BfB

Being in Birmingham and having no extra cash, again I was at home during the Torquay game when City trailed by a goal coming into the last ten minutes. Apparently the kids rule the TV around final score time every week, so I’d been following it online, then I went to make the tea and turned off the computer, hoping against hope for some good news from 5Live.

I check the old paper in the recycling, are Torquay really 4th from bottom? This leads to inevitable question, If 4th bottom are better then where does it leave us? Check clock on cooker 4:35, that leaves us 15 maybe 20 minutes maxium to get something, draw would be ok, better than nothing I guess.

Then they tell us Torquay 1- Bradford 1 (Always Bradford by the way, never Bradford City, has the rest of the world forgotten our full name?)

Arms aloft, almost laughing in disbelief, we never score equalisers/winners late on but I’m a bit happier and the wife knows that she’ll have a slightly less depressed husband if the scores stay the same.

By the way, the delay between the Torquay goal appearing online and 5Live telling us of the goal is a good 5 minutes, so again I’m thinking there was probably more time left in the match for City to find that elusive winner. Anyway nowt else is heard from Plainmoor. We go to Sports Report – de duh de duh de duh de duh etc – “No! The main headlines of the day aren’t that Liverpool beat Bolton or Tottenham drop points at Birmingham, just get the the results!”

I’m thinking T for Torquay, more or less the last result in England to be announced, slowly James Alexander Gordon plods through the scores in that same familiar way he has for may well be ever…

The Battle of Trafalgar Final, British Fleet 1 French Navy 0

The way James Alexander Gordon says the score means you already know the result before he gets to the away team, this pattern has seeped in through the years, so I know the routine, when a team loses the way he says their score sounds like an old headmaster talking disapprovingly to a naughty schoolboy, “Oh dear I am disappointed, you must try harder next week”

Finally, the most important score is coming around.

Then it happens: Torquay United 1 (As he speaks, my thought process is, hang on! that isn’t a draw tone of voice, and it sure ain’t a Torquay have pulled a result out of the bag voice, it’s the oh dear must try better voice, meaning there is only one possibility remaining) Bradford City 2.

It is moments like this that drag me right back to why I love this team, can’t help it, it’s that long awaited hit which does it. Every week recently are the questions of why I still follow this team from a City I left as a 12 year old nearly 23 years ago, and watching them sink over the last decade has been cruel, but I can’t pull myself away and never will.

So thanks Gareth, repeated viewings of your goals conclude they are as ugly as hell but again so beautiful.