Time for another tale, time for another tale of woe!
Continuing on the theme that has already seen trips to Leyton Orient and Gillingham focused on, I`ve another form the vaults.
Now this one comes from a fair few years back, a time when the Heron public house was still standing and a time when Ford Capri`s were all the rage and we were actually in the same division as Derby County.
Huddled as a group in the reference public house, on the Friday evening, we`d hastily agreed to venture forth with Luton and drive up to Derby the next morning. With hangovers shook off we convened outside the pub, at 12:30 hours for the 15:00 fixture.
Soon we were hurtling up the M1, passing through Toddington Services and heading up towards Newport Pagnel. Sign-posts for the M45 and M6 beckoned but Derbyshire was our destination, or was it.
With the turn-off for the M6 disappearing in the distance the car lurched to one side and the hard shoulder beckoned. Getting out it was obvious we had a front near-side puncture and the driver had done well to keep the car pointing in a reasonably straight line.
Looking at the damage we consoled ourselves that we would be back on the road in a short space of time, or would we?
The driver informed us he`d only purchased the car a month ago and had never checked that it came with a spare tyre. Nervously lifting the boot we all peered in hoping that this wasn`t going to be one of those days.
But, sadly, it was!
It turned out there was no spare tyre, no jack to lift the car and not even a wheel brace to lift the damn car.
Dejected, two of us set off in pursuit of a roadside emergency phone (there was no such thing as a mobile phone in those days) in total silence, no way were we getting to that game now.
Before long, with the traffic passing us by whilst we waited for assistance, a police vehicle arrived on the scene and the two officers couldn`t resist having a chuckle or two at our expense.
Eventually, we were on our way and we got back to Luton just in time to hear that we`d been beaten, although, as you could imagine, that didn`t exactly lighten up our mood either.
A woeful day!
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