It's 6am on an unpromising Saturday, and I'm heading west out of London on the stretch the place the A4 runs beneath the elevated M4 – two roads for the value of 1 choking up the identical hall of air. It's a bleak spot. Even at noon the solar doesn't hassle this murk. Distressingly, extremely, there's generally proof of human settlement within the grim void between carriageways beneath the flyover. Shelters cobbled collectively from scrap wooden, you understand the sort of factor.
It's the final place anybody ought to be sleeping, clearly, and no place for a pedestrian, both, at any time of day. However right here he was, with daybreak barely damaged, an previous boy bearing a procuring bag. A little bit stooped and itemizing to at least one aspect, he was making gradual progress alongside the pavement. The poor, poor man.
I puzzled the place all of it went unsuitable for him. No sooner had I handed him, than I needed to cease for a crimson gentle. Observing him in my rear-view mirror I seen, slow-moving as he was, a goal to his gait. He didn't have the look of somebody wandering with out anyplace higher to go. It was because the lights modified and I drove away that I clocked that he was carrying a crimson and white soccer shirt. Ah, this shone a a lot happier gentle on the scene. We have been near the stadium of Brentford FC, who I recalled have been enjoying at Sunderland that day. And I knew with a point of certainty that this man was making his strategy to the bottom to take his seat on a supporters' membership coach to convey him there.
There are those that, figuring out this, might properly have felt but extra sorry for him, and even questioned his sanity. A 600-mile (965km) spherical journey to observe a soccer match? Insanity. However for me, he'd gone from wanting just like the loneliest man on this planet to somebody who I knew, in the present day a minimum of, could be something however lonely. Immediately, I'd gone from feeling sorry for him to being relatively envious.
I've spent many a Saturday on coach journeys like this, to observe my staff, West Bromwich Albion. As a child, with my grandad, beside myself with pleasure, and lots of occasions since. Lately I'm simply as excited, albeit with decrease expectations of seeing us win. However the pleasure of it's much less within the soccer match than the sharing of the journey. Every coach will carry supporters from nippers to ancients, lots of whom will likely be acquainted to at least one one other.
Based mostly on my intensive expertise, I'd wager that these coaches, whichever membership's supporters they're ferrying, function the same solid of characters. There will likely be those that've not a missed an away recreation since earlier than some fellow passengers have been born. At all times there will likely be somebody satisfied – regardless of who the opposition is – that their staff will win. Another person (me) will likely be satisfied – regardless of who the opposition is – that defeat is inevitable. Some passengers won't ever cease speaking, others might by no means begin. Anyone can have baked truffles that will likely be handed round. Each weekend, it's a terrific consolation to me to think about all these travelling slices of life criss-crossing their approach up and down the nation.
It wasn't till Saturday night that I checked how Brentford had received on at Sunderland. Regardless of taking the lead – pleasure – with 20 minutes left to play, Brentford swiftly conceded an equaliser earlier than Sunderland, horror of horrors, scored once more to win the match proper on the demise. Oof. Belief me, it's a great distance again from Sunderland after shedding like that, wherever you're going again to. Come to think about it, it's a great distance again from anyplace after shedding like that.
As I went to mattress close to midnight, I considered my man shuffling dwelling alongside that very same wretched street late within the night, his stoop extra pronounced, his procuring bag empty, however already wanting ahead to subsequent time.
