Another trip up North, but this time I had the misfortune to start off on a train full of X-Factor wannabees on their way to auditions. The first carriage from Guildford had a couple literally bursting into song, so I moved up a carriage to what seemed quieter. Little did I know, but I had a fascinating glimpse into the life and aims of two students. One girl opposite had a pair of battered Ugg boots with the soles coming apart, and purple leg warmers. "Because the auditions this year are in front of a studio audience, you have to be good and talented. If we get through, we will then be in the judges's house. But I might need to take another gap year, as I can't can't combine University and X-Factor. Which is odd as I am studying music at Uni. But I did go to Thailand, Australia, and Thailand already on a Gap Year, but I had saved up £10,000 to do this.". "I only went to New Zealand", complained her travelling companion.
So this is what life is like for the youth of today, £10K gap years, or just one country on the other side of the world if you can't afford that, with the ultimate desire of being a tv pop star. At that point, I put my headphones on to drown out their incessant whines, and continued onto Waterloo.
At Waterloo, my ticket (Guildford-Bury with a reservation from Euston to Manchester) was rejected at the barrier, which the first worker waved me through. At the Underground, I again found my ticket spat out, for the worker to say that "your ticket is not valid for the Tube". I asked him how I was supposed to travel from Guildford to Euston without using the Underground, but was told to "take that up with the company who sold you the ticket". So I then paid £6.60 for a one-day travelcard, and hopped on the Northern Line to Euston. Only to get just two stops on to Charing Cross before finding the line was shut for weekend engineering works. Simple, get the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus and get the Victora Line I thought. At Oxford Circus, the tube arrived, I sat down, and then nothing happened for several minutes, and taking the earphones out to listen to announcements, I found an 'incident' had closed the Victoria Line. So taking the escalators to the surface I resorted to a taxi to Euston for another £8.
Once at Euston, I had time for a coffee before getting the Virgin train to Manchester Picadilly, which took around two hours, and from there it was 40 minutes or so on the Metrolink, which starts off subterranean, winds it way through the city streets and traffic as if a tram, before rattling along an overground line to Bury, with quaint stops such as "Besses O' Th' Barn".
Bury itself is a traditional Northern town, with an impressive church and art-deco converted picture palace in the centre, alongside a shopping mall of discount shops. I dodged the chain pubs and walked down the Manchester road down towards the ground, stopping in the Waterloo pub around 1pm. The landlord was a Bury fan, as were most of the customers, and the real ale was decent as well (Thwaites Original) for I think £2.38 a pint. They had a range of football match-day snacks of different meat pies and chips, and the mysterious "Blobby" for £1.50, which turned out to be a half french stick with ham. Bury's Gigg Lane is also used by FC United of Manchester for most home games, and it was bizarre to see their forthcoming fixture list show their next game to be against Northwich Victoria. FCUM are I think one step below the Conference North in the Evostik league, yet it was only two seasons ago Oxford Untied were playing Northwich in the Conference Premier.
I carried on down to the club, and into the club-house, which was showing West-Ham 2-0 up at half-time against Manchester United. Man United got one back, and the only cheers were ironic as one of the Oxford fans has West Ham as their second team. After Man United equalised, he walked out, and the game finished 4-2 to the Red Devils.
As for the Bury - Oxford game, Bury's manager Knill had left midweek to join Scunthorpe, taking his assistant and the goalkeeping coach with him. This didn't seem to upset Bury though, and within a minute, Oxford had taken a corner, seen Bury take the ball down one side of the pitch and lob Ryan Clarke to take a very early lead. It got worse, and the game finished three-Nil to Bury. Gigg Lane is an all seater ground, but it seems that the stand the United fans were in is a rebuilt terrace, so the seats are quite widely spread, and there is a shallow start to the terrace, before it steepens up. I could not discern any executive boxes at all, and there was of course a huge pillar to obscure the view. At half time, Bury even allowed smokers to exit the stand and puff away outside, but still within the ground.
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