The Millwall coach trip

Well, this was to be my longest away trip of the season, and also my first of the season to London. I don't like London - is is smelly, unfriendly and dirty, and every time I go it reminds me why I've never gone there to live and work.

The night before, I made some healthy deli-wraps and packed a coolbag with some bananas and apple juices. When I got up at 04:30, I made my flask of coffee and drove down to the ground, as the buses weren't running yet. Once on the coach, I put my Cumbrian flag in the bus window before we departed. It did take me some effort to attach my flag within the coach (including on the way back). I put this down to sleep deprivation :-)

It was a long coach trip, but there was plenty of good conversation on the way down with the people in the seats near me, including PaddockDweller. I also personally enjoyed watching "Hot Fuzz" on DVD. An excellent film, and second in my list of favourite comedy films.

At the ground I got my flag tied out and then relaxed with a long conversation with a couple of the stewards. I also caught up with HavenLad, a fellow "old guard" of the original CUFC mailing list:

There was a large police presence within the ground, including some in our stand with us. There was much amusement amongst the Carlisle fans at the antics of some of the Millwall fans who tried to intimidate us, mainly because most of these were in their late teens at most, and many weren't old enough to be teenagers. I for one have never understood the need for this aggressive behaviour. Unfortunately there were a few of our fans who reciprocated with similar behaviour, but then I guess every club has a small percentage that do.

The game itself is best forgotten, as our players collapsed to another disappointing April defeat at the end of a long and fatiguing campaign for them.

Whilst our players may not have put on much of a show, it was nice of the citizens of London to do so for us on our slow, two hour long trip to the M25:

• young Millwall oiks getting told off by coppers, not even 100m from the ground
• Birthday present woman
• George Galloway opentop bus
• Millwall fan out with his five sons, by five different mothers (his sisters?)
• Millwall fan runs into the road and attacks each bus in turn
• the "London Fried Chicken" dancers
• the guy being pursued by the woman (his stalker/girlfriend) who was whipping him with his shirt
• woman quietly shutting her front door, pretending we weren't there, and having her cuppa whilst sneaking a peek at us
• PaddockDweller waving of a £20 note at the degenerates "darn sarth". It will be nice for them to know what one looks like, now
• the lovely lad who kicked his water bottle in anger at our bus only for it go off and hit a window to the left in the style of a matty Glennon goal kick
• the buildings of London were remiscent of scenes from a post-apocalyptic film
• the learner/newly test passed driver with oriental girlfriend who paniced big time when van full of police with blues and twos came racing up behind and ended up with car more on pavement than road then tried to get back on road and into a 1ft gap between buses
• bloke in the car in front who swapped from the drivers seat into the back. Two minutes later he poured something out of a bottle then jumped back into the drivers seat! He'd only relieved himself in the back of the car in a bottle
• Road rage woman getting out of the passengers side of her boyfriends car to shout at a car trying to turn right into the side of our bus. The on street domestic.
• The peeved up mums,but admittedly fit, with their kids walking into the side of bus 1
• Woman trying to reverse out of a narrow side street,again into the side of or stationary bus,whilst two other cars facing the other way were following her

PaddockDweller also commented that he had never seen so many men wearing pink shirts in one area of a ground than he did at Millwall that day!!

My timing over the weekend was:

I went to bed at
2008-04-25 22:15

I got up at
2008-04-26 04:30

went to bed
2008-04-27 02:40

and got up again at
2008-04-27 09:35

I did manage short naps on the coach between Leicester and Carlisle, which helped.

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