By Dave Dove
(One of my favourite early books was "The loneliness of the long distance runner" by Alan Sillitoe. Here a committed (and maybe he should be) Spireite gives us a superb insight into the hardship that goes into following your team when circumstances have meant you've become estranged from the team you support. In a world where re-locating commuting is almost the norm even Chesterfield has a surprising number of fans that loyally follow the team huge distances through thick and predominantly thin. That loyalty is recognised and appreciated. Howard)
For the last 44 years I've been proud to call myself a Spireites supporter and have attended most home games and a fair number of away games every season. For the last 34 of those years I've lived away from Chesterfield and have endured the trials and tribulations of being a 'long-distance' supporter.
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Dave at Cape Town Test match on 3rd January this year though its not his flag was it yours ?. |
My round trip from where I currently live, in the wilds of Cambridgeshire, to Saltergate is 240 miles. The travelling isn't easy and on more than one occasion at 3.00pm on a Saturday afternoon I've been standing on the M1 rather than the Saltergate terracing where I was supposed to be.
Until a few years ago the hardest aspect of being a Chesterfield fan in exile was the feeling of being totally out of touch with what was happening at Saltergate. When I lived on Teesside coverage of Chesterfield FC was always pitifully poor in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette and despite my letters of complaint to the Sports Editor it's now no better in the St. Neots Advertiser! If we'd signed George Best, the first I'd have known about it would be when I turned up for the next game - and probably embarrassed myself by declaring "the skinny bloke with the long hair looks a bit useful". Nowadays, because of the excellent official website and e-mail it's easy to stay in touch. In fact it's almost too easy, there's barely enough hours in the working day to get anything done.
Many years ago I was at Saltergate talking with two friends about how we were going to get to our next away game at Peterborough and one of them made the statement "Peterborough is the easiest ground in the country to get to". I knew this wasn't true because at the time I lived a 10p bus ride from Ayresome Park and the other friend couldn't avoid tripping over Edgeley Park every time he left his front door. Even now this statement ought to rank alongside "Forest are too good to go down" as one of the great inaccuracies of our time but for me it doesn't because from where I now live "Peterborough is the easiest ground in the country to get to" (my mate reckons that like Martin Peters he was simply 10 years ahead of his time). This brings us on to one of the few consolations of being a long distance supporter - some 'away' grounds are easier to get to. In recent years I have only had to make a short journey to see us play at Peterborough, Cambridge, Rushden & D, Northampton and Luton. Inconveniently all these teams have now exited League 1 via one route or the other so I no longer have this consolation. My nearest League 1 team is now MK Dons but on the 15th October I shall again be following the Spireites progress in Milton Keynes from my armchair. I refuse to add to the coffers of a club who have shown the same regard for their real supporters as the pigeons in Trafalgar Square do for Nelson's Column
I quite enjoy the 'uniqueness' of being a Chesterfield supporter away from Chesterfield. Wherever I've worked I've always made a lot of noise about the team I support and I'm sure there are now a number of people who look for the Chesterfield results who didn't used to. Some of them even occasionally come along to games. During our semi-final season I was working for Cambridge City Council and I was amazed by the number of people I barely knew who rang me up to talk about our progress in the cup. The day after we beat Wrexham in the 6th Round I was back at work (in body only) and people were coming up to me saying "well done" and shaking my hand! You will be pleased to know that I accepted their congratulations with all due modesty, inwardly glowing with the knowledge that me and Chris Beaumont had done the business.
As I live so far away I don't get to many home midweek games. A few seasons ago I had been away on holiday and was desperate for a Saltergate 'fix' so drove up for a midweek game against Stoke. I parked in my usual Saturday spot only to find when I returned to the car after the match that during the week the car park gates closed at 8.30pm. I could see my car but there was no way it was going to leave the car park until the gates opened again at 7.00am the next morning. Not fancying the expense of a hotel I decided the best course of action was to spend the night in the car where at least it would be warmer than outside and I would be all set for a quick getaway the next day. I've since looked at the car park gates many times and have to say that even a Chris Bonnington /Sergei Bubka superbeing would struggle to get over them. Strangely enough I, for whom standing on a thick-pile carpet is sufficient to bring on a bout of vertigo, managed to get over the gates without any difficulty and get to the car. (It can't have been euphoria at the match result because we lost to a very late goal from Stoke). I spent a surprisingly comfortable night in the car dreaming about the Loneliness of the Long Distance Supporter. (That wasn't really what I dreamt about but it makes a fitting end to the story).
