soccer Weekly magazine hit the newsstands every Wednesday, and in it they had a section that listed the contact details of Australian-based supporter clubs. Among the Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United supporter clubs’ phone numbers, plus the details of Scottish giants Rangers and Celtic, as well as clubs form the other divisions, there was a contact number for the Wombles Downunder Supporters Association, an Aussie publication for Wimbledon supporters.

The man who ran the magazine, a sporting journalist called Rob, who answered my call, asked if I’d like him to send me the most recent issue of his magazine.

‘I would, thanks,’ I replied.

To be continued.

 

 

League Two results November 9, 2024

Harrogate 1 Morecombe 2

Salford 0 Carlisle 1

Wimbledon 0 Grimsby 1

Barrow 1 Colchester 1

Cheltenham 1 Bromley 1

Chesterfield 0 Accrington 3

Doncaster 1 Notts 1

Fleetwood 1 Bradford 0

Gillingham 1 Port Vale 0

Franchise 3 Swindon 1

Tranmere 2 Newport 1

Walsall 1 Crewe 1

 

[The editor has highlighted the Wimbledon score, for obvious reasons, but also the Doncaster Rovers score for reasons that will become more obvious in the coming weeks.]

 

You can see the League Two table HERE.

 

 

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