Widnes Away

4 August 2002
Widnes Vikings 12 London Broncos 30

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's a
journey to the northwest on the morning train out of Euston and a
return several hours later through a Commonwealth Games-swelled
Manchester Piccadilly. Ultimately the day was about watching the Bronco
boys beat Widnes on their own turf to leapfrog over them into the last
play-off berth (with seven weeks still to go it could still go either
way or even to Castleford) but there was so much more going on.

At seven-fifty on a Sunday morning no-one wants to be on a train
station looking up at the board. The few who were milling around the
concourse looked to be a combination of stragglers from the night
before, some recovering from a really good party and those like me who
were aimlessly milling. I bought my ticket from a man who couldn't
spell Widnes, found the strongest coffee imaginable and slumped against
the not yet open Body Shop. In seven and a half hours time I would be
watching a rugby league match.

Dave showed up, which was necessary to my sanity and as we waited for
the train to leave at eight-fifty-five a very camp, very high Italian
bloke bounded to the spare seat next to Dave and began gabbling about
how he was looking forward to his one-day holiday in Manchester. We
were on till Stockport. This was not what we wanted to hear.

But Erni ("You have to roll the 'r'. It's in the tongue. See, you've
got the tongue for it.") turned out to be a nice guy. Horny as a rabbit
though and camper than Clary. He told us we were cute, asked for advice
about Scottish men and then went a pulled his double by walking down
the train and asking for a light. His date unfortunately got off at
Stoke and Erni seemed a bit more subdued after that. But when we left
him at Stockport he was already looking forward to the excitement and
conquests that Manchester would offer.

Which left us to ponder what Stockport had to offer. Our train was
thirty minutes late on which meant we missed the first connection to
Widnes by three minutes. That was the only train that was on time all
day. There is a law for that and that law is Sod's. So we killed time
in Stockport at the delightful station caf? - a relic from the days of
curled up sandwiches and polystyrene cups. The coffee wasn't quite
strong enough.

Fifty-five minutes later and we were on a bright green 2-car multiple
unit making its way to Liverpool Lime Street via Manchester Piccadilly,
Manchester Oxford Road, Warrington Central and WIDNES. Again it was
delayed but finally we reached our destination (although we still had
to phone the club to get directions from the station as the possibility
of 'following the crowd' was rendered redundant by the absence of
people).

The AutoQuest Stadium as it may still be called is the home of the
Vikings. It used to be called the Halton Stadium and be the home of the
Chemics. They probably couldn't think of a mascot for that though. So
they have a cheery podgy blonde viking 'entertaining' the crowd in the
rebuilt boxy stadium, which may look bland but the noise the faithful
make is pretty impressive. It would be all the better if it cost less
than ?14 and they opened both ends.

The crowd was 5100, of which maybe 100 came from London. They watched a
tense first half in which neither side played with particular flair but
in which Widnes had most of the possession. They responded to London
taking a 2-0 lead through a Tony Martin penalty by missing a
two-pointer from a relatively easy position before Adam Hughes touched
down twice. The first the result of the ball spinning wildly after a
kick had been charged down, the second a well-placed kick taking
advantage of London being out of position on their right wing. But
neither was converted and with the score 8-2 heading for the break
Dennis Moran stepped into the breach. His try just before the interval
swung the game London's way as he ran eighty metres after intercepting
a kick forward by Craig Weston. The conversion was missed but at 8-6
without having played well London were still in the game.

At half-time some godawful singer attempted his own form of torture on
the crowd. However his evil plot was stifled owing to a rubbish PA
system. The cheerleaders then had the wrong music for their routine
played and by the time the problem was sorted out the players were back
on the pitch.

Within ten minutes of the restart London had taken the game. Rob
Jackson chose not to bite anyone and instead scored in the corner.
Moments later an excellent break from Moran and Martin led to Dymock
scoring under the posts. Tony Martin converted both and London led
18-8. The Widnes crowd that had been so vocal became more and more
subdued, despite the unbalanced penalty count that kept giving them
good field position. The lead was increased when Dennis Moran again
intercepted the ball and ran three quarters of the field to touch down
near the posts. Widnes had a brief rally shortly afterwards with Jason
Demetriou scoring in the corner after another good kick but the final
score of the game came through hat-trick boy Moran, this time he chased
his own kick down and scored under the posts.

The London supporters, split into two groups at either end of the stand
cheered like mad things as the hooter blew. Whilst no-one actually
seems to want to finish sixth this season and take an unbalanced
schedule into next year, London aren't doing too bad a job of scrapping
for it this year. Although the end prize will be an away-day in Hull or
Leeds and certain defeat in round one of the play-offs, that sounds a
lot more fun than finishing outside the zone. Widnes visit London on
August 24th, which, if neither implodes too badly before the season's
end could finally decide the last play-off berth.

Travelling back we took photos of ourselves in ridiculous poses on the
footbridge at Widnes station and had a shouted conversation with some
Broncos fans heading off to Liverpool to finish off their weekend away.
Back at Piccadilly (so much changed since I last ran through 2 years
ago - it now looks like an airport terminal) we rushed forth to the
second-last train back to London only to find it filled with pre-booked
seats and the crowds heading back from the Games. A journey spent
cramped in the vestibules loomed until a fantastic New Zealand girl
stopped Dave and shoved 2 complimentary seat reservations into his
hand. They weren't together but they were seats and, frankly, looking
at the swell by the luggage racks that's what mattered.

The guy next to me was serenely happy. Not because he'd seen his team
win but because he was heading home to East London after having spent a
week taking "different type crowd shots" for the official Commonwealth
Games book. He was German, a good bloke and, shaming to my memory of
his language from A-level, reading a quite detailed spy novel in
English. He also showed by the quite cool camera he used to get his
photos and explained how one of his fellow photographers had bluffed
his way to within five yards of the Royal Box before some suits stopped
him. There was no sign of Erni though.

Back in London at 9pm, the tubes were delayed. A Chinese man speaking
very unclearly was holding up the train at Euston because of some
problem with the manners of the underground staff. Those who'd seen it
seemed to be on his side.

But, as the doors were closing and the thing started to shuttle down to
Waterloo so that I could connect to Mortlake - having got on the 7.09
that morning - my only thought was, "Fantastic day. Must do that again
sometime."