GROUNDHOPPING

Clive Hayward

@Byehorse

Clive discusses his trip to Frome

FROME (A)

To drive or not to drive? That was the question.

It’s a relatively easy two-hour road trip from Torquay to Frome, travelling along the A303: laughingly known as the Highway to the Sun. A midday departure would have given plenty of time to get there and back to watch the Strictly Semi-Final.

Clearly train travel affords more opportunities for socialising but Frome isn’t brilliantly served by Great Western Trains at the best of times. Poor weather, possible industrial action and Sod’s Law were also powerful arguments for giving the railway a wide berth. The best-case scenario was a return to South Devon in time for Match of the Day.

Chuck in the cancellation early on Saturday of several of the better train options and a quick motor to Somerset was clearly the sensible choice.

So, of course, I found myself boarding the 10.18 Cross Country Trains service to Manchester, calling nowhere very close to Frome but offering a chance to get there via Bristol!

So far, so good. The next stage was a Weymouth-bound rattler which promised to get us from Temple Meads to Frome in under an hour. There were scores of Yellows on the train, along with many other Bath-bound Christmas shoppers. All we needed was someone who could drive the thing and a fair wind with track conditions. We were out of luck though. We had less luck then Unlucky Alf from the Fast Show. I don’t know whether you remember him? He was an old boy who would routinely stagger along grim Northern streets waiting for buses that never came, falling down manholes and sustaining testicular injuries on a weekly basis. His catchphrase was: “Oh Booger!”

I’m pretty sure Alf was sitting across the aisle from me.

No driver.

Points failure at Bath.

To cut a long story short we did get to Frome, but by the time we did it was gone 2 o’clock, and some of my friends’ bladders were fuller than the home end at Argyle on “Free Ginsters Friday”.

For believers in myth and nonsense of course, nearby Glastonbury is where the Holy Grail came to Britain. And Lo, it came to pass that the bedraggled away support reached another small, historic Somerset town.

Frome is very distinctive. It is old, quirky and quite delightful.

Forgive me at this point, because I am going to take a few sentences to pay tribute to a recently departed relative, Eileen Bailey, who shared many of those characteristics herself.

Eileen was my wife’s Auntie. She died recently at the grand old age of 101. She was Frome through and through, and lived most of her life in the town. When Celia and I were still at the “courting” stage we visited Eileen in her bungalow. I liked her immediately, and I’m pleased to say that if she did take an instant dislike to me she hid it very well. Sadly she was widowed at a very young age. She never remarried, but she was a doting and beloved Auntie to her brother Ted’s large brood.

Although I never quite forgave her for having her 90th birthday party on the day Torquay played and lost an important game AFC Wimbledon, she was a bright, intelligent and loving woman who is very much missed.

Time was slightly against us, and we quite frankly guzzled two pints in the Three Swans before embarking on the walk up to Badger’s Hill. We’re not talking mountaineering here, but the hill-climb for a quarter of a mile or so had most of us puffing on arrival.

As normal I had travelled with Andy, and he inadvertently managed to get in as an OAP. He’s a bit older than me- but not that old! This is how it happened. Arriving at the turnstile he asked how much it was to get in (a tenner). The chap mumbled something back which Andy didn’t quite catch. It’s a fairly thick accent thereabouts. Andy lifted the side of his woolly hat over his ear so as to hear a little better- and was immediately allowed in for £7 “because you’ve got grey hair and you must be a pensioner”. Some would have taken that as an insult but Andy- sensibly in my view- saw it as more or less saving the price of his half time pint!

Before kick off I had brief chats with two Gulls legends. Firstly was Biff, with whom I celebrated Leeds’ latest three point haul at lunchtime. Second was Alan Wills, who was standing with Jules Nixon. I gave him what I fear may not have been an entirely coherent account of my travels. He listened calmly, and explained that he had very sensibly driven from Basingstoke- a stress free journey of an hour and a half.

Having got my bearings, I wandered over to the halfway line. The gently sloping terrace and somewhat ramshackle roof reminded me of the long-demolished part of Torquay Rec which allowed rugby fans a view of the ‘Tics in the days when they occasionally drew a crowd.

I had the immense good fortune to find myself situated between my fellow Torquay Talk contributors Tom Kelly and Chris Wade. Tom was doing his normal gig of filming crap football and immediately tweeting about it. That is far more difficult than it sounds, and he did a terrific job. It turns out that Chris was also in harness doing the Verdict, so I must apologise for berating him about Great Western Trains: he probably needed to be concentrating on the game (but he did his normal excellent job, anyway).

Two nil up at half time, and the depleted Big Time Charlies were delighted to be in front. A visit to the clubhouse at half time, and I got chatting with a couple of Frome fans who looked at me with utter blankness when I started talking about the penalty they had missed. They had, it seemed, been otherwise engaged and this is the first recorded example of me seeing something at the football which others haven’t!

The general set-up at Frome was great. Considering that they play in the same league as Exmouth it was pretty well-organised, with over a thousand home fans representing well over double their normal gate. As I have said elsewhere, the whole feel of the afternoon was very positive: absolutely no “edge” to it. Just people enjoying a big occasion for their local club.

Reading the programme when I got home, I was interested to see that the club had all-but gone bust last year but had been saved by an overall package of support from Frome Town Council worth £300,000. That is an extraordinary stance for a Council of that size to take and it would absolutely get my vote. They were recognised in the week before the game with an award from the Football Supporters Association, where they apparently had the added bonus- or not- of being interviewed by Newsnight’s Victoria Derbyshire.

Post game, we made our way first to the Vine Tree pub close to the ground, which had a lively atmosphere, nice Guinness and offered an

opportunity for all right-minded football supporters to have a good laugh at the Man Utd result.

There were no trains until 7 o’clock, so we wandered back down the hill for some further refreshment at The Globe, which is arguably Frome’s best-known pub. At this point I decided some relaxation was in order, so I propped myself up with my back to the bar and enjoyed 20 minutes of Villa v Man City. Arsenal weaved some pretty patterns and I must say that Saka is a lovely player to watch. But the Villa are on some run at the moment.

My companions had been less enamoured with the football and had located a “Chinese Chippy” up a side street. The steak and kidney pie and chips were piping hot and very tasty. But my memories of the place are far more of the chap running it. I suppose he looked about a quarter Chinese- at most. Middle aged and with jet black but receding hair, he clearly knew every one of his clientele by name, they knew him and all his conversations were conducted in an accent which was far more Bruton than Beijing.

Did I say there was a train at 7 o’clock? Not on your Nellie! The information boards advertised a 90 minute delay for the train which was supposed to be taking us to Westbury. There was an alternative, but it led to the final act of what turned out to be a very long day.

It turned out that by going the other way to Castle Cary we could keep moving for a bit. So that’s what we did. Castle Cary makes Frome look like Vegas, but on the short journey further into the back of beyond we found ourselves in the sort of guessing game that can only happen on Saturday night trains when drink has been taken. I’ve certainly never seen it on the A303. Three young ladies in their early twenties decided they were able to tell our names just by looking at us.

My name, it appears, is actually Tim. Because I look like a Tim. I suppose it could have been worse.

It was a bit of fun, and was certainly better than sitting on a cold platform at Castle Cary for over an hour, which was Great Western’s latest contribution to proceedings. That, of course, was never going to happen, so a dozen or so of us trooped up the road to The Only Pub in The Back of Beyond: otherwise known as The Brook House Inn.

It was a fresh winter’s evening, and opening the door there was more than a hint of An American Werewolf in London, as the locals looked up from their pints to see strangers from far away entering their domain. They were friendly though, and a couple of them had views on Gary Johnson which broadly coincide with my own. Never let it be said that we don’t know how to enjoy ourselves when away from home, because we had a good collective go at the Guardian Quiz to pass the time.

Then it was, at last, time to go back to the station. A clear, dark sky and a starry, starry night. To labour the Don McLean lyrics a bit more, We Sang Dirges in the Dark and on balance, I’m glad I never drove my Chevvy!

Up the Gulls!