By razcal
March 13 2003

Well as Dec referred to my last article as a bag of manure I thought I would give you a really dirty story this time.I suppose bags of manure and Rob Andrew is a variation on coals to Newcastle.

Several years ago a really good friend of ours upped sticks and went to live and work in Sunderland, well Whitburn to be precise. We visit regularly but never more regularly than when Tigers are away to the Falcons or West Hartlepool. Now you may not know this but razcal is equally passionate about gardening as he is about rugby. Our friend in Whitburn is passionate about neither. However she decided that I could sort her garden out.

So I have done a long range and interminable ground force all through Tiger’s champion winning 4 timer. The weekend Tigers won 45-16 at West Hartlepool on Novemember 1st 1998 I spent the Saturday digging out a miserable collection of various plants which were clinging to life in her front garden. Most of it though was extremely poor grass. Having been many times to Welford Road I recognized poor grass. Our friend wanted a pretty garden but to spend no time maintaining it. So the grass had to go as you spend hours mowing and edging it. Like certain rugby players it was more trouble than it was worth.

The turf was double dug. This means I buried it a foot down face down to stop it growing. It was quite interesting digging as Whitburn/Seaburn is near a traditional mining area and we kept finding old clay pipes discarded by miners. Whenever I needed to stop for a rest on the Saturday I followed the tear jerking 13-11 defeat for Bath at London Scottish on teletext, a result which meant a win at West Hartlepool by more than 9 points would see us go top.

We won 45-16 without playing the full team or performing particularly well. I remember several things about the game. Such as arriving at 2.25 for a 3.00 K.O. and finding the ground locked. Locked tight. It opened about 2.40.The nutty ref sinbinned Joel Stransky which is like giving the class boff a detention. The sin bin lasted 16 minutes. Rowntree was injured near the end but the ref refused to let Garforth, who had been subbed, come on in his place. He told Deano that Tigers would forfeit the game if Rowntree left the field. So Rowntree played on with a severe thigh strain. Deano and the loyal gathering of supporters there went spare. The ref later apologized for not knowing that Skins was legally allowed to return to replace Wiggy. I just mention this in passing, I really don’t know what made me mention that. Oh and another thing I remember is trying to buy black coffee at half time and being told firmly that I could only have white coffee.

Then it was straight off home. “Just leave the garden till we come to win the league at Newcastle in May,” I had said, more in jest than expectation.

Well the May bank holiday came round and the penultimate league fixture at Kingston Park found Tigers with a 4 point lead and just needing to avoid defeat to clinch the title. We drove up the M1 and A1 on the Friday night faster than Rob Andrew can come up with a lame excuse. Saturday morning we piled bags of well rotted manure from the local riding stables onto where I had dug in the Autumn.. They were not impressed when I asked if RA gave his pep talks there.

The manure was needed to condition the soil and feed the plants which were going to get very little tlc from their new owner. It might explain why the BPs are so proud of their sward. I had propagated many plants from my own garden. My suggestion of a red white and green colour scheme was vetoed and we went for purple and gold. We needed colour all year round in red and gold leaves as well as in flowers. To stop our friend from weeding we put a membrane down which we covered with bark chips. We then slit holes in the membrane and planted through these slits into the soil. Those plants have gone from strength to strength since. An omen I feel for the tigers. Of course we won the game on the Sunday. Stimmo, barracked the whole game through, kicked 7 penalties from 7 attempts and we won with a paradigm, 12-21. I remember some nutter running onto the pitch at half time and pinching the bike they wanted to raffle and had placed on the centre spot. We were standing next to Alan Tait who was naturally supporting the Falcons. He left when the seventh penalty went over. The fans around us who had given us stick for shouting encouragement to the tigers were generous at the final whistle. We were not allowed on the pitch at the end The local fans were outraged.” We ran on the pitch when we won the league last year “said one big bruiser, “You keep talking to the steward and I’ll wack him then your bairn can get on the pitch for his autographs.” We didn’t take him up on his kind offer though I looked for him to see how he felt about performing that action on Rob Andrew last season. The Log did come round and shook junior’s hand and thanked him for coming up which rounded his day off perfectly.

Since then I have done the strip of ground next to the garage, demolished a rickety old greenhouse, planted a herb garden and this visit we plan to demolish some sad concrete raised beds which you trip over when you hang the washing out. I call it my 200 mile garden.

The only problem is that my wife told all this to our friends in Manchester and this year I had to do a front garden behind the Old Trafford ground. I actually cut through the NTL cable which was only buried 3 inches deep.

So what do you get up to on away trips. Visit a National trust property? Check out historic hostelries? Or can’t you quite remember?