Paul Balm gives a summary of last weekend’s trip to Scotland in his own unique style
This was going to be a travelogue (not Travelodge we’ll probably get to them later) about our triple header in Braehead, Dundee and Fife. You’ve probably read these things before where I waffle on about what I’ve been doing during the last few days north of the border on a trip to Scotland, but between having the idea for this sometime before Friday and sitting here writing it on the Tuesday morning, I think we need to talk about it. We’ll get to it later but first let’s go back to the travelogue bit. I’ll spare you most of the details. You don’t want to know about everything I ate or how far away Scotland actually is so I’ll skirt around them a little.
The Good
Like I said this is really an article of two parts. We’ll get to the sour in a bit but first the sweet. We got to Braehead after a fairly easy journey filled with the usual kind of merriment, wonder and confusion at what it must be like living in a house miles from anywhere when all you’ve got to look out at is a road and a load of fields. OK it’s very pretty up there but the best description would be grim. It’s very, very grim and it must take a certain type of person to live there.
One of the best ways to know that you’re getting close to Braehead are the signs for Scotland’s Theme Park. These raise a couple of questions: 1) has it only got one? And 2) what is actually there? I can’t answer the first but a quick google search reveals that the answer to the second is not a lot. So, my advice would be – keep driving, you’re almost there.
After check-in was completed (open door, throw in cases, demand and get the biggest bed and then leave) the only place to go given I don’t have much of an interest in shopping is the pub. In our case it was the Lord of The Isles which is stuck between the hotel and the rink so it provided a handy stopping point on the way if nothing else. This gave us the chance to slowly catch up with everyone joining us (a group of about 16) and to pick up our Danny Stewart Christmas jerseys. These much loved (or loathed) items can clearly be seen across a lot of Panthers social media over the weekend and possibly the webcasts as well. We certainly stood out.
Do I need to talk about the games? I can’t remember much about them to be honest. Friday’s game was distinctly workmanlike, but we came away with the win which meant we were a third of the way towards what we’d put on our letters to Santa in the Wetherspoons earlier (apologies to any kids that couldn’t complete them, we used them all up). The stoppage for repairs to be done to the Plexi (incidentally it was in the same corner that Rob Bellamy put Bruce Richardson through the glass all those years ago) had us all hoping for an abandonment (especially as time passed) as we’d passed the two-thirds mark but when the teams came back, we did enough to win. Now anyone who knows me knows how much I don’t like to moan but something needs to be done about getting out of Braehead rink. You end up doing a gentle shuffle for 10 minutes down an alleyway at best 3 feet wide being watched by countless stewards who could be better used directing people towards the fire exits.
Back to the pub and a mellow chat about many things from the game we’d just to watched how easy Chase Pearson makes the game look to Brendan Harris’ hair to home-made fudge (and more importantly how it should be packed). By the time we were kicked out, the rain that had been forecast all day had set in and it was a much quicker dash back the hotel and sleep.
Saturday brought a clear morning and a brief walk around the shopping centre to allow me to marvel at the upstairs Greggs and to get a bit of morning air before breakfast and a trip over to Dundee.
I must have been to Dundee ice rink five or six times now but (apart from going to and from the train station) I’ve never really seen anything of Dundee city centre. With that dream in mind, we set off across country and then down into the centre of Dundee. That was the dream but, in the end, I just ended up in the pub so I can give you a couple of really good pubs to try in the centre of Dundee and one to avoid like the plague. The ones to try are Molly Malone’s – an Irish bar that serves food and has a nice chilled vibe to it and Dukes Corner which is right across the road from Molly Malones and has a bit more of an upmarket feel to it but does good food and has a decent selection of beers (just watch out for the hike to the toilets – positively Wetherspoon-esque). You should avoid the Top Dog Sports Bar just behind Dukes Corner as the beer selection was poor and not much better than how the beer tasted but it was quiet on Saturday night. Did I see much more of Dundee no. Not until we drove through it and went wrong on Sunday morning.
The Bad (and then Good)
Dundee is probably my favourite away rink to go to (don’t send me your complaints). I love the feel of the place, the atmosphere and the view. I think we played better than we had in Braehead but it wasn’t to be. We took a point but who popped up to score the winner – Otto Nieminen. It had to be really. Deflated and with heavy heart we trudged back to the rink bar to drown or sorrows but then news came in that Sheffield were losing to Coventry. Ours moods changed in an instant and thanks to Rich and his presumably dodgy stream we settled in to watch it on his phone. We were back to that all important two-point lead at the top. With that I went out onto the balcony to phone my wife and basically miss the funniest moment of the weekend. The whole bar which was like a little piece of England in Scotland given how many Panthers fans were in there were chanting at Jono to phone his wife (a Sheffield Steelers fan) and when he did, they were then chanting “What’s the score” at her. Unsurprisingly she hung up on him. We were now in a much better mood and my idea of an early night because the Weaver’s Mill was shut were ruined by multiple pints of Tennents. Even warnings of a 40-minute wait in McDonald’s couldn’t ruin my night and a raid on the Premier Inn vending machine was needed.
Sunday morning was, as they say in Scotland, (apologies for the spelling) driech. After breakfast in a pub identical to one in Nottingham, it was a foggy trip through the backstreets of Dundee and eventually over the Tay Bridge where it was so thick you couldn’t tell the difference between water and sky. The land beyond that point was a mixture of fields and the kind of woods where you see serial killers burying bodies in films. You felt like you were being watched the whole way by the woods. We did pass a place called Balmerino but sadly there was not time for a visit as we had an early check in to meet.
We got to the hotel in Glenrothes and it was like something from a dystopian version of the future where we were the last group of people on the earth exploring all the previously inhabited places. It was deserted. There was no one about, but a quick call to head office dragged someone from whatever they were doing and once again a check-in of chucking a case into a room and then leaving was in order as we were off to the Elbow Room. Another blissful afternoon followed watching formula 1 with FA Cup second round commentary, so every cheer sounded like a crash! All in all, it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
The Ugly
The forecast rain arrived once again and a quick sprint around the corner saw us into Fife Arena where I learnt again how little I like sitting behind the goal. It’s OK when your team are scoring towards you but when it’s up the other end it’s “Ooh, the light’s on we’ve scored, yay, who was it, who was it?” So, on we went into the game, Garet Hunt was showing us what we would have got if he had signed for us all those years ago and generally getting up our noses. And then with the score at 3-1 he put a seemingly innocuous check on Mitch Fossier that saw Mitch go down to his knees and then crumple to the ice. This is where things got ugly. As both sets of medics rushed towards the prone body of Fossier certain areas of Fife fanbase (and it has to be stated that it was only a small number of fans) were remonstrating with anyone to get Fossier off the ice and get things moving again. There’s nothing much there, we’ve all done it and it’ll happen again but as time went on and things weren’t happening, they either turned their attention to our fans or reacted to our fans having a go at them and things got a whole lot worse. Amidst all the to and fro, various gestures were made in both directions until a Fife fan (and I’m using the term in its very loosest sense) made a throat cutting gesture in our direction (and I know because I saw it). This just generated more anger from amongst our fans and more gesticulating from Fife fans, both male and female.
Meanwhile as all this went on Fossier was still down on the ice, a stretcher was brought out and eventually, he was taken off the ice and on to hospital for a check over. Complaints were made to security who promised they would review footage and act accordingly. Now to me that sounded like “We’ll wait for you to leave and then do nothing” but I was wrong and three of the individuals were asked to leave, much to the amusement of the travelling support. Much has been said since about what happened with fans claiming they were unfairly targeted and things were admitted but the actual intent wasn’t (How can there be no intent in a throat slitting gesture?) But we all saw what we saw. And amongst all that’s been said the only voice that hasn’t been heard is Fife Flyers. Are they waiting for the review of the security footage? We don’t know.
With Hunt in the box, Fossier off the ice and Tetlow being patched up after taking a puck to the face it was time to get things going again. Except it wasn’t. After another lengthy delay we ended up with the players going back to their dressing rooms and we were all left to decide what was going on (turned out that they were without a medic at this point) as their was no message from the announcer. How much easier would things have been if a little message had been made. We were passed two-thirds again so were we heading for an abandonment again? No, we played the last 7 minutes and celebrated like crazy when the empty net goal went in. Leaving allowed us to get further abuse from a fan standing in Block G next to ours who was seemingly telling us to go and getting more and more upset as we didn’t and let him know. We wanted out of there as much as he wanted us to be. Finally, we crawled out back into the rain and back to the Elbow Room. Maybe he wanted us to make sure we were taking the 6 points we’d got from Fife this season?
There was still a lot of anger in the air and emotions were still running pretty high when we got back to the Elbow Room, but over time and few soothing words, we all calmed down and life returned to normal. I think the thing that calmed most of us down (if not tiredness and booze) was the update that Fossier had been well enough to be discharged and travel home with the rest of the team.
Back To Normal
After all that we just settled in for a typical night of chat, good cheer, a few tunes on the jukebox and then eventually taxis back to McDonalds where we surprised the staff by arriving en masse, well it was in dribs and drabs as the taxis arrived and caused them to run out of French Fries. I think if anything summed that weekend up is was that last half hour or however long we spent in there crowded round the group of tables sticking our heads in the brown paper bags as we consumed what we ordered and joked about what each other had ordered – who knew you could get socks in a McDonalds?
That time in McDonalds was truly magical. It seemed to sum up everything that was good (and there had been plenty) or great about the weekend. In fact, all the bits where we were all together just sat about chatting showed the good in us all. We were a disparate group brought together for ice hockey in the same way we did week in and week out over the course of the season. As I said at one point If home games are the bread and butter, games like this as we travel to watch hockey are the jam filling or the icing on the cake. So, as I get all mawkish about everything, I’d like to say thank you: Jono, Adam, Tina, Ant, Steve, Frankie, Andy, Andy, Sara, Zara (Fudge), Danielle, Rich, Aaron, Beckie, Darren and Jo and everyone else who made the trip up and made the weekend so great.
The trip back was as normal and easy as going up had been. It did prove one point though. After a quiet breakfast where we saw no one, we were surrounded by Panthers fans every time we stopped. At Gretna Green and Wetherby there were Panthers fans everywhere. I guess it’s just part of being in that little bubble for a few days. In the end we all got home OK. The last messages were posted in the group chat (which reminds me I can leave it now!) and we were all reunited with our families and able to tell the stories like I’ve just made you sit through. If you were there, I hope this covers everything as well as it can. If you saw us and interacted with us thanks for doing it.
And finally…See you in Belfast in March!!!
You can follow Paul on Twitter @NotMrBalm
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