Making travel plans for Cardiff brought back memories of the football specials.[special trains to away games]Many happy hours were spent criss crossing the country on these old rattlers,they wernt so happy on a winters night after getting beat at somewere like Middlesbourgh.
These trips were always a good laugh especially when the train pulled into Crewe station,we would usually encounter fans of other clubs,or what are now called clubbers who had been to an all nighter at Wigan Casino,these were fair game and were abused without exception, and rightly so.You could always get a Bevi,on these trains some of them were no more than mobile breweries not like the ****** way we are treated nowadays.One trip to Norwich sticks in my mind,as this lad still had some ale left not far off our arrival time,he asked did anyone want to buy any,oneof the coppers on the train then nicked him for selling alcahol without a licence.The downside of the trips was that the police were always waiting at the station to frogmarch us to the ground.All we wanted to do was find a pub .
I can understand why these trains were taken off due to hooliganism,and general bad behaviour it must of been a bit of a shock for Saturday shoppers to see 2-3 hundred scousers coming out of their station.Now Iam supposed to be a sensible family man,the specal would be ideal for Cardiff as its a pain in the ****** to get to on a Sunday.The only thing I can do now is tell my Mrs.Ive got to go on Saturday morning and come home on monday night.When you think about it the demise of the special isnt that bad.