Plymouth to Portsmouth: 2nd April, 2023
7.30 am: Goooood morning! It’s Sunday in Plymouth where we are locked out of the station.
The entrance is surrounded 15 British Transport Police and some GWR station staff and one old bloke selling football supporters' paraphernalia (above).
I’m informed, tersely, that all eastbound trains are fully booked for the next few hours due to some football match (this is NOT what I was told at Penzance where I’d been advised just to turn up and board the train).
So, this being England, (and conforming to local cultural norms) we are being shuffled into orderly queues of those with previously reserved seats (along the footpath: mostly blokes 12 to 50 kitted up in green - the majority - or black supporters’ gear) and we unreserved types (inside the dank car park: a few families and other odds and sods who just needed to travel this morning).
A certain level of quiet pity is evident from supervising GWR staff: “You will get onto a train, we assure you….”
Those with seat reservations are sent into the station, grouped into 20 at a time, to get on to the train with police support.
This’ll be interesting!
English railway resignation at its most orderly
7.40am: A GWR officer arrived brandishing a fan of hand-written spare-seat cards. I score the 7th of 15 available as a group of footy blokes in front is anxiously waiting for some mate to arrive “with a bag from the offy”.
So here I am: sitting backwards with no window (and no breakfast…) surrounded by footballing boyos into the second beer of their Sunday morning (concealed in carry bags (“from the offy”), brandished more openly once the train gets going for a 3 hour sprint to Reading. The fans are going all the way into London and, worryingly, returning home by 5 hours of train after the match tonight…
AND all of this very orderly - and no doubt well rehearsed - start (to what is going to be a really long and wearing day for them) has been brilliantly organised by a team of 20 station staff and police in Plymouth and no doubt more teams further up the line. All we “unreserved” pariahs were found seats in amongst the hard-drinking supporters.
….
8.27: We accelerate out of Plymouth (wild cheers).
….
8.35am: I’ve located the backup supply of RedRock peanuts and yesterday’s flattening sparkling water for breakfast: good!
….
9.00am: Around me are pairs and fours of footy fans are lining up warm Heineken and Thatcher Gold cans on tray tables after checking that the on-train staff have their hands full elsewhere. Such FUN!
….
9.15am: The buffet staff trolley-rolled their way through the jollying crowd apologising for the meagre selection of spirit miniatures, but offering lots more beer.
The tinnier the music, the louder it will play from table groups. With alcohol intake, shouty conversation drowns out all else, including the instructions that “Wendy will take payment for the sandwich; she’s just a bit further behind on the next trolley.” “Wendy” was actually “Michael” whose face said: seen-it-all-before-and-will-see-worse-as-the-day-develops as he tapped cards in a more-or-less-organised manner after serving dreadful coffee.
9.25: The louder they drink, the more incomprehensibly accented the YAAELLLLLS IN NASAL VOEEWELS are reverberating through the seated, squatting, standing, reclining-over-mates crowd.
Lines of spirit miniatures and Diet Coke are washed down with Red Bill chaser.
People are out of their seats now, catching up with friends found by phone who are wandering and jumping seats. “Oy OY!! as they meet.
9.30: Accelerating into Dawlish along the concreted sandy beach - there’s a chorused shout of “ENGlish RiviERA!!” from across the drunken aisle.
10.45: I’m feeling invisible in this crowd; enjoying the “cultural” experience “up to a point, Lord Godber,”. There’s very much a happyish club-bar thingy happening behind me, where a few women and lots of younger blokes discuss recent company takeovers, Pilsner in hand, sharing crisps.
11.20: Walking into the carriage is swimming through a wall of rowdy, fumy, carbon-dioxide soup. A professional looking bloke got on the train at Swindon. He lasted about 10 minutes in the adjacent seat (as everyone was now swapping seats like mad) before pulling out his earbuds in frustration, saying: “I’m going down the back. It HAS to be quieter there!” I did not see this man again.
And it’s good natured and tribal and loud and stuffy and gregarious, and I’m so glad not to be making the return trip later tonight.
11.40: More than three long hours later, I’m standing near the doorway, waiting to disembark as we decelerate into Reading. Three middle-aged blokes standing next to me (the green team) are peering through an open door discussing whether to use a brimming toilet. “It’s ok if you just need to stand… but you wouldn’t want to be in there if the train lurches to the left…”
I did not hang around to find out.
The "green team" and others departing Reading for London
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