There are still seats available on the supporters coach to Gateshead tonight. Or would be if there was a coach. To the horror and probably disgust of one-time Travel Club stalwarts, not only is the club not taking a busload of fans to an away trip, it may not be taking any fans at all.
Judging by the pre-match thread in which various Poppynetters tell an anxious world whether they plan to attend a particular match, so far there is only one confirmed traveller, and unless he's happy with his own company he may yet change his mind.
Let's hope not, after all there must be a particular pride in being one of very few fans to make a trip. I have memories of some meaningless late season games where the away numbers were pitifully few, but never single figures. The Travel Club, although not in its heyday, was still fulfilling its charter of running a bus (or a scaled down equivalent) to every game, and that automatically delivered a cargo of social misfits to the doorstep of many a semi-professional arena.
(There's ample material to be had in describing some of those characters, but we'll save that for another day, when advances in digital effects make it possible to reproduce their likenesses.)
Once, many years ago, a midweek jaunt to Barrow drew a travelling army of four. I recall this because they were featured in a home programme in recognition, and in an age when a hundred or so Fulham fans receive personal thankyous from Roy Hodgson for braving a Premier League trip somewhere recently, the Gateshead One ought to be similarly honoured.
Assuming of course that Roy doesn't mind penning another letter...
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