Away Day Wiz Diaries #20 – Blades 1-2 Plymouth Argyle

Three successive defeats can dampen the fire of our automatic promotion chances, but never our spirits... not for long, anyhow.

Back in July, when the fixture computer did its thing and scheduled my weekends for the next nine months, this was probably the fixture I was most excited about. Pigs—if we never had to play them again, it would still be too soon. Leeds? Meh. Played ’em loads recently. There wasn’t a great deal of excitement from me in general—except for this one. And absolutely nothing was going to get in the way of me having a good time down in the port city of Devon.

A couple of points that should probably be noted about that. Firstly, Sky Sports were always likely to select a stupid kick-off time—and they did. Secondly, I’ve been turning up to watch United since 1989. If anyone can ruin a good day out, it’s them—and yeah, they did indeed stay true to form on that point. Nonetheless, I was determined that spirits would be kept high. As I’ve got older, I’ve stopped letting the match affect my day out away from home, learning to put my arm around younger Blades and remind them that this is how it is supporting United—just like older Blades used to do for me as a young ’un.

New ground tick klaxon!!

First Pickards Tours weekend stay-over klaxon!!

Plenty to be excited about then, as we loaded the Ken Loach up at around 3:45am. Luckily—or unluckily, in one case—everyone was there, present and correct, and off we went at the lovely time of 3:59am! Cheers, Sky TV. Some of the lads took the whole ‘weekend away’ thing very literally, turning the bus into the airport lounge shortly after that point...

The driver has already announced 16 times he was in France at 2pm the previous day and is surviving on two hours’ sleep. Graham has taken the decision that we need a 4am karaoke, and Chris is doing his level best to change the aroma of the coach in a way that only he can. What am I doing here? Just get a normal hobby, Alan, for heaven’s sake. MUST KEEP SPIRITS UP! This is going to be good. It’s just off to a laboured—and very early—start.

6:30am soon rolls round as we pull into the services for breakfast. What is it about McDonald’s that keeps you going back? A Sausage McMuffin that tasted like it had been cooked for four consecutive days, loaded into the bag with a cannon by the looks of it—and yet I’ll still go back and have another in the future! They don’t even care, quite frankly. Anyway, everyone back on and we’re heading for our stop-off point of Plympton. And there’ll be no tactical avoidance of Wetherspoons this week, as it’s the only option when we arrive at 9:30am!

Thankfully, the Spoons in question had a fantastic beer garden, because fresh air was the order of the morning—thanks to Chris—and we had a great couple of hours there. Beers, banter, Woodsy being Woodsy, and Rapp amusing everyone with his array of alternative United tunes. The best one, I’ll leave below. I really hope this one takes off!

🎵
“Gustavo sent Barry for a sausage roll,
O’Hare’s in space and receives the ball,
Moves it onto Campbell who scored a goal –
We beat the Wednesday, at home.

It was the middle of March at the Piggery,
Campbell at the by-line doing trickery,
Crosses it to Brewster who repays his fee –
We’ve beat the Wednesday, again.”

(Repeat ad nauseam, to the tune of “S and an H and an E and an F”)
🎵

11:30am felt like 6pm, but we got back on the bus to head for Home Park. A quick 15-minute drive and we arrive. Plod have had us dropped off at the completely wrong side of the ground, so that’s good. We’ll just do the first leg of the Three Peaks to find the turnstiles then, shall we? And to my absolute delight, when I got there, I saw my mate Josh, who’s back home from Canada for two weeks. So happy to see him and arrange a beer for later that evening.

New ground, then. Big fan park—Sheffield United take note. The Blades I spoke to who’d been in there said it was brilliant, fully mixed with home and away fans. Police forces across the country, take note: being a football fan isn’t a crime. And the away end was everything you’d want it to be—including a burger van and outside space.

The game – do you really want me to talk about it? Do I have to? Oh, okay. Crap. Start to finish. Huffed and puffed. Centre backs and keeper decided they wanted to have their own game and not include anyone else. Cannon makes run after run only to be ignored, so we need to get off his case. O’Hare on the wing just looked odd. Moment of brilliance from JRS got us ahead before the break. Then we just collapsed with 15 minutes to go. Special mention for the captain, who decided he needed to berate the away end for showing a bit of frustration too... Think he might need to remember those 2,000 people that made the journey haven’t spent hundreds—in most cases—to watch him and Anel pass it to each other for no reason. Game over. Loss. I told you at the outset—Sheffield United and ruining days out go together like Beavis and Butthead.

We must persevere, though, as the stop-over presents us with a bit of bonus content this week (although I won’t bore you too much).

After we again tackled the Three Peaks challenge to get back to the coach, we made the short drive to our hotel. We could have checked in from 2pm, so it did cause a little frustration that some people’s rooms weren’t ready at 3:30pm. However—adapt and overcome. Showered and changed, we congregated in the hotel bar and booked taxis to the Plymouth Barbican. What a fantastic place! Drinks in the Queen’s Arms, Three Crowns, The Ship and The Cider Press soon followed. Finished off with a terrific curry at Himalayan Spice with my son, Chris, Samuel and Andrew. Plymouth—what a fantastic place for a night out. Such a brilliant atmosphere.

Sunday morning brought a few sore heads. Some of the lads had got in at 4am from Popworld, so they’d done the full 24 hours! We enjoyed our hotel breakfast and stocked up for the Sunday Club journey home at Tesco. 10:30am set off, and by 1pm—we’d broken down! Luckily, a replacement coach was sourced very quickly and we were back on the way within an hour. Entertained by Rappit and Kane for most of the journey—two of the funniest people I’ve ever met when they’re together. Safely back to Farm Road for 5:15pm. A long old shift, but in my opinion, that away day is the highlight of the season so far!

Alternative MOTM – Rappit. Literally makes me cry tears with his humour. Cheers, pal, for a top weekend full of laughter.