1993 – Resonation

30 years ago | Roker Park, Sunderland | 27th February 1993

Thirty years ago, I stayed at a friend’s house in South Shields, while he was home from University for the weekend. I’ve been to some pretty cold places around the world but I’ll never forget just how cold it was to stand in a bus queue in Sunderland in February…

Weekends away from University were a great way to see different parts of the country, whether it was visiting friends from home at their Universities or with friends from Uni back to their homes. Over this weekend, aside from the usual activities (a tour of various local pubs) that such weekends usually entailed, we also planned to go to ‘the match’.

The club in question was Sunderland and their ground in those days was Roker Park – an ‘old school’-type ground with wooden stands and end terraces, which had hosted four games at the 1966 World Cup. Naturally, we stood in the Fulwell End, the home fans’ stronghold.

The opponents that day were West Ham United, whom fate had decided would give this game extra notability, due to the untimely death, three days previously, of their (and England’s) former captain, Bobby Moore.

Before the game, 19,068 people observed a minute’s silence as immaculately as, I think, I’ve ever known a crowd to. Moore may have been a West Ham legend but he was (and remains today) the only Englishman to lift the World Cup. It was a powerful moment and a fitting tribute. With the formalities over, the home fans then spent most of the next two hours singing less-than-complimentary songs about Newcastle United fans.

The game itself was a fairly uneventful 0-0 draw which would struggle to live long in the memory – although it earned a point for each side that would keep Sunderland safe from relegation and see West Ham promoted to the Premier League.

What I do remember is the wait for the bus back to South Shields, afterwards. Even though I was fairly suitably attired for the time of year, standing for twenty minutes in the teeth of a bitter easterly wind coming straight off the North Sea is just about the coldest thing I can ever remember doing.

Honestly. I’ve been in far colder temperatures: -20°C in New York, one January; a similar reading in Pennsylvania, in another – and both with significant wind chill. In both instances, staying outside for any amount of time wasn’t a good idea, so I didn’t stay outside long. Conversely, on the ski slopes, the physical exertion of skiing generates the body heat to offset the freezing conditions. I’ve even jumped into an outdoor swimming pool in Denver in winter, reasoning that it must be a heated pool, only to find out that it wasn’t – and it was still a less uncomfortable experience.

If I have been colder than that day in Sunderland, I don’t remember it – and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have happened in this country, wherever it was.

I’ve been back to watch a match at Sunderland since then – at the Stadium of Light – but walking back to a car that December night was positively balmy compared to waiting for that bus in 1993.

**Roker Park, Sunderland, around the time of my visit. The Fulwell End is to the left. Photo: unknown**

30 years ago | Centre-Ville, Calais, France | 5th-7th February 1993

In my first year at University, I found myself doing all sorts of things I’d never done before and one of the most memorable was the annual RAG Week Charity Hitch to Paris – sort of…

A load of us signed up, paired up, did next to no preparation and dressed perhaps marginally differently, for the wintry conditions. I was paired to travel with my mate Paul, which was great, mostly because we get on so well. With what was to come, we’d need to!

We got up ridiculously early (even for non-students) that Friday morning and hung out at the hitching post on campus, to get to our first port of call – anywhere on the M6. “See you in Paris”, we’d say, as each of us got in our respective lifts, heading south.

Time now clouds my recollection of much of the day’s travelling. I remember taking most of the day to get from Lancaster to Dover, with ‘stops’ by the side of the road at (think) Hilton Park on the M6, Gaydon on the M40 and (again, I think) South Mimms on the M25. There were probably more than that.

I do remember taking, for my first time, the new Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at the Dartford Crossing over the Thames, opened just over fifteen months previously, and then being dropped off at the intersection of the M25 and the M2 – which I think was then just the A2. Either way, it was a ridiculous place to expect someone to stop for hitch-hikers. Miraculously, before long, a truck did pick us up, headed for France. We hoped he’d offer to take us onto the ferry – and beyond Calais – but he didn’t.

It was late and we could only get foot passenger tickets for the first sailing the next morning so we managed to get a couple of hours’ kip in the terminal.

The next day, we got on the boat, ready for the short hop from Calais to Paris. Scotland were due to play France at the Parc des Princes in the Five Nations so we were confident we’d get a lift right into Paris. We disembarked at Calais and walked to the gates at the entrance to the Port and got our thumbs out. This was going to be easy!

Sadly, it was the opposite. It seemed every car that went past, all morning, was full of expectant Scots, with very few able to take two extra passengers and none of that small cohort offering to do so. Hours ticked by and we knew that as time passed, even the best scenario of getting to Paris would involve us having to turn around and come straight back.

We had to make the call and, by early afternoon, we made it. It was gut-wrenchingly disappointing. Now, we had to get home. We booked our return foot passenger tickets and, again had hours to kill before the next available sailing. There was nothing else to do but mooch around Calais.

From what I remember that day (and one day there since then), it’s a charming little place that’s unfairly saddled with being associated with ‘booze-cruise’ warehouses and its status as just about the least exotic part of continental Europe. This may be, in part, due to the fact that, from 1347 to 1558, the town was actually a part of England, not France.

We trooped around the street market and walked past the Town Hall, as darkness fell again, before walking back to the port to get on our return ferry. By the time we arrived back in Dover, we’d had enough of hitch-hiking and just wanted to get back as soon as possible. We bought National Express tickets to London Victoria Coach Station. Once again, we dozed on benches, waiting for our next ride.

I remember looking blearily out of the window as our coach left the South Circular and began to approach London, and then wind through the Elephant & Castle on a deathly quiet early Sunday morning, before crossing the Thames. At Victoria Station, we booked our next journey to Lancaster and found somewhere to sit and wait with our vending machine cups of tea. The next thing I remember was seeing tea splash everywhere as Paul fell asleep where he sat, dropping his full cup in front of us. We were both so tired.

I remember very little of that day as our coach wound its way up the country, other than that it was dark (again) by the time we arrived in Lancaster. I think we persuaded the driver to drop us at the entrance to the campus and we walked dejectedly up the hill to our rooms in Bowland Tower. I’m pretty sure we then ate everything we could find in the fridge and just crashed out. We’d just about managed to travel internationally that weekend – but Michael Palin had nothing to worry about!

The photo I took of Calais Town Hall was not from that weekend but from a day, 20 years later, when we arrived early at the EuroTunnel and they wouldn’t change our return train time. Once again, we had hours to kill in Calais. That’s why, for every year since then, we’ve paid the extra for a Flexi-Pass…