Away Day Wiz Diaries #10 – Boro

This is the 10th instalment of these diaries, which is a fitting number given the 10-mile radius imposed by Cleveland Police.

Alan Pickard

One of these days, I'm going to impress you all with an unbelievable match report. Today is not going to be that day.

We’ll start off on Yarm road, shall we?

That seems as good a place as any to get this underway. The eagle-eyed amongst you will no doubt already be aware that Yarm Road is a mere 9.8 miles from the Riverside Stadium. Alan, where are you going with this?

Bear with me, it's good. It features Amphibian coaches. Yes, you've read that right.....

The Village of Yarm

Yarm is a terrific stop-off. It's one of them that you really look forward to. Loads of boozers down one high street, all of a very high standard. The Blue Bell at the top has an unbelievable beer garden, which sits on the banks of the River Tees. Gorgeous place. Hold up, what's 9.8 miles got to do with it then?

Well, my friends. Welcome to the circle of doom.

You see, thanks to the antiquated rules set out by the traffic commissioner for people specifically travelling to football matches by coach, you are subjected to the Ten Bloody Commandments. Let's take a moment to study these rules, shall we? Here is extract A from coach comms. 

They have requested that I remind you that if anyone is found to be breaching the guidelines either through :-

• Breach of the 10 Mile Radius

• Drinking on Board

• Arriving outside the specified time frames or

• Failing to Notify their attendance to the Dedicated Football Officer

then the Match Commander has already advised that they will be reporting the relevant Firm / Organiser to the Traffic Commissioner and immediately turning the coaches around and sending them back to South Yorkshire.

So, there we have it. From the horse’s mouth: tha can't stop 9.8 miles away. Oreyt? The thing is, Cleveland’s finest provided us with a map. Tha can't come inside the red circle.

Let's just rewind a minute here. You talked about Amphibian Buses Alan. That's right. I did. You've never seen a bus drive through the sea? Well, Cleveland police seem really concerned about folk taking that route in as you can see below. Bring ya bloody armbands with you will ya ladies and gents.

So when does this madness end?

Well, on Monday, a local publican contacted his local MP because he's missing out on trade from hundreds of thirsty away fans every week. So the match commander has lowered the circle of doom to a 3-mile radius. We went to Yarm anyway. Which was probably the highlight of the evening.

And I’ve told you all that just so I don't have to write about the match.....

Much of a muchness, we don't create enough. We're neat and tidy, we could probably still be playing 24 hours later and not have scored. We’ll be up there come the end of the season. I'll one day write something constructive about the actual match. I'm now off to Turkey for a week with the wife and kids.

See you at Blackburn Wiz!!