The one that comes most readily to mind was the absolutely stunning bird Lee Cowling turned up with at the end of season bash at the KLV. He almost earned a new contract based solely on her arrival in what can only be described as a severely plunging black dress, which (happily) left little to the imagination! Every hot-blooded male, and probably all the lukewarm ones too in the building cursed Lee’s good fortune.
Oh, and there was also the last day heroics at Tiverton which won us the league.
Other than Lee’s good lady, the most memorable moment of this season was when the team ended up at Rockingham Road after the open top bus parade. We all filed dutifully into the main stand to worship our heroes (and Darren Collins) for one last time before we stormed back into the Conference. The team were introduced to us one-by-one and took their bows. They posed for photographs and hung around to press the flesh and sign autographs. Of course, being a Peter Mallinger club back then everything was slickly organised to squeeze the most commercial juice from hordes of happy Poppies fans – the club shop was closed, there was no merchandise available and no food or drink bars were open. Nice one Peter!
I had suggested to my better half that it might be a good idea to get all the players to sign their pen pictures, which had appeared in the Tiverton programme. Between us we cornered most of the playing staff and they were good enough to scrawl their names in more-or-less the right area of the programme page. Peter Fear sounded like Mike Read, “Ahwight my Sahn!” and Shutty sounded like Compo from “Last of the Summer Wine”
Steve Wilkinson actually asked, “Who, me?” when I thrust the programme and pen under his nose, and we both spent an embarrassed minute trying to make small talk whilst he duly obliged. I managed not to blurt out something awkward like, “Did you enjoy carrying the water bottles this season?” Or “Has Shutty spoken to you about a new contract”, or even, “we need your signature purely for the sake of completion.”
The one player we didn’t manage to track down was Garry Hughes. Rumour had it that his Winners medal was stolen at the KLV the night before. This may well have been the case because he had vanished as soon as it was diplomatically acceptable to do so. As much as I was sorry he had lost his medal, it was me who was left with a Garry Hughes shaped omission in my programme. Never mind, I thought, we would see him next season and get him to sign it then.
Shutty, however, had other ideas, and Garry was on his way, along with Cowling – what was wrong with you Shutty, didn’t you see his missus?
OK then, I was sure we’d cross paths with Garry at some point in the near future. I had even rehearsed leaning across the perimeter wall to catch his attention whilst he was warming up with his new teammates. I could picture getting his signature while he explained, with an embarrassed air, what was going on to his chuckling colleagues. But, alas, no. Never happened. Never came across him again.
I’m not saying it ruined the season for me, but my anal nature demands that I track him down one day to compete the set of signatures, even if it is at an Eastbourne old-people’s home sometime in the early 2050’s!
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