By Beef
May 2 2005

Dateline 10:30 30.04.05 Place – The End, a gathering of the clans. Around 24 of us decided to take Shaddos sharabang down to Worcester, to see if the Saints could overcome the odds and ensure our survival. We started off with a bacon buttie and Bucks Fizz. It was time for making our mind up and going for either a Guinness or a coffee. Guinness won.

The mood was a strange one, a sort of calm acceptance had settled over us. If we won, great, but if we lost and went down, oh well. At least we are in a better position than most, to be able to soak up a season in Div 1 and bounce back up. Onto the buses…..

Off we set, beer in hand, good banter all round, get to Worcester around 13.30. Pickle anyone? Straight to the bar. Oh Dear, 2 pint glasses. It’s going to get messy! Had a good chat with several Wuss fans, before wandering round to find Daz, from the Wuss Supporters Club. Good chat with him, swapped badges, bought beer, time for the match. 10 minutes to go and the stand are in good voice already, Billyboy on his 3rd and last warning about climbing onto the stand to lead the choir. Team is announced and, surprise, surprise, is nothing like the one declared on Friday! AB, Shine and Wee Tam all starting. The excitement is building as we watch the team warm up in front of us. In they go and it’s time for Bernie to do his thing, ending up towel whipping the Wuss mascot!

Kick off and the noise is incredible. 8,500 fans roaring their teams on. 9 mins later and we’re 0-6 up, thanks to 2 Shine Pens, then BAM! Boom Booms down and out, could really do without that, Leroy comes on. Text messages arriving thick and fast – Quins in the lead, Oh-oh.. Wuss score and convert, 7-6. On the half hour, following a break from Shine, a lovely line from Bruce and a sublime pass to Digger, the local hero dots down, Shine converts 7-13. Oh yes! Text time, Quins 12-10. Oh poo. Wuss go on to score again just before the break to make it 14-13. Time for a beer.

Second half starts and the game see-saws back and forth, no-one getting the decisive dominance. A missed Wuss Pen, a missed Shine DG, then Shine lands a Pen – 14-16. The second half flies by and to be honest, I don’t remember too much about it. I was too busy trying to make notes, send and receive texts and passing results to the surrounding supporters. On 72 mins, Wuss score a converted try, to make the scores 21-16. Do we not need that! Shines off, Larry’s on, we get a Pen on 78 mins, which Larry converts. A bit of a risky decision, because we needed to win. The final whistle went, Wuss fans are ecstatic.

We are silent; I glance around and see countless people with phones glued to their ears, including me. The message seemed to get to everyone at the same time – QUINS LOST!! The stand erupted, as did the whole stadium, as soon as they knew. Uncle Keith, who was out on the pitch with the players, came sprinting over to the North Stand, the look of jubilation on his face. I think he was a bit happy.

The players came next and we could see the relief on their faces. A lot of happy people around. Hugs and handshakes all round from Wuss fans, Saints fans and even the odd steward! Before I knew it, it was time to go, seems like I lost some time somewhere. The journey home was good (I’ll gloss over a couple of incidents), but where was Billyboy?? We waited as long as we could but had to go eventually. Got back to the End and there he was, asleep on the sofa! Seems he scrounged a lift from the SSC coach. Cheers guys.

Mmmm, food! Shaddo fired up the Barbie, so we had a social beer or 3, before Ajack announced that he will shave his hair for Charidee. For those of you who are unaware, Ajack has not cut his hair until the Saints were safe from relegation. On Saturday he could have qualified for the Welsh front row!! After a whip round, £50 was raised and Ajack got shaved. There must be some photographic evidence somewhere.

So where does this leave us? In the Premiership, is the quick answer. Looking ahead, it means that some of the players we have signed in principle will now put ink to paper and we can start building towards next season, where, hopefully, we will not be in the same position as this one! I don’t think my heart could take it. Only another 4 months to go. Are we there yet?...............