Jim Smallman At Edgar Street

Comedian Jim Smallman watched yesterday's match at Edgar Street although he wasn't very impressed as he wrote afterwards.

Smallman is a stand-up comedian who is originally from Leicester and now lives in North Wales.  He performs all over the UK (and in fact, around the world) and because of that he can’t get to watch his beloved Leicester City every week anymore. He's also a regular on Five Live's Fighting Talk.

Instead he tries to watch a game at a different venue each weekend. Eventually he might put all his obversations into a book. However, as he says, his reports are a mixture of quasi-journalism (he's a former BBC local radio presenter) daft observations and general silliness.

Last Friday night he worked in Cardiff.

Here's a flavour of his day at Hereford:

Having checked the fixtures on Friday it became clear that I had to travel a long way to watch a game on the Saturday.  It seemed that Hereford was the best bet for a game.  I’d been there before, watching Leicester draw 0-0 in the FA Cup 3rd Round with them years back.
 As I set off – on a dreary day, missing home and my fiancee terribly – I realised that Hereford was halfway home and the temptation to skip the game and my gig that night was quite high.
I also cursed the League of Wales for not having enough teams in South Wales, although I can kind of understand it with the dominance of Cardiff, Swansea and now Newport.  I really wanted to watch Merthyr Town play, but their game was scheduled for Sunday.  So with no choice, a 120 mile round trip it was.
I parked in the same car park where I nearly killed John Motson years before, a car park that on this day was more full of shoppers than football fans.  Crucially, nobody apart from me seemed interested in paying for their parking or sticking to the assigned bays.
The matchday experience started well, as I had the best burger I’ve had in a long time at a game.  Thinking about it, this should be expected, with my pre-match treat no doubt made of a descendent of the cow that winked at me a decade ago.  It did, shut up.
Only £12 to watch a game is also decent.  It seems that the cheap price seems to attract a weird crowd in Hereford though, a lot of people who merely turn up to socialise.  Also, there are a lot of people wearing Gilets.  In front of me was one hardcore fan though, a man who had bought along his tiny daughter.  She was not interested at all, preferring to watch the adventures of Mr Tumble on her Father’s iPhone.
Before the game started I noticed a sign for a comedy night at the ground, in their awfully named “Starlite Rooms”.  Next to that was an ad for a “Mod Nite”.  Let me explain something:  If you spell “light” or “night” in those ways, you deserve to burn in the very pits of hell.  The tannoy man plugged the comedy night and one chap near to me responded by saying that “all comedians who aren’t on the telly are shit”.  Well, thanks for making me feel better about the night before.
Dartford had bought along 75 fans and they were in good voice as the game began, whilst the Hereford fans seemed to just want to slate their own team before a ball had even been kicked.  As the game began, fans tried to outdo each other in their own hatred of the side they’d paid money to watch.  Was a very odd atmosphere, and strange that a club with a decent history could have fans that are so indifferent towards their club.  At Hastings last week I found more passion for a team way down the pecking order.  Very odd indeed.  I remember visiting Edgar Street to support Leicester and finding the atmosphere intimidating and electric.  Clearly the cup bought out the best in the fans that day.
After nothing of note in the opening stages, Dartford took the lead in the eleventh minute through Lee Noble.  This seemed to make things even worse in the home end, with the dark mood amongst the fans not exactly spurring Hereford on.  Everything seemed to be based around the long ball, and it was awful to watch.
Stood next to me was a youth with a couple of his friends.  He kept trying to make amusing commentary references, constantly referring to players as “cheeky” and swearing like he’d just learned the words for the first time.  I took a look at him at one point, and he was exactly as I imagined his adenoidal voice would make him appear:  Bumfluff mustache, bad skin, hair cut by his mum.  He was wearing some fake Stone Island.  I imagine there was a chap with a market stall doing great business somewhere in Hereford having seen some of the other fans rocking the same tat.
By halftime Hereford had been booed off and the socialising on the terrace continued. I spent my halftime wondering if I had ever watched a worse half of football.  I probably have at some point, but at least the atmosphere would have kept me interested.  The atmosphere was so lame during the first half that I almost wanted Dartford to score because at least their lot looked like they were having fun.
I also spent some time wondering who or what Skrill are.  I know they sponsor the conference, and that’s very good of them.  I just miss it being called the Beezer Homes League.
As the second half started, a man near to me shouted to the Dartford keeper Alan Julian that he “may as well get the deckchair out mate, you won’t be busy”.  The pessimistic man was quite wrong, as things kicked up a notch with Kevin Krans smashing home an equaliser from 25 yards.  The Hereford fans celebrated, a handful of them wildly, and then United carried on pouring forwards.
On the hour mark Ross Dyer tapped in after Dan Walker headed back across goal, and somehow Hereford were in front.  Even then the fans expected the worst, and it felt that the odd atmosphere helped Dartford drag themselves back into the game as their fans remained in good voice.  Uche Ibemere equalised on 85 minutes and Lee Burns nearly won it for them at the death.
Into injury time Julian clearly got caught in the face by an errant Hereford elbow at a corner, and the fans proceeded to give him some terrible abuse.  The man next to me repeatedly called him a “faggot” as the tiny electronic scoreboard ironically told us to not ever shout anything hateful during a game.  To Julian’s credit, he dealt with the catcalls and abuse (most of it was not of the homophobic variety, that came from one man only) with a warm round of applause for the Hereford fans.  That confused them.
As the final whistle went, the home fans booed, a few clapped and we all trudged away as the rain began.
Such a surreal, downbeat experience was then compounded by getting stuck in traffic on my way back to Cardiff behind a tractor towing a trailer full of potatoes.  As I eventually got past that, I got stuck in traffic coming out of the National Ploughing Championships.  The car loads of people coming away from that seemed a lot happier than I was, and made me think I should have watched that instead.
If you’re bothered, my gig in Saturday night was thankfully better than the Friday.  I think my trip to Edgar Street had made me think about what I was going to do more than usual, and I avoided the long ball game to ensure that the crowd remained on my side.
Summary
Hereford United 2 (Krans 49, Dyer 60) vs Dartford 2 (Noble 11, Ibemere 85)
Attendance: 1,583
Cost: Ticket £12, Parking £2 (although nobody else paid it), Burger £3.50
Fun Factor: 4/10

The full article can be read at: http://thefootballneutral.com/2013/10/13/the-football-neutral-match-six-hereford-united-vs-dartford/

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