I'm sure you heard about the rumpus on the Port Vale coach on Friday night concerning Jim Gannon and our one-time striker Geoff Horsfield.
The Vale party were on their way to Aldershot when Gannon, the Vale manager and Horsfield his number two apparently had a bust-up over a day-off Horsfield had on Thursday. Gannon got off the coach and met his legal representatives at an M6 Service Station whilst Horsfield carried on south with the team. He then received a call ordering him to leave the bus and return to the Potteries. Despite this, Vale won 2-1.
Motorways are quite boring generally. Vile fat sales reps in Mondeo's galore, sniffing out the nexyt Ginsters and Red Bull fix. I am still amazed that Phillip Glenister, aka Gene Hunt managed to voiceover a 3-part documentary about them in 2007 - then again it did appear on BBC Four!
But on a matchday, the Motorway comes to life!
Being a Leeds fan estranged from LS11, the motorway journey was part of the fun. We had some scrapes, like West Ham away 95/96 - first game of the season, blistering hot, Leeds win 2-1 and on the way back me and my mate share a four pack of Long Life from a dodgy East End grocers. The exhaust on my Sierra decides to fall off just past Leicester Forest East and I literally shit myself when a motorway copper pulls me onto the hard-shoulder due to the two cans Id necked earlier. Luckily I manage to appease him by pulling off what's left of the exhaust and agreeing to get it fixed asap - the smell of burning metal probably masked my boozy breath!
We had some laughs too, particularly with Middlesbrough fans. On the night we ground out a turgid 0-0 draw with Aston Villa at ER, Boro were playing the FA Cup semi-final replay against Chesterfield at Hillsborough. Loads of Boro were coming off the M18 and heading north to Hillsborough. As they queued to get off J34/35, one dozy Boro fan saw our shirts and mistook us for Chesterfield fans who knew a short-cut and actually followed us all the way into Leeds! He soon sped off when on of our lads put them right, before splitting his sides.
Another Boro lot worth a laugh at were the Derbyshire Boro Reds, we often spotted their crappy Sherpa Van on the road which looked suspiciously like GPO surplus and judging by the amount of rust it was probably on its last legs when The Singing Postman was a mere Work Experience lad!
Whilst travelling with the West Midlands Branch of the LUSC, we had some funny capers on the M1. We once saw a family of Wolves fans, on their way back from Barnsley. The mother clearly did not appreciate seeing two-coachloads of Leeds fans from her patch (the giveaway was the Go Whittle livery) so in front of two young kids in the back-seats, she dropped her jeans and pants and bared her fat, sweaty, spotty arse at us!
We once saw Brian Clough on the Forest team coach, fast asleep and unresponsive to our taunts of "44 days" etc - probably the funniest moment came when on our way back from a game we hit some congestion near Sheffield and pulled up alongside the Brighton team coach. We were stationery for ages and the Brighton lads were having a game of cards using a pack with, shall we say, glamourous "ladies" with little attire on.
The former Chelsea winger Clive Walker was on the coach. One of our lads banged on our window "Clive! Clive! Clive!" the other Brighton players nudged him and he leaned over towards our lad - who mimicked flashing at him with a Mac.
Walker went ape-shit, a few years earlier he had been accused of exposing himself in public. The funniest thing about it though was all the Brighton players were pissing themselves more than we were!
Nowadays we have Nintendo DS's, DVD's and Talksport to keep us amused but they just ain't a patch on real life Motorway Madness. The next time you are travelling on the Motorway on your way to Leeds, as Shaw Taylor used to say "Keep em peeled!"