In the past, I’ve laughed at train spotters. Standing there, jotting down names and numbers while possibly freezing to death and breathing in numerous different types of fumes. Surely that couldn’t be any kind of fun, could it? Well, on Saturday, I kind of understood where they were coming from because on Saturday I stood and waited hours for a couple of buses to come past and thoroughly enjoyed every last second!
Saturday of course was the Carabao Cup trophy parade and what a day it was. As a resident of Leeds I was up and out relatively early, calling in on my parents before heading across the river and along Scotswood Road to meet friends in town.
I was aware it would be busy, but seeing queues of people standing at bus stops in Sunniside, Whickham and Swalwell was still a bit of a surprise. I felt lucky that I wasn’t using public transport. And then, I got to the outskirts of town where it took me ages to park and when I eventually did I was right down by the river on Monarch Road, opposite Dunston Staithes. Almost a 2 mile walk to Monument where I was meeting my friends! Suffice to say, I was late!
The walk through town, turning into a run at some points to lessen my lateness, felt brilliant though. A sea of black and white, everyone in a good mood and a proper buzz about the place. The positivity felt tangible and after a while I realised that I was just walking along smiling.
At Monument there was a big hug from my best mate, who greeted me with a great shout of “We did it, we did it!” We’ve waited a while for this moment, travelled up and down the country watching our club and although astonishingly there were no tears, it was a close run thing. However, fully expecting to bubble like a baby when the bus went past, I was keeping my powder dry!
The atmosphere continued to gather energy and volume as we made our way through town. We settled on a spot by the new university building on Percy Street, smiling and gawping at the crowds as we went. Despite the fact that the council seemed to have removed the roofs of bus shelters, people were ingenious in their vantage points. The multi storey car parks full of people were a site to behold and then opposite us a load of lads had clambered up onto the Fusilier’s War Memorial, while others had climbed up into the tower of St. Thomas’ Church! All to watch a couple of buses come past!
It was gone 5pm when they eventually did come past. But the wait – we’re good at waiting – was well worth it. We could see Dan Burn from a mile off; in fact I spotted him only seconds after I’d spotted the bus! A beaming colossus, all shaking fists and screaming out his approval of what he saw before him. I didn’t spot Ant and Dec mind. Can’t think why!
A few photos, some applause and a bit of shouting later and they were gone, off into the distance. That was that. We followed everyone else up to the Town Moor, but didn’t last much more than 15 minutes, being as we were about a mile away from the stage. It didn’t matter. We’d come to see the parade, to let out decades worth of raw emotion, to sing, to smile, to laugh and maybe even to cry a bit more! Job done.
This was a city that lives and breathes football and has clung to its team for decades, sometimes in celebration, a lot of the time in blind faith and hope and at others just because the team was the brightest thing we had. Now though, we’ve tasted a little bit of success and I’m sure there’s a healthy appetite for more in the not too distant future.
For now though, there’s the small matter of finishing as high up the league as we can this year before hopefully building on our success with a few decent signings over summer. I’ve always said that there’s never a dull moment supporting the Toon. These last few weeks have been a little bit special though, haven’t they?
Middle Age Fanclub 