Taking a Ride on the Big Pink Bus

At 9 am this past Saturday morning I kissed the wife and kids goodbye, started up the car, and headed off to nearby Corsham to wait at the National Express stop. It was a beautiful sunny day, one of the few we've had this summer, and I was going to spend most of it inside a coach making a three hundred mile round trip to watch a football club who most English football fans have never even heard of. Ah, bliss....

Although we hold our heads high and pretend everything is absolutely normal, there is an obsessive nerdiness that is an essential part of being a non-league fan in England. I felt slightly self-conscious as I sat on the wooden bench in my black and white striped replica kit looking at my watch every minute or so. It was the same sort of unease one might feel upon entering a Star Trek convention or parking a car underneath the flight path of a local airport ready to spot a few new planes. Normal people walked by being led by their dogs, or even more sensibly, remained inside in their beds. I was waiting alone at a bus stop and was on show as not normal. It was with great relief that three other City fans showed up about ten minutes before the coach was due. Nerdiness shared is nerdiness denied, I say.

This was my second time on what City fans call the 'First Pink Bus.' The origin of the name is not important, but in typical British fashion the name has remained even after the bus stopped being pink or hired from First buses. British people only change the names of things if they absolutely have to. The biggest magazine in the country for television listings is still called the Radio Times for goodness sake!

The first time I had travelled on the bus had been on a January visit to Eastleigh. I stepped onto the bus and right away was offered a choice of hot beverages: tea, coffee, or bovril. In ten years of living in the UK, this was the first time anyone had offered me a cup of bovril. Before this I didn't know that anyone actually drank beef tea. I knew I had stumbled upon something special.

This time, being the height of what passes for summer round here, there was no bovril. There was a welcoming presence on board, however, and I made my way towards the back and sat next to a fellow fan similarly attired in the familiar Bath City black and white stripes. Nearby was 'Powell,' the president of the Supporters Club, and one of the hardest selling salesmen I have ever come across. Once he gets the slightest hint that you might want to come to an away match he will ask you and ask you and ask you to book a place on the coach until you finally relent. It is done in a cheerful manner, but it can go slightly wrong. Last season there were two American exchange students who came to several matches upon my recommendation. Being young and female they did attract a lot of attention among the gruff and crusty Bath City faithful. Being asked repeatedly to 'ride on the pink bus' to Thurrock by Powell needed some explanation, needless to say.

The coach on Saturday contained a wide range of people from many walks of life. Teenagers, pensioners, fathers with grown sons by their side, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, single men enjoying a free pass from the missus (me). To an outsider it would have been difficult to figure out what commonality had brought such a disparate group of people together. The bus was very much a community rather than a series of cliques, though. We all enjoyed a quick and easy camaraderie, talking endlessly of how City would solve the striker problem (on the way up) and how City would solve the goalkeeper problem (on the way back), and how England had managed to blow the fourth Ashes test so completely (in both directions).

The mother hen that kept us all in line was the aforementioned Powell. He knew everyone on the coach by name, checked that we were all back on the coach after a stop at Clackett Lane Servies, made announcements, and organised a raffle half way up the M4.

In the last few rows of the coach there were several people I knew only from their user names on the forum. Two people I was very pleased to put names to faces for were Youngzack and Sean. Most City fans do not get to travel to away matches and the only way for them to follow the action is via SMS updates these two post from their mobiles on to websites. Many a Saturday afternoon has been spent by me in front of the computer, repeatedly refreshing the screen hoping for new information. I thanked them for all their work on behalf of City fans everywhere.

Other notable riders on the coach that day were: Seb, who will miss most of the games this season because he is off to grad school in Washington, DC; Bas, who is one of the main volunteers at the club and always has a sheaf of papers in one hand relating to one of the endless bits of club business he helps to organise; Stillmanjunior, who I did not really speak to but is our new program editor and despite his youth appears to know every fact about every match that Bath City have ever played. There was also one lady who's name I did not catch who had come with a friend just for an day out. She said she did not even like football. The fact that she was travelling across the country and back and that the only stop would be to watch this game she said she did not like did not seem to phase her.

It was, in fact, one of those experiences of life that should be more common than it is. Everyone was an equal. Everyone was looked after. Everyone's opinion on how to improve the team's play was listened to respectfully. A little socialist utopia on wheels for the day.

For me in particular this peculiar institution of 'away match travel' is something to cherish. I went to my first Atlanta Braves baseball game at age three. It is one of my earliest memories. I started watching most games on television from age seven (there are 162 regular season games a year) and started attending up to forty matches a year from age twelve. I was one of the very few subscribers to the wonky official magazine, the Braves Banner. I treasured autographs of obscure pitchers. I insisted my Sunday School include the Braves in the weekly prayers ahead of the 1982 National League playoffs against the Cardinals. And yet, I never went to an away game in twenty years of following the team. It never occurred to me, and I doubt it did to many other fans. The nearest team was 372 miles to the north and the farthest over three thousand miles west. It is one of the glories of Britain that such a diverse nation, with so many local passions and attitudes is conveniently packaged in an island small enough to reach most places in a few hours of driving. English sports is much richer because of it.

I stepped across the threshold at home at 9pm, almost exactly twelve hours after I had left. City had lost but it had been a great day.

One last thing: If you have read this far, Powell has asked me to see if you are interested in the Havant coach on 17 August. Please send him a private message on the forum if you are.