Vauxhall Road Saturday, October 26th, 2019 k/o 15:00   National League South Attendance: 387       Hemel Hempstead Town 1-1 Eastbourne Borough
2019 /20

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What a day!!! What an adventure!!!!! Started with England thumping the All Blacks in the rugby world cup semi final. Great. But outside heavy heavy rain and widespread flooding across England. But I had my tickets so I was going to go for it. First train cancelled. In fact all trains on the Shrewsbury-Crew line cancelled. So car to Crewe. next train stuck in Chester. But good old Virgin found another train and backed it into Crewe and off we went to Milton Keynes on time. An easy change there and in Hemel Hempstead on time. Thrashing with rain. Tempted to grab a taxi but I had full waterproof gear (including a plastic cape to cover my rucksack) so set off. Bloody bastard 2.5 miles steadily up-hill. By the time I got to the ground I was soaked from the outside in (rain) and from the inside out (sweat). Luckily the social club at the ground is massive so i had plenty of space to strip off and dry out (a bit). The game was rubbish. Utter unadultered rubbish. Bother teams deserved to lose heavily. Strong wind, near horizontal rain and consequent mud-pie of a pitch obviously didn''t help but the lack of skill, guile, tactical nous and structure were the main root cause. Happy moment when it cam time to leave. Even happier when checking and seeing my train home was on time. So a smiley down-hill walk back to the station grinning into the still pissing rain. And the train to MK was near enough on time. But that was where it turned sour. Next train delayed a lot. And when it did come it was going super slow because there were more delayed train in front of it. At Nuneaton we sat (with a half dozen other trains for an hour or more due to the track ahead being flooded. When we did set off again (restricted to 5mph) we collectively breathed a sigh of relief. Until Stafford. Where we stopped again for an hour before being told that all trains were now cancelled and we had to get off and wait for buses. Maybe around 400 or so people milling around with no direction, no information and NO BLOODY BUSES. After another hour or so were were told some trains would be allowed north but they had to get south bound trains out of the way first. Then we were told the Glasgow train (due not to stop until Warrington) would now stop at Crewe as well. We piled in, stuffed like sardines and waited. And waited. But everybody was in relentlessly good humour. fantastic mutual support and patience. And eventually we moved out. And I got to Crewe for the drive home. 2 hours to Hemel. 8 hours back. Hero !!!!