Carrie, Sean, me, Jen, Lauren, Breddy, Merill, Abbie, Becca and Speed.
Yet somehow, 3 years have now passed and many of my friends will be moving on to that ‘all important’ new chapter and leaving Leeds behind. There’s been a couple of memorable nights out to mark the mourning process, including one last assault on Wax:On on Bank Holiday Sunday.
We took advantage of the extra space around the place to dance like goons to the spinnings of Fake Blood (who showed strong glimpses of a return to form), Julio Bashmore (who was, by his own standards, a bit weak for the occasion), the brilliant and beautiful Brodinski and an unusually heavy Krafty Kuts. We even joined the shirt-less posse and the Alvin Harris’ for Sub Focus, who was great fun.
It capped a day of complete contrast, having earlier travelled west to Manchester along with 31,000 other expectant Huddersfield Town fans to witness their date with destiny – a Play-Off final against Peter’s Borough.
Cramming the North Stand and Stretford End, the fans were left disconsolate after conceding three heartbreaking goals in the last 10 minutes and facing a seventh straight year in football’s third tier and a tenth outside the top two divisions. This feeling left me in a pretty abject mood which I blame solely on me Dad, Nigel, for emotionally attaching me to the club in the first place.
Being emotionally attached to a football club (particularly a lower league club) is certainly difficult and is something that very few people can ever fully understand. Being a Huddersfield fan has to be one of the most frustrating ‘choices’ of my life.
Year after year (15 of them now), I have paid out for expensive season tickets with a sense of blind optimism, expecting the club to progress closer to it’s potential (which in terms of financial backing, facilities, supporter catchment, stadium and infrastructure, is massive).
But year after year, I don’t learn and am left in absolute disappointment, despair and a lingering fear that our time will never come.
It also leaves me with a growing sense of resentment towards the ‘armchair fans’ of this world, watching games on TV, investing little time and money into ‘their team’, who live miles away from their chosen team and tend not to support their local club. Man Utd ‘fans’, for example, can go fuck themselves.
I’m starting to sound like a bit of a willy, so I’ll end the rant there. Let’s think positively here. Huddersfield played the more games than anyone in Britain this season (61), went 27 of those games unbeaten and even outplayed Arsenal in an exciting FA Cup defeat.
Anywho. Being pretty upset on Sunday evening, there were very few things in life that would have dragged me out of my emotional slum, turned my sad face on its head and gone all out to make me happy. Zooey Deschanel is one exampl and chicken enchiladas are another. But it was friends, ear-exploding electronic music and alcohol that provided the perfect tonic and flushed away the sadness of earlier in the day. Score.
On an even more positive note, concrete plans are in place for the ‘Armagudden’ end of term/charity party at Faversham on Friday June 10th. Similar to mine and Si’s birthday party last year, there will be a brilliant mix of live music which will bring all of our friends together one last time before the end of year and, for some, the end of university.
I’m somewhat nervous as to how many people will show, wanting to find a happy medium between concentrating on raising money for The Sue Crawford Memorial Fund as well as having a well good night. So please, come down to the Faversham for a massive university sign off and support fantastic charities whose work makes a huge difference to those coping with terminal cancer. It’d mean an awful lot to both me and Sara Crawford, who tragically lost her mum to cancer in January.
There will be special performances from Hunting Bears and Hannah Reid, Lauren Young, Adam Watts and Tom Speed, Silver Hips DJ’s and DJ’s Shuffle and Beatsmith who will all be rehearsing hard to help make Armagudden an unforgettable night.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=157718817622136
Hope you can make it!
Big, big love x
