The Ned Wood Archive

Beyond The Sport Lies the Spiritual

It’s a long coach ride from Southampton to Penzance.  We’d had to stay on Bazza’s floor overnight so we could get up early enough.  Term had already finished so we couldn’t stay in the hall.  I don’t know why.  They throw you out on the Friday.  And if folk want to stay an extra night?  Tough.  So, there were five of us on Barry’s floor.  Barry was known as Bazza because he was a male and his parents had christened him Barry.  Why d’you ask?  Staying at his house were Percy (known as Percy cos he supported Lincoln – after Percy Freeman, please keep up), me, Chris, Tony and that guy with the motor who took us to the Theakston’s pub whose name escapes me.  The guy’s name I mean.  The pub was called the White Horse.  Five of us sleeping on the floor and we spent all night talking about the Genesis album.  That’s right, the four month old Genesis album.  Not the Bowie album or the Gabriel album or the Stranglers or anything like that.  The boring old crap Genesis album.  At least that is what Tony said.  Percy and Chris liked it.  Bazza and the other guy didn’t care.  I was saying nothing on account of trying to maintain my image as the guy who had moved on from Genesis who were extremely passed it and effete, even though yes, I had bought the album when it came out and yes I had bought the others, I had also bought the Stranglers single the day it came out, which none of them had, so I should be hipper, shouldn’t I.  Although all that proved was that Genesis and the Stranglers overlap more than either of them will admit.

The good news is that one of us wakes up with fifteen minutes to spare, so Baz and this other guy with the motor ferry us up to the Geology Building where we clamber onto the coach to take us for our two weeks’ rock bashing in the sun.  Shit.  Why am I doing this?  Five hours on a coach with no breakfast. And if that’s not enough, I’ll miss five games.  Five games that could be crucial to our promotion hopes, cos we’ve slipped a bit, although we have got games in hand.  I go through the NME I’ve still got trying to work out if there are any gigs in Cornwall I can see.  The Stranglers are playing Penzance and it’s the day after we leave.  I don’t believe it.  And now I’m getting sick from reading in the coach.

Things don’t get any better, cos I ring the Forest info line at five when we get to the hotel and we’ve lost 2-0.  We must be around seventh now, depends how the other results went.

So I don’t talk much that evening.  The rest of the guys wonder what this trip is going to be like, because it’s taken by Professor Keen-as-mustard-I-know-this-place-like-the-back-of-my-hand-Trotter.  Good for a laugh for an hour on a Monday, bad for a field trip with his just-another-outcrop-over-the-next-hill-before-we-go-back enthusiasm.  We are away for two weeks.  Two weeks of getting up, hanging round rocks, trying to spot greywackes, turbidites, and aulacogens. 

Actually it’s going to be fun.  It’s going to be fun, because I love being outside.  I love the scenery, I love the sea.  Hell, I even get interested by rocks sometimes.  That’s why I do this course.

You think I’m kidding?  You think I’m pining?  The truth is I knew she was going to say no.  Deep down inside, I knew before I asked her.  I had to ask her so there’d be no doubt in my mind in a week or two, or in a couple of months.  Or when I’m forty.  Yeah, there was a hope.  Yeah, I’m upset.  Really upset.  But I know, whatever I felt for her, she didn’t feel the same way. I gave it my best shot. No regrets. No tears goodbye. She wasn’t the answer.

So now I know I can start to live my life again.  For instance, I can start paying a bit more attention to the Trickies’ push for promotion.  Concentrate for the ninety minutes they’re playing and will a couple of goals in. I’ll be legging it over the rocks and pretending that if I get to the end before Harris or Veane, then Martin O’Neill and Tony Woodcock will get a goal each.  Which actually works, you know.  Especially as we beat Southampton at home on the Tuesday which is cool because Trotter pretends to be a Saints supporter and a couple of guys on the course actually are.  And then coming off the cliffs near Bude on the Saturday, I spot a phone box and give the info line a call.  The snaking line of weary students saunters along the coastal path as the voice tells me we’ve beaten Blackpool 3-0 (Withe 2, Woodcock).  And as I run, skipping, to join them, as I glory in the sarcastic comments, as I relish their incomprehension, as I crow out the score, I know that we’ll go up.  It’s only the end of March, there are ten games left, but I know, I just know by knowing, we’ll go up.

And I start planning the albums I’m going to by.  All this new punk stuff that’s coming out.  The Clash.  The Stranglers album.  Something, anything by the Jam.  And all these gigs there’ll be for all these new bands – I’ll be there.  And all this new stuff to wear instead of flares: black T-shirts, thin ties and drainpipes.  If it’s cool gear, I’ll get it.  Whatever it is that is happening Mr Jones, I’m going to be part of it.

And so here I am sitting on the edge of the cliff at Tintagel, which is this weird lump of rock stuck on the side of Cornwall where they say King Arthur built a castle.  However, as far as I’m concerned it’s a lump of rock.  Good old Devonian rock.  Here I am sitting on this cliff, gazing out to sea, dreaming about the future.  About those glorious events I’ve mentioned and about some I don’t know about.  Maybe I’ll find out what I’m really doing here.  Maybe I’ll decide what I want out of life.  Maybe Mary wasn’t real love.  Maybe it was just longing and admiration and maybe love is something more.  Maybe I’ll meet someone who can show me.  Yeah, she’ll be a bit like Mary, but there’ll be more.  Maybe she’ll support Forest and like David Bowie and early Roxy and the Stranglers.  You know like that scene in Diner, or High Fidelity for that matter, where the guy draws up a list of questions which his girl has to answer to make sure she’s the right one, like which is better: Hunky Dory or Man Who Sold the World; or Stranded or Country Life; or Terry Curran or Duncan McKenzie; or Walk on the Wild Side or Satellite of Love (a, b, b, & b).  Maybe not.  Maybe it never happens like that.  For a start, there just aren’t that many women in the world.  Not women that like you and like David Bowie and like the Shadows and like sitting on the edge of Cornwall gazing out at the Atlantic and like a diagonal cross-field pass which completely opens up the opposition.  And if she did exist, you’d never meet her.  She’d stand at the Bridgford, or sit in the top of the East Stand and never in the Trent End.  Or maybe she’d live in Rotherham and never go to the games.  Or maybe she would go and you wouldn’t think to ask her about Bowie or the Velvets, you’d just pass like ships in the night, cos you’d lost that day and neither of you wanted to talk to anyone.  

No, you can’t set yourself rules about love.  You never meet someone who fits you like a glove, you meet people whose spheres overlap yours and sometimes you care enough to try to make the most of it and sometimes you can’t be bothered.   And sometimes they can’t be.  And just once maybe you find someone where there’s a real spark that has nothing to do with music or football.  Someone you can grow together with so that you end up growing towards each other.  Or maybe you grow to greater heights together.  You like one tree and her like another, tall and separate and strong and warm and wild and free.  And you work at it long enough so what you’ve got together is magic.  Maybe by then, because you’ve grown so much together, although you can still tell which is you and which is her, you can’t tell which is the you you’ve always been and which is the you she’s helped you become.  Whatever, you’ll know you can’t live without her.

And as sure as I know Forest are moving on and music is moving on, so I’m moving on.  And I know one day I’ll find her, wherever she may be. Sitting on three hundred and fifty million year-old ocean floor, gazing out across two thousand miles of ocean, I’m ready to face the future, happy with where I am.

What I do know, is that there’ll always be a small corner of my heart that is forever Mary. She’ll be there always.

Along with Nottingham Forest and Terry Curran and Tony Woodcock.

Along with Patti Smith and Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Ramones and David Bowie and Tamla Motown.

Along with Elsa and Sonia.

Along with Annie… But that’s another story…