Downsizing – Stamford Bridge to Sixfields (Part 2)

It’s become something of an urban myth, the football ground burger. Or so it would seem. Perhaps the image of perfectly-prepared prawn sandwiches at Premiership grounds across the land were making the idea of an undercooked burger seem not just dated, but just a complete over-exaggerated. Football’s fast losing its image as the working man’s pastime, with the lure of lucrative prizes proving a magnet for business acumen proving irresistible. Even so, I somehow was convinced by my housemate to travel to the most northern end of the Northern Line on the tube to sink my teeth in to a burger that was inexplicably hot on the outside yet still stone cold in the centre. It was playing Russian Roulette with my stomach, but it tasted of real football – and that made it delicious.

To say that 2006 was a good year was an understatement. We’d both got our degree results and the early summer air was rife with celebration. Chelsea had done it – they’d won back-to-back Premiership titles. A poster bearing the roaring lion of Stamford Bridge adorned the living room. Accompanying it, though, was another similar homemade poster. This one was of centre-forward Scott McGleish, arms aloft, lapping up the applause of a sea of people I had naively mistakenly as wearing ‘dark red’ coloured shirts. The correct term, you see, is claret. And the claret spilled over in to a large club crest, with the superimposed text:

NORTHAMPTON TOWN – PROMOTED 2006

Having visited my first Cobblers game against Barnet, I was suddenly hooked. Many people have missed the point of football. Cast your mind back to the first goal you scored at school. The feeling stays with you. That feeling can only be replicated in a Football League ground – the intimacy and good old sense of fun is blotted in to obscurity by a 40,000 seater stadium. In a one-tier stand on a chilly winter afternoon, you finally get the feeling you know what Paul Whitehouse’s character Ron Manager was on about in his waxing lyrical ramblings. For a ticket a fraction the price of a Premiership game, you’re buying in to a sense of fun in footy.

So now things are in limbo. I’m still watching out for Chelsea – you really can’t let go of them after all these years with them – but as a parting present when I moved out of my old house, Danny gave me his old Northampton Town shirt. I’ve still got it now we live together again, and I’ve worn it on my travels with my new adopted team. I’ve laughed at chavs in a goalless draw at Bournemouth. I’ve gawped at Brighton & Hove Albion’s bizarre Withdean Stadium. I’ve chanted 'what a load of rubbish' when the Cobblers were thrashed 4-1 in the Cup - when was the last time you could crack that old chestnut at Stamford Bridge? I’ve cheered in sheer delight on my first visit to Northampton’s Sixfields, with the match abandoned with 20 minutes to go with Millwall leading. And I’ve been dressed in a white lab coat in Doncaster…long story.

Last season, Town finished 14^th place in League One. Big deal. But the bottom line is I’d rather see Cobblers tough out a win to earn that league position than watch Chelsea take another win with everybody else in the ground expecting the cakewalk. Much rather.

I hate to advertise external links on this site, but this one deserves special mention. You can find more on the trials and tribulations on Danny's blog, aloadofcobblers.blogspot.com - it pretty much sums up the unique matchday enjoyment I've just described here.