By Paul Flatt
May 2 2006

Not long now – the last day of term beckons. My second-best day of the season.  Last Day of Term – Mmmm, You Bet!

 In my illustrious career of writing for COYSDC (not), I have come to realise that I am not of the Mark H, Odd Shaped Balls and Broonie ilk. I can’t analyse games - tactics and strategy only become fuzzily clear with the third video replay. Neither am I of the Monty Masters and Bert Hadon calibre – these are class acts from a comedic mind, although I enjoy trying to mimic them. No, my relationship with the Board, is a bit like my relationship with the Club – it just feels right, I want to be there lapping up the camaraderie, enjoying the banter, the excitement and the occasional burst of misery. It’s a much more subconscious thing for me – all to do with the emotional infrastructure and my little bit of ‘ownership’ of the place, the events, and the dramas which unfold. So just once, I have found a subject that I can share with you which doesn’t need a finely tuned rugby brain, nor the writing skills of a Wodehouse or Coren.

The best day? Well, relatives of those who died in the First and Second World Wars will perhaps find it strange that the Saints home game closest to Remembrance Day is my favourite day. What must I be - some sort of ghoul, some soul-less hearse chaser? No, I don’t think so and I hope not. I’m a child of the sixties – hitherto very ambivalent about the whole British Legion, Red Poppy, WRVS, Vera Lynn, Ralph Reader Gang Show thing. At some point in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s I took myself off to Whitehall to watch the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph and while I found it moving, I just wasn’t engaged by it. By ‘engaged’ I realise now the Flatt family was very lucky in both wars and it just didn’t mean anything to me personally, because it’s much harder to grieve for other peoples’ lives.

At the Saints, this is not the case. The stories of the lives and deaths of Edgar Mobbs and Blair Swannell gave me a personal connection to the Great Wars which the absence of my own family loss had spared me. The flower of our young generations, cut down in their prime for willingly making the sacrifice from which most of us shy away. When the two teams line up in front of the Sturtridge in the blaring silence which only conversion kickers normally enjoy, with the autumnal leaves swirling around their ankles to pay respect to their predecessors, I find myself hanging onto Geoff Allen’s intonation of Laurence Binyon’s words and share his croaking emotion. It all makes sense and I feel the loss of so many others.

I’ve felt honoured that I’ve been able to take my kids to the Gardens on such days to give them their own idea of what Remembrance is all about, and at such times I’ve felt a great bond to my fellows at the Club. Truly, it’s one of those days when I feel other clubs must be a little jealous of us, and I always hope their players and supporters go away from those games understanding (and liking) us a little bit better.

Christmas games at the Gardens also have a little bit of that ‘something to be cherished’ factor. We’ve turned up on Boxing Day en masse, stuck our noses to the Sturtridge brunch trough and then shouted ourselves hoarse as the Academy Boys rip into feline flesh as if the Season of Goodwill to All Men had never been dreamt up. Who the hell ARE Leicester Tigers indeed! I suppose a few more victories along the way would have made these games more memorable and my memories more affectionate, but I still look forward to them with hope and anticipation, and hope there will be more.

But in just a few days time, the Last Day of Term will come around again and after eight months loyal and dedicated shouting, singing, boozing, worrying, hoping, laughing and the odd temper tantrum we shall be free to spend the next four months discovering the joys of shops, garden centres, beaches, barbies and beer gardens before it all kicks off again.

In all honesty, I don’t remember many memorable games on the last day of the season. Most years, it’s normally a done deal by the last game. (Yes I know all about Wuss at Sixways, and the ‘Quins chucking us a huge lifeline from down the M40 – but this piece is about US, OUR ground and OUR memories!). I do remember the Sarries winning the title at ours a few years back and Francois Pienaar stood in the old Main Stand shaking the bloody cup like it was a maraca!

But mostly, my memories are all about events around the game rather than during it. There was the time Broonie tried to get us all to sing ‘Now is the Hour…’ to his dear departing Pat Lam, and how I had wholeheartedly given out my allotted hundred song sheets only for Ken’s plans to be scuppered by a dodgy PA and an even dodgier Hawaian guitar version of the song. We didn’t need to sing a song for Tim Rodber, I just felt I had lost a little bit of my life as he trooped off for the last time.

I remember bidding a fond farewell to the Gordon Terrace as a determined KB swung his hammer into the wall like a very happy God Thor. Another year, loitering in front of the Sturtridge, after the game, I made a point of bumping into a juvenile Steve Walters – “Congratulations”, I told him, “You’ve just been announced on the radio as a Canadian tourist. You’re in the England team!”

But actually, most of my memories of the last day of term are not to do with the personalities and specific incidents – it’s much more to do with fuzzy glows and indistinct warm feelings. The one day each year when Piggy actually encourages the kids to play on his beloved grass (perhaps!). The day when no-one seems to dash for the car parks or the gates, the day when the beer tastes good but no-one feels the need to guzzle it down after the game. Old friends saunter around the ground, enjoying the spring sunshine and making their farewells to each other. Trying to catch the eye of departing players in-between the changing rooms and their little bit of bar space in the Sturtridge or the Tetleys to thank and wish them well, and to seek their benediction.

I can still see a departing John Leslie with kids hanging off his arms as he dragged them towards the Tetley, as I made my stuttering effort to wish him well in his future. Did he know me from Adam? Nope. Did he need my wishes? Perhaps not, but I felt the need to give him my thanks after all the time we had spent together.

Here’s one more memory of one more last day in my Saints’ seasons. About an hour after the game had finished, I bumped into our family GP, an ex-Saints player from the 1980’s. He still watches regularly from the South Stand just in front of me and his visit that day was not a rare one. He was there heading into the Sturtridge with his kids to meet whoever it was who waited for them inside. We didn’t say much but we both scanned looks around the ground, and I thought I caught a wistful look in his eye. “Do you miss it, all this?” I asked. “Mmmm, you bet” he said, and ducked into the bar.

So if you’re reading this – you lot from Heroes, the folk in the South Stand, the loud bunch on the terrace at Wandies games, Mark & Lom, SWH walkers and fundraisers, The enlarged Cardiac Club but not including Martin the Diver, COYSDC lurkers posters and bores, my fellow Frooners, all you players who I know so well despite never really meeting you, Uncle Keith and Maggie, damn it even Mr PS – you bet too I will be missing you and I can’t wait until I see you all again, where we belong, at The Gardens, every Saturday next time around.

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