Gary Poacher and The Match Day Routine

See the title? A play on Harry Potter. Genius.
While I’m stuck at home in the snow I thought it might be a good opportunity to rustle up some more tantalising titbits about my unique life as a football mascot. I suspect it might be a good time to take you through my typical match day routine.
Over the years I’ve developed a sound routine that works really well for me. The trick for me was to retain that balance between being the mascot, which I love and being the fan. I have to confess being a fan is actually more important to me, but then again it should be. I can’t understand people who are mascots for clubs they don’t support. I can see where they get entertainment from it, but I couldn’t do this job for any other club at all. I recall back in 2001 as I considered a move to Shrewsbury there was a potential opening for a mascot at non league Oswestry Town. The Shrews mascot Len (a good mate of mine) was looking at keeping me in the job if I moved there. Luckily the relationship I was in broke down and I stayed true to my City roots.
Anyway as a fan I like to soak up a bit of the pre match atmosphere, so I get to the ground anytime after twelve and before half one. The norm is one, but if it was a particularly heavy Friday night / Saturday morning then it creeps closer to two! My port of call always has been and always will be the bar I refer to as The Centre Spot; although I think it’s now the Trust Suite. I’ve had a lot of great times in there, my 27th birthday party with a live band and my 30th birthday party with very few guests spring to mind! I really feel at home at Sincil Bank and in times of extreme stress I can go there and feel a lot better. Until full time.
So a few beers in there if I’m not driving, one if I am and it’s on to pitch side. It would be remiss of me to not mention that in the bar there is always a great chance to bump into some faces and have a chat. I’ll name a few, and please forgive me if I miss anyone but people such as Ken Eades (remember him from my Mrs P blog?), Ed Bruntlett (who does Mrs P sometimes now), Paul from Sawpoint (whom I confess I don’t actually know his first name but have been chatting to him for about six years) and a whole host of other faces. Recently the bar has been laid out with a degree of common sense and it’s now a real vibrant introduction to Lincoln City FC. I must confess I cannot recall a single game where I haven’t exchanged a minimum of three beer tokens for a plastic glass full of Fosters finest.
From there it is predictably into the ground. The last five seasons I have been granted a really good car parking space along the St Andrews side of the ground which I am immensely grateful for. The bag with Poacher in it isn’t light and so the fewer yards I have to drag it the better.
Once I get in the ground there are a few quick visits to do before anything serious occurs. I have to try and catch Jodie Tipper who runs Poachers Club. Jodie has been doing this for three years now attempting to market the kid’s fans scheme and coordinate the use of the suit as well. I have to say she is as good as is possible at it and I can recall only once maybe twice where the suit hasn’t been fit to wear on a match day. Quite often there is a presentation to make or a competition to judge so I have to be filled in on that.
Next stop is Casey for no official purpose other than to say alright. I like Casey he is a proper character and has taken a lot of stick over the years for the music and sound system, but he loves the club (almost as much as he loves Leeds) and he loves doing the job. Usually I’ll greet Casey with a ‘now than fatty’ and he’ll come back with a similar retort. In 2008/09 I had a girlfriend who was ‘less than approachable’ and nowadays he loves to give me a bit of stick about that. Normally at this stage Chris and Andy Vaughan are floating about as well as Bubs and the stewards Paul and Dave. I sincerely hope I got everyone’s name spot on as I often don’t actually get formally introduced to many people even though I’ve known them 13 years. This little stage of the day always involves some banter and it’s also where I get my complimentary programme, a nice touch originally brought in for me by James Lazenby.
I realised I finished the whole blog and didn’t mention that at this point I get to say hi to Alan Long. Every game its the same for 13 years, as soon as he spots me I hear the now immortal words ‘Here he is’, every game without fault. It’s comforting and as I mentioned in my last blog Alan and I have had to develop a bit of a double act over the last 13 years and that always starts at this point on a match day. We offer a few opinions to each other, check the itinery for any possible Poacher obligations and then I skulk off to squeeze one more pint in before returning to the ground. Anyway back to the main prose:
My changing room is just on the left down the tunnel and doubles as a media room, and triples as a kitchen area. I’ve got changed in here for probably eight years now, having previously been given box 17, the ‘staff box’ to watch the games in. I think it was Tim Poole the Imps commercial manager who saw the opportunity in having a spare box and the staff relocated so the club could expand its profits. In fairness this was a smart move and at least now I’m closers to the action.
My changing facilities have always been a source of amusement. Compared to most clubs I have a decent changing area, but I’ve had to share it with quite a few characters. The main one I recall is Mo, someone who you can read all about in the book ‘One Hell of a Season’. Mo was a star, used to look after the kit and make the tea. More to the point many of Keith’s players were very close to her and for a few seasons she made me a brew and helped me change. Mo still comes to the games and sits right by the tunnel in the Echo stand. We used to have a good giggle as myself and Mrs Poacher (my mate Lee back then) used to accuse her of watching us change. Now neither of us are too bad looking, but neither of us has a physical form that the fifty something’s appreciate. I still tease her to this day!
Then it’s on to the pitch, where the magic happens: all too often for the visiting team, but it happens! I’m not going to cover this here because pitch antics are definitely worth a blog or two of their own. However to add to the routine I always join the captains and officials in the centre circle for a photo. There are few occasions where this isn’t the case, usually if I’m hungover or if the suit is still stinking or wet from a previous use. Either way at least now if you see there’s no Poacher you know what the fault is.
There was one small reason I didn’t make the centre circle that might make you chuckle, and that was a game against Darlington back in maybe 2005/06. I got to the ground, had my pre match drink and went to get changed to find….. No suit. I was perplexed and started getting a bit shirty with people wanting to know where it was. Soon dawned on me that it was hanging out to dry in my utility room at home. I’m not sure many mascots get to a game and forget their suit!
Once the pre match routine is over its back to the changing area for a short wait until the mascots are changed. I never try and get changed at the same time; I’m not sure its social acceptable to have partial male nudity in the presence of kids. However sometimes I have to keep my calm because it’s amazing how slow some kids take to get changed! Seriously they have a football kit on, and they require some heavier clothes, it’s that not a five minute job? Even when inebriated I can undress in about half a minute and be reclothed before the clock strikes two. However some of these kids can still be trying to transfer from shorts to tracksuits after ten minutes! Ten minutes?!?! In that time I can be out of Poacher and into Mrs Poacher (that reminds me of this cracking anecdote about a hotel room and….. actually no maybe not).
So once changed I now skip the half time joviality. The suit tends to be damp due to my inability to run ten yards without perspiring a pint, and once that’s been sat for 45 minutes neither man nor beast would want it pressed against his skin. Therefore I now take my place in the stand to watch the game. I have a pick of stands and on most days a pick of seats as well, but there is only ever one destination for me – Right Side Stacey West. I’ve mentioned it before but I was Right Side Railway End back in 1986, and have been ever since. I know you get great views in the Coop (stand not the store. Don’t know what it is about the coop but I only once saw a pretty girl working behind the counter, and even she had the entire Elizabeth Duke collection of cheap tat on her fingers, and she reeked of chip fat) and in the Echo, but The Stacey West is my home, and always will be. The day the club handed that back to home fans was a very bright day indeed.
Back in 1986 it was my Dad who took me right side Railway End, and now 24 years on I still meet him right side Stacey West. He’s normally sat there looking older than he did the first time we went, but no less enthusiastic about the game. To go sentimental for a moment I’d sincerely hope in 24 years time I’m either sat there with him, or sat there with my nipper telling him what a great guy his granddad was.
So that’s more or less it. From there my experience is no different to yours. I laugh, cry (albeit once in 1998 v Wycombe), cheers and jeer as our beloved Imps struggle usually to a bore draw or crushing defeat. The only difference is at the end of the game I head round to the changing room, gather up a bundle of fur twice as heavy as when I put it on and stinking like a hobo and load it into my car. Then I drive home as the Hobo smell seeps into my upholstery and eventually my car starts to carry that ‘damp, sweaty foam’ smell. Match day over.
Ladies just in case that last sentence has whetted your appetite I’m usually free on a Saturday night, as I only go out if we win.

Me and Alan Long

For 13 years now Alan Long and I have been a double act out on the pitch at Sincil Bank, and long may it continue. Now you all know Alan, the ‘lets make some noise for the boys’ guy. He’s been our Master of Ceremonies now for one year longer than I’ve been donning the fur, and between us we have quarter of a century of volunteered years dedicated to the club. I’m extremely proud of the fact we have, and Alan is very much like me in that what he does, he does for the love of Lincoln City Football Club.

Before I continue I’d like to point out around the club there are so many people who do so much for no reward. I’m not suggesting the club are taking advantage in any way, far from it. Football clubs like Lincoln City need that goodwill because as a viable business they’d struggle. The product they sell is often overpriced (like all League Two football) and in order to maintain any sense of financial stability they need some people willing to put hours in for free. Even the guys who are paid to work at the club are often there well into the night.

Anyhow back to Alan. The first time I met Alan he was sat across a big desk in what is now the Sponsors Lounge, alongside a guy called Jerry Lonsdale. It was my interview as for the job as Poacher. The club were introducing a mascot courtesy of John Beck, who had tried to advance the clubs reputation in the city. John Beck was a real mixed bag; some of his ideas for the club were fantastic. The ‘Team Lincoln’ ethos in particular struck a chord However I think his interpretation of the word ‘expenses’ was a bit off, and how he heard ‘yes’ when he asked John Reames for a few days off after a dire 1-1 draw with Cambridge is anyones guess. However on the pitch we got results, but then the ball spent more time in the air than it did in the kit bag from Sunday to Friday. Anyway Mr Beck decided he wanted a mascot at the club, and the forward thinking commercial team of Jerry Lonsdale and his then assistant Kerry France actioned that. Alan had been doing his job for around a year and he was invited in on the interview.

Over the years Alan and I have had some cracking times on the pitch. The 2003 Play off Final sticks firmly in my mind, and without ruining a future blog all I’ll say is both Alan and I had a ball doing our Sincil Bank routine on the pitch in front of 20,000 odd people.

I also recall me obtaining free tickets for an England under 21 game and taking Alan along as a helper as well. In the early days where I went normally Alan would accompany me but as the years have worn on it’s become tougher and tougher. I recall us going to England v Germany at Valley Parade back when Bradford were a top flight side. I stripped off in the changing area and went out onto the pitch with Alan watching on (not watching me change, he’s a happily married man). That night me and around fifteen other mascots stood alongside the teams for the national anthem. There is something extremely moving about being stood like that for a national anthem, and I’ll never forget that experience.

The actual event was over quickly and we went back up to the changing room. As usual I was ‘quite warm’ and so stripped down to the old Calvin Klein apple catchers (no boxers when I used to do Poacher, I preferred some security), when who should walk in but Benito Carbone, heading up to thank us for our efforts. Without thinking I shook his hand and said pleased to meet you, clad in nothing but my white, sweat laden CK’s. I think he left England shortly after that and hasn’t been seen since. These were actually the same pair that troubled my vision at Shrewsbury from an earlier blog. I still have them but now I prefer a much more expansive under garment when performing.

Wow. Never thought I’d discuss my underwear choice on the internet.

I think without Alan I’d have been tempted to hang up the fur years ago. The stories I’m telling on here are all amusing (hopefully), but happen once in a blue moon. Trying to rouse 1,750 for an LDV Vans Trophy game with Morecambe is as thankless as trying to get layabout students to pay their own way without them throwing a fire extinguisher from a roof. However with Alan on the pitch I have someone I can actually bounce off at any point, and on those quieter days I can try and put him off his job – my favourite game.

You’ll all be familiar with Alan going around the ground and firing up the fans, but I always do the very best I can to put him off. As he heads across to the away fans I’ll always whisper something to him about the away team, and desperately try and rattle him before he welcomes them, and occasionally I think it has worked.

The obvious targets are Grimsby or our other local rivals. He isn’t surprised now when he leans towards my suit and hears ‘Codhead scum’ or ‘town full of doleys’ or even ‘small town in Wales’ (Hereford and Shrewsbury I’m talking to you). However perhaps the one game that really sticks in my mind is Rotherham from a few years ago.. Alan went along the front of their fans and he said something like ‘are we going to say hello to the away fans Poacher’, at which point I whispered in his ear ‘No, they’re probably all too smacked up to hear us’. As he began his chuckle I launched into the usual unsubstantiated tirade I reserve solely for that matchday moment: ‘I bet that teenage girl at the front is pregnant anyway’, (cue Alan chuckles), ‘hey there’s a guy up there not wearing a tracksuit, he must be the guy in Rotherham who actually has a job’, and other slurs that may be too offensive for even my blog. Alan struggled on chuckling as he went, but as soon as we’d moved away from the fans he came over still laughing to himself. I thought that was it until I turned up for Monday morning at work at Swinton branch of Jacksons. Swinton is close to Rotherham and one of their guys had come to the front of the Millers fans to say hi – and heard my little tirade! I left Jacksons not long after!!

Even to this day I do the same thing, although the perfect pro Alan no longer lets it bother him. In fact against Bury as he went over to their fans I said ‘Here they are, Manchester United adopted little brother, just like an African Angelina Jolie child’. I’m not sure he even heard me.

Another thing Alan likes to do is mention something personal about me on the pitch. After a fairly raucous night on the town recently I ended up in Chez Radwans at 3am wearing my cousins high heeled shoes (strange fella my cousin) and toppling all over the place. Unbeknown to me one of our stewards had also spotted this. Next day I’m on the pitch (it was during Chris Suttons reign so let’s just say we lost) and Alan calls me over. ‘Poacher, is it true you were spotted in town last night wearing Mrs Poachers high heels?’ To people in the stand it meant nothing, but under the suit I went as red as my outer fur.

So that’s Alan Long. On matchday he is the first person I bump into, I’ll always search him out and chew over the last game or upcoming fixture for a few minutes, and out on the pitch we bounce off each other now like all the best comedy duos, Hale and Pace, Mitchell and Webb and those two smug looking Geordies who do the jungle. Thing is we do it all for the love of the Imps.

So far so good

Okay so what you have been reading so far is the first few chapters of my ‘mascot book’ that I started to knock together in 2006. Tempus publishing were interested in it and so I put a few chapters together and sent it off to see what they thought. Tempus have released books for lower league players such as Jimmy Glass (the keeper that saved Carisle a few years ago) and they’ve done some mascot stuff to. They came back to me and said they would definately like to press on with the book, but that Lincoln City FC had to purchase £200 at £8 a shot to sell in the club shop. My days as a author ended there.

Of course who’d have thought that the popularity of blogging would see my take on the mascot world finally here for people to read for free on the internet! Personally I never wanted to actually be an author, I just wanted people to laugh a bit at the mascot world and possibly find it interesting. Hope you all do.

Over the coming few months I shall be recounting the rest of my mascot life, from the manic 2001 Shrewsbury ‘Battle of the Mascots’ (which will be two or three blogs long. A lot happened, those Welsh are mental)(just to clarify I know Shrewsbury isn’t in Wales, its a dig. Thanks). I’ll also blog about my appearance on Ant and Dec, the time Poacher went to Wembley, TWO play off finals and of course the time I got too drunk to drive to the 2002 mascot grand national, so ended up doing laps of a Sheffield housing estate. All to come on my blog!

I’d also like to have any mascot related questions as well. If you have anything you’dlike to ask, I’m going to be as candid as I can.

I also plan on telling you about the day to day life of a mascot as well, the sorts of characters I meet and the general politics that surround us. I’ll give you a brief idea of the sort of thing I mean.

This Saturday was the big bottom of the league clash between us and Hereford as you might know. You might also know that Friday marked the 32nd year of me being alive, and therefore I hit the bright lights of Lincoln for a few bevvies. A few turned into a lot, and a lot turned into breakfast. Next thing you know it’s 9am and I’ve drunk myself sober and am required at the game in just 3 hours.

Fast forward 3 hours (i can’t adequately describe the pain of those three hours so its better to skip them) and I find myself huddled over a coke in the Exec Club barely able to speak let alone stand. The suit is waiting for me and everyone thinks its hilarious to give me some stick about being hungover. If I’m naming names then Casey, Alan Long and the photography team of Andrew, Chris and Graham. Bastards!!

Anyway after the hilarious ritual of hitting me in the tummy and talking about greasy food I managed to get myself into the changing room where Jodie Tipper had mentioned I might find a dirty suit. Jodie is the lady who works tirelessly in Poachers corner pushing the Poachers kids club. Recently she has taken over from Rob Noble as my ‘contact’ at the club, something Robis over the moon about! His comments to me when I mentioned about the minging suit was ‘at its not mine to look after anymore’…. cheers Rob!

Jodie wasn’t wrong. The suit was absolutely soaking wet, stinking of homelessness and as appealing to wear as a ton of horse manure. I crawled into it anyway, still feeling as rough as the actual second I popped the last triple vodka and red bull down my cake hole. The suit was revolting, the dampness had almost frozen on the suit so I was essentially getting a ready made cold sweat and shivers.

Of course when you go out on the pitch none of this can be spottedby the fans, so the usual waving and dancing ensued, although every movement I made meant someone elses stale odours were being rubbed into me. Everytime Alan Long approached the suit he commented on how smelly it was. Most embarrasingly for me Alan suggested I hug the females sponsors as apparently Poacher loves a ‘yummy mummy’. I think what Alan should have said is ‘I love making Poacher hug people when he smells like a tramp’. You have to love Alan.

So there in a nutshell is just a tiny glimpse of the day to day stuff. Every match, every event almost every time I pull on the suit there is something worth blogging about, whether its me being accused a staring at cheerleaders in my suit (in my defence I wasn’t, you’d have noticed. That suit leaves little to the imagination believe it or not) or whether its me absorbing the sort of nastiness even pigs don’t get in a sty.

So I think tomorrow I shall try and take you through my 13 year relationship with Alan Long, another voluntary worker like myself who dedicates time to the club purely for the love of it.

Introducing….. Mrs Poacher

Around this time I decided to bring out the ‘Mrs Poacher’ suit. When I got my new suit the old Poacher was stored in my loft with a view to overhauling its appearance and turning it into a ‘Mrs Poacher’ Mascot high jinks are always hard when there’s no-one to bounce off, so I took a leaf from the Notts County mascots book and introduced my wife for a game against Hartlepool on a Friday night. I was only attending thanks the England game the next day.

At first I took the suit to Tim Hall, the West Ham fan that I worked with. He seemed keen to fill the suit and I believed he wanted to do it for all the right reasons. Between him and his good wife Beth they managed to change the appearance from work weary Poacher to abhorrently ugly Mrs Poacher. Out went the white hair and in came a disastrous blond mop. Facially we had to work with the same ‘bone structure’ so the outcome was a rather butch looking girl with stunning eyelashes and a boxers jaw. Beth even tore up a pair of her pyjama’s to make bows for Mrs Poacher’s hair! We took her to the second Rockingham event I attended which meant free tickets for Tim and his whole family. Tim is a big motor racing fan but I don’t think he fully expected the Mrs Poacher thing to be a hard gig. How wrong he was. The suit sadly wasn’t fit for purpose and in front of 32,000 people he struggled to see exactly where he was. After this less than successful outing the suit was put in the loft and forgotten about.

The problem was that I needed someone to wear the suit. There were plenty of takers but all would have wanted to steal my limelight. When I’m Poacher being centre of attention is my second consideration behind entertaining the fans, but when considering someone to share the pitch with me being number one becomes of utmost importance. Call it selfish, greedy or whatever you like but I’m afraid I don’t want to be upstaged by someone wearing a suit I toiled for many hours over the night before. The obvious answer was Ken Eades. In truth if Ken hadn’t been let down by the club before I probably wouldn’t have bothered bringing the suit back out. Despite working hard for hours the suit still resembled the mascot equivalent of a gin soaked old hag and as Poacher I imagined I’d have a really attractive wife.

The visitors were Hartlepool, relegated from League One last year. I’d met their mascot a few times, a guy called Stuart Drummond who took on the alter ego ‘H’angus The Monkey’. There’s a legend in the North East that a monkey was shipwrecked and washed up on the coast, only to be hung by the locals who thought it was a French man. Personally I’d have thought that this incident would be best swept under the carpet, but obviously Pool fans thought it was worth celebrating, hence H’angus. Stuart himself caused a stir when as ‘H’angus’ he ran for mayor of Hartlepool and won! He took his victory very seriously and immediately ditched the mascot suit to actually become mayor in his own right, which was surprising given his police caution that came after a game in Blackpool where he was shown to be over the drink drive limit on the pitch. He’d enjoyed some of the hospitality along the Golden Mile and rolled up at Bloomfield Road with a blow up doll in a Blackpool shirt. I hear he wasn’t far from being arrested and the club issued him with a strict code of conduct to adhere to. Hearing this man was mayor of his town almost defied common sense.

The new H’angus was called Simon. Or Steve. I can’t actually recall as I referred to him as H’angus. He rang me and left a message Wednesday night, I left a message on his phone Thursday and he reciprocated with another message Friday night. By the time I went into the bar to find an excited Ken Eades I was still no closer to discovering what H’angus actually sounded like.

There was no such fear with Ken. He sounded as confident and excited as the day we played MK Dons. Once again he took his seat with a couple of stiff whiskeys to help his nerves, and once again the chicken hat came along for the ride. I grabbed a pint and went over for the pre match banter.

My pre match banter was doomed to failure. No sooner had I settled into a seat on Kens table was I whisked away by James Lazenby. I was required for a photo shoot on the pitch whilst a cheque from somebody was handed over to somebody else. I protested as I had a full pint and James allowed me to take it into the ground and drink it there. Now here was a real honour. The FA does not allow alcohol within sight of the pitch or the fans and to my knowledge nobody had ever had a pint pitch side. I got a perverse feeling of being an A list City celeb as I made my way to the changing room with a cold pint of Fosters in my hand. James looked after it for me and I changed.

The shoot was the same as usual. I pose, ruffle a kid’s hair and perhaps pinch a nice ladies bum. I shared the photo with Splat The Cat and the irony wasn’t lost on me. Two weeks back they’d been desperate for someone to fill it and had let me down, now I put a load of work into Mrs Poacher and Splat appears with me hearing nothing in advance at all! That’s the way mascot life is though, we sometimes feel a bit like mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed on dirt.

I jumped briefly out of my suit so I could fetch Ken from the bar but I took a few seconds to stand in the tunnel and drink my pint. Players came past me and had a few comments and I got a menacing look off a steward but I was going to have my moment. Once finished I sensibly took the glass back to the bar and told Ken it was time. H’angus who had been drinking at a table three down from where we sat earlier joined us.

H’Angus was a committed mascot. He asked if he could stay out for the whole game to cheer his side on. For me this is impossible, as my suit has restricted sight and airflow meaning anything more than half an hour gives me the sensation of being suffocated. It was only when he explained he got twenty pound a match to perform I understood his dedication. He wanted to make sure the job was his for a long time as he got free travel, entry to the game and twenty quid to spend on anything he chooses! I swung it for him anyway and off he went out onto the field. Before he did I asked him if he could remember Stuart Drummond to which he replied ‘course I do, he’s our mayor’. Seems like mascotting is a good thing to have on your CV.

Ken changed with the passion of a twenty-year-old lad and couldn’t get out on the pitch quick enough. He followed me everywhere acting as effeminately as he possibly could and worryingly doing an excellent job. I’m sure his wife must have had doubts as she saw him mincing around the pitch behind me like Julian Clary doing Pudsey Bear. He even managed a few autographs, which was amazing considering he couldn’t see his hand in front of him. Ten minutes before kick off he seemed to disappear but quite a lot does evade your view when suited and booted so I thought nothing of it.

It was only when I got in just after kick off I realised why he’d gone, because he was absolutely knackered! He’d given it his best shot and had almost run himself into the ground. I got in the changing room and found him slumped in a chair covered in not one but at least seven layers of sweat and looking three stone lighter. He gasped something about ‘wonderful experience’ and ‘thank you’ before changing into his clean clothes, which were instantly soiled by his perspiration. Paul Owen one of our best stewards took him round to his seat, and on coming back remarked ‘I’m not sure that old boy will make it home!’ I knew Ken and I knew full well he’d be back the next week. His day was rounded off as we halted a run of three defeats and ran out 2-0 winners.

 

We managed to beat Rochdale 7-1 in my Dads first game of the season a couple of weeks later. He normally made at least one or two a year, and last year it had been the 5-0 thumping of Grimsby. As I got changed he remarked that he wouldn’t mind a go at being Mrs Poacher and in a haze of beer talk he agreed to do it at our home game with Darlington. I recorded his request on my mobile phone so he couldn’t back out later, and sure enough three weeks later he turned up at my house at twelve o’clock to collect the suit.

We did the usual thing of having a couple before the game. He parked in my spot and we got the usual glares from security men. They seem to think that my space, exactly two feet from the entrance to the ground is a little too cushy for someone who doesn’t need disabled access. Arriving in my Dads car threw them further as they’d come to expect a battered old red Rover 214 instead of this shiny new white Astra (red and white, you see City through and through). We were watched as I usually am until I pulled a big blue bag large enough to contain two human bodies from the boot. This convinced the stewards I was deserving of my space. After dropping the suits off and quickly raiding the club shop we went into the bar.

We bumped into an old friend of my Dads called Wayne Raithby who still goes to games with his eighty odd year old Dad Fred. They are a father and son team that I hope my Dad and I will emulate for years to come. We swapped a few stories and theories as to what was going to happen and sank the standard issue four pints of overpriced watery ale. I think its standard that football clubs serve bad beer, but I can’t put my finger on what it is that causes it. It may be the student bar staff that hasn’t pulled many pints in their careers or it may be watered down to make it go further. Either way I don’t care as my money is at least lining the clubs pockets and not some pot bellied southerner. Plus the drinking environment is excellent. Few clubs have such a friendly supporters bar that both sides can frequent but at City we have excellent facilities. The bar gets busy buts its spacious and there is a bar at both ends of the elongated area. Six or seven big TV screen show Imps games from the past few weeks and today we were watching replays of us beating Barnet, Rochdale and Swindon on a loop. Apart from the fact not everyone was wearing red and white I could have been in heaven.

A little worse for wear we came out of the Centre Spot Bar as it’s officially known and made our way round to get changed. It had been Children in Need the night before so we had Pudsey Bear with us to do some collecting. Pudsey wasn’t the official bear but instead a copycat bear with the eye patch and a Lincoln shirt on. That’s not to say the money didn’t go to Children in Need, of course it did but along with my Dad we looked a sight and a half heading out onto the pitch. I went up the tunnel first, flanked by my pink and blue haired Mrs Poacher followed by a soiled looking poor mans pudsey and we all wore Lincoln shirts. We were giving five and a half thousand people the chance to see what magic mushrooms can do to you!

In the mouth of the tunnel I spied a yellow football so I kicked it out onto the playing surface as I came out. The players usually hoof one out as they come out so I thought it’d be a good chance to mimic them. How wrong I was. Darlington striker Barry Conlon thought I’d done it on purpose and he drop kicked a second ball directly into my face, which he followed up with a foul-mouthed tirade about what he’d do if I did it again. As I wheeled away more in shock than anything I felt the warm flow of blood dripping from my head down inside the costume.

I’ve been ‘assaulted’ by a few players before. I recall joining in a kick about with Rotherham players back in my first season and kicking a ball away after they passed it to me. One of their forwards, Paul Warne kicked the ball so it hit me on the bum as I turned away from him. That was funny. Similarly I pulled the same stunt a couple of years back with an Exeter substitute who had to retrieve his ball after I whacked it into our fans behind the goal. He gave me a foul-mouthed tirade on the pitch much to the amusement of our fans that saw me turn my back on him and walk away. In that context his reaction was funny. Barry Conlons was not.

He had his little say in front of our family stand that housed two hundred or so youngsters and parents from local schools. They will have heard every word of it. When he kicked the ball at me I was facing him but due to restrictions of my suit I couldn’t actually see him. Conlon might not have realised but I’d also been off work for a few days the week before with migraines, which I’ve heard are not helped by vicious blows to the face. However I am a professional volunteer so I gave him the obligatory comedy gesture and walked away to focus on giving my Dad his experience.

As you may have sussed through the course of my story Dad is a no nonsense man who I could never have imagined dressing up as Mrs Poacher, and yet his love for the club took over. He walked like a woman, posed like a woman and smelt like a mixture of fresh sweat and beer. The fans always love the Mrs Poacher outfit as well. Once my old Poacher outfit was decommissioned myself and Tim and Beth Hall (some friends of mine) set about hacking it up to make Mrs Poacher. I went into a fabric store and bought some pink fabric (!) and gave her a Sid Vicious haircut for the new century. I don’t know if it’s the horrendously ugly face, the wild punk hair colour or just the fact that two grown people pretend to be a married pair of furry Imps that amuses the fans, but love it they do. This was only the third outing for the suit at a game in two years and as usual ‘she’ was causing a minor stir. Dad couldn’t see his hands let alone hold a pen so he tried to stay back from the crowd and just wave. I had second-guessed him on this so prior to the game I’d had a quick jaunt round all his friends in the bar and let them know he was doing it. They gave him a quick heckle and a few wolf whistles. I could feel him turning red through the suit!

I led him across the pitch to wave at the away fans. Alan Long normally goes round all four sides of the ground and gets them to cheer to try and gee them up before the game. I love to play up to all the stands but I was surprised how well my Dad did it. I wondered if he’d secretly been dressing up in sight restricting suits for a while….

Just before the players come out I took dad to the centre circle and let him admire the view. He stood in awe and rotated himself through three hundred and sixty degrees admiring Sincil Bank from a perspective he hadn’t experience in 53 years of being a fan. I actually felt guilty at having positioned him over one of the sprinklers they like to turn on before the game to grease the pitch up a bit to suit our new passing style of football. That guilt soon left me when he jumped three foot in the air as a jet of ice-cold water shot up his shorts without prior warning. I decided to alleviate his potential anger and jumped on one myself to ensure I was good and wet. After the teams came out and we made our way off the field I made sure I flicked my soaking wet costume in the direction of Darlo players, stewards and in particular ball boys.

The game was frankly abysmal. We lost 3-1 and we were lucky it wasn’t seven. I didn’t go out at half time instead enjoying watching a kid’s game on the pitch with my Dad. It was only after the game, full of pent up rage at the result that I needed an outlet. After all tomorrow was my 28^th birthday and I hadn’t been allowed the small concession of having City win and thus ensuring a good mood until Tuesday at least. I had only one avenue I could explore.

I positioned myself behind the advertising hoarding that met with the edge of the tunnel, and awaited Barry Conlon. He’d only got on for twenty minutes and had hardly had a touch, so as well as his baldhead I could recognise him by his perfectly clean shirt. Sure enough he came my way and fuelled by incessant anger and sudden injustice at the assault I had my say.

‘Conlon. Over here. You owe me an apology mate’. His face soured. ‘Why? What for?’ ‘You kicked the ball right in my face. I’m the mascot and you split my lip’. I underlined my point by flicking aforementioned thick lip out and in his direction. ‘Not me mate’. This was a ridiculous statement, as I knew it was him. He was the only bald headed player on their team and in addition he was six foot odd and as distinctive as an anorexic at Weight Watchers. ‘You’re out of order Conlon, I know it was you I saw you’. With that he had decided enough was enough and that my slanderous comments were worthy of a slapping. He cut across the mouth of the tunnel and headed straight for me.

This is where a bit of good old-fashioned common sense comes into play. I wanted my say and I intended to have it, but it wasn’t going to be at a cost. Just seconds before Conlon came across I’d briefed one of our stewards, a lovely Leeds fan whose name escapes me, that I’d be having my say. She warned me to stay off the pitch and not to swear and I adhered to her wishes. When Conlon decided to implement a second dollop of North Eastern justice she stepped across me to ensure he couldn’t come through. I felt safe enough to continue my fight for an apology.

‘Out of order mate. Come on then’. I began to feel my father’s blood rising in me. He had a temper in his day and like David Banner it pops out every so often. Further confrontation was avoided thanks to Joey Hutchinson of Darlington who had clearly seen the earlier incident. He bundled Conlon down the tunnel and shouted ‘Look mate he’s sorry, just leave it’ in my direction. Either way I had no choice but to leave it as Conlon had gone and I’d look pretty silly arguing with myself.

No sooner had I returned home than I put together an email complaining to our stadium manager that I’d been assaulted and was contemplating criminal action. After all I read earlier in the week that prisoners who had been forced to come off heroin inside had been given compensation, and if that’s fair and right then I should have a slice of Barry Conlon’s cake. After all Darlington are one of those League Two anomalies that have copious amounts of money thrown at them every season and yet always fail to impress. Its unlikely Barry Conlon earns less than three grand a week playing up north, and if that’s what he gets for twenty minutes dire football every seven days I think he could have afforded me an apology.

I’d like to argue that my indignance is a result of the awful actions of the man and not some knee jerk reaction to my birthday being spoilt. Sadly that isn’t the case. I may have taken steps for an apology against Paul Warne and the Exeter lad had we lost those games but we didn’t, we won them both and I left happy. Had Rotherham hammered three past us as Darlo did then I’d probably been tempted to ask Warne for an apology as well. If I got it then at least I’d leave the ground with a victory of sorts, a victory that Conlon chose not to grant me.

I believe that love us or loath us mascots are part of football today and especially in our league play a particularly prominent part. Okay at Manchester Utd where a qualified actor is on fifty quid an hour to pose for pictures they not play a part then perhaps I’d take it, but at Sincil Bank or York Street where a die hard fan gets nothing for sweating manically inside a foam suit for an hour every Saturday our presence is important. The kids love us and parents love anything that quietens kids down at a football match. The sponsors still love us just like in the Premier League, but more for the banter than the photo. At Old Trafford a picture with Fred The Red is great for the multi millionaire property developer to take home to the kids. At Lincoln when a group of half cut builders appear for a photo flanked by their local boy ‘done good’ businessman it’s the craic they are after. Therefore I feel that players like Barry Conlon should at least admit when they’ve done wrong to us, as we are small-unsung heroes of football. It wouldn’t have cost him any of his ‘hard earned’ cash and if it made a volunteer worker who is motivated by love of their club feel better then he should be a man and do the right thing. It’s us that pay his wages.

Mind you Mr Quaker the Darlo mascot was in the news last year when he was arrested with a massive quantity of cannabis in the boot of his car, and ex chairman George Reynolds is currently being housed in one of Her Majesty’s own hotel for a spot of swindling, so perhaps if they added Barry Conlon and an assault charge they’d have a hat trick of felonies.

Another Trip To Boston…..

My ninth season as a Poacher was interrupted early on by several big events in my personal life. I was studying to become a clinical hypnotherapist and discovered that my course clashed with home ties against Notts County, Hartlepool and promoted Accrington Stanley. The only home game my course allowed me to attend in the first three months was Walsall and sadly that clashed with my brothers wedding at which I would be best man. Four early season games that I’d have to miss as well as an away trip to Stockport I’d pencilled in as a good one for Poacher to go to.

Thankfully the FA stepped in and helped me out. Both our clashes with Hartlepool and Accrington coincided with England games and our matches were moved to a Friday night. I was happy I’d get to see Accrington as they’d had a rough fifty-four years and I expected a relatively easy tie for the Imps.

Still we kicked off with a 1-1 draw against Notts County whilst I sat in a classroom in Brough, East Yorkshire learning how to make lifelong smokers give up their dirty habit. I did off course have my mobile phone in my pocket which vibrated every time there was some news! A week or so later I also missed a 2-2 draw at home with Walsall as I stood on a lectern in a church near Boston giving a reading at our kids wedding. I believe it was somewhere between the words ‘you will feel no rain’ and ‘together forever joined in love’ that my trouser pocket vibrated wildly to inform me we’d gone 2-0 up. By the time I stood at the bar merrily purchasing my first vodka and red bull of many I was alerted to the final 2-2 scoreline by yet another massage on my outer thigh.

In between we had a big friendly with Liverpool. Considering most people I work with had no interest in Lincoln City it was surprising how many people I didn’t know very well sidled up to me in the weeks before and asked how ‘the mascot thing’ was going. At first I didn’t put two and two together, I just thought somehow I’d finally convinced people I was a minor celebrity. I was just about to call Ant and Dec about going into the jungle when those same people saw me again and generally enquired as to whether I could get tickets for the Liverpool game. The penny dropped but my kinder side didn’t so I trundled on down to Sincil Bank to get hold of something like fifteen tickets. I didn’t tell those people who wanted them that they were on free sale and plenty were available. If they thought I was doing something good for them that meant I had a good deed in my back pocket in return.

The game itself was a bit of a nonentity for me, which is a shame. I know a lot of mascots revel in the limelight and love the big stage, but as this wasn’t competitive I couldn’t get excited. That hardly changed when I ran out in front of eight thousand fans making as much noise as a set of traffic lights.

Liverpool had brought a few first teamers including Jan Kronkamp, Robbie Fowler, Salif Daiao and Mark Gonzalez. I knew Robbie was an obvious target for a bit of banter, so I made my way over to him for a kick about. The Liverpool lads had a bit of a chuckle and passed me the ball a few times which I thought was excellent, with Salif Daiao looking at me as if he’d never seen a mascot before. I enjoyed the incredulous look on his face when he passed me the ball almost as if he thought I was a new Liverpool signing.

The Liverpool team were visiting on the back of our sale of Jack Hobbs to them, a deal they were able to hijack when Arsenal refused to include a money spinning friendly in their purchase of him. Liverpool were here as a kind gesture for us nurturing a talented lad from the age of nine. Robbie Fowler wasn’t in the same charitable mood.

I made my way to him and held my hand out for a shake. I’m not a big Robbie fan and I never have been but I did want to shake his hand because he’s a star and it looks good. If anyone shows interest in a mascot there’s always two questions ‘ever had a fight’ and ‘ever met anyone famous’. I planned to just answer one of those with Robbie. He may have fancied answering the other question as he suddenly came over all aggressive. ‘F**k off mate, we doing the warm up’ was his response to my attempted handshake. Which was, I thought, very rude and grammatically incorrect. So I told him. ‘Come on Robbie don’t be a miserable sod, shake my hand’, choosing not to mention his poor grasp of the English language. Luckily for me he didn’t back his scouse accent up with some scouser scuffling and he shook my hand with a smile.

I missed most of the game as the same fifteen people I got tickets for also wanted autographs so I hung around the exit waiting for the substituted stars to try and leave early. I collared Robbie again for a signing session and surprisingly he was still a miserable sod to me even out of the suit. I’m informed the game ended 2-1 to Liverpool but that didn’t matter. The club had received some good publicity for the game and I’d received some kudos for fraternising with the famous faces of the premier league. Everyone’s a winner.

The real winner was Lincoln City FC. Jack Hobbs fee was swelled by many thousands of pounds with the appearance of Liverpool and a lot of local kids got to see some real stars. Rafa Benitez was exemplary all the way through the game signing autographs rather than watching his team. If more of the big boys acted in a responsible manner like the Liverpool squad and officials then League Two wouldn’t be so cash starved. Lincoln is a good way off the beaten track with Notts Forest the only big club close by. These days they are not the same crowd draw they used to be as European Champions so clubs like us need the odd big side to make a sacrifice and come down the A46 to help us out.

The Poacher road show still hadn’t kicked off during a league game by the time we travelled to Field Mill, Mansfield. By then I was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms from live football. My symptoms included not being able to differentiate between new signings Adie Moses and Ryan Amoo, constant chatter about The Premiership and spending Saturday afternoon’s texting Radio Lincolnshire my view of a game I wasn’t attending. When the dependable Stimmo asked me if I fancied going to watch us and ‘Town’ I was ready to bite his hand off. I even offered to drive.

Geographically Mansfield is closer to us than any other league ground, and yet it doesn’t feel like a local derby. They hate Notts County and as you may well have guessed we hate Grimsby and Boston. Even travelling there you can’t help feeling you’ve driven further than you have. The safe flat roads of Lincolnshire are replaced by the hills and bends of Nottinghamshire, and the accent changes from farmer to miner in twenty easy miles.

Casey had come to the game with a mate of his and we met up in ‘The Early Doors’, which is a Tom Cobleigh style pub just down an embankment from the ground. He had travelled without a ticket but had been assured that he could pay on the Mansfield turnstile and move across to the City fans. Sadly for him this wasn’t the case and along with thirty other Imps fans he was thrown out of the ground after paying at the Mansfield turnstile. I was okay, as I’d gone through the usual correct routes for our tickets. Casey and the throng of wronged Imps fans weren’t reimbursed, nor were they compensated in any way. In response to demands for their money back at least Mansfield called the police, and all the fans were escorted back to the Early Doors to wait for the train home. Casey wasn’t getting a train though; we’d agreed to give him a lift, which he would doubtlessly regret.

On the pitch I was looking forward to seeing Mansfield Town mascot ‘Sammy The Stag’. They had got a new guy in the suit and that was good news for me given my history with the old mascot, but I shouldn’t have really anticipated anything. He walked across to his own fans, waved and disappeared back down the tunnel. At least his no show confirmed my suspicions… I was a good mascot! My other suspicions were also soon confirmed and that was that we are a good side. We ran out 4-2 winners with my new hero Jamie Forrester scoring a hat trick.

I can’t say Casey was too impressed with my blow-by-blow account of the game on the way home. He fell asleep just as I recounted our fourth just after half time and I had to content myself with a drunk Stimmo and Radio Lincolnshire’s post match commentary.

One of my first home games of the new season was against Milton Keynes Dons. Up until that point we were unbeaten and MK Dons were riding high. I hoped to cause a few ripples with my programme notes that contained a thinly veiled attack on the Dons supposed heritage. I focused on local derby games and settling old scores, and remarked that Boston Utd should have a score to settle with Wimbledon but wouldn’t be able to as they were currently playing in the southern league south. I expect the Dons were used to that sort of negativity by now having been a franchise football club for a few years before relegation down to us.

I was only just getting back into my stride as Poacher and felt I was perhaps beginning to lose a bit of the passion. My passion for the club wasn’t diminished at all but my passion for stinking at every home game after going out and not getting any thanks at all was beginning to tell. James Lazenby often thanked me which was nice, but I wondered if I was getting a little mascot weary.

I’d been a bit put out a few days before the game. The directors of a local building firm had sponsored the game and the club had asked me if I minded giving up the suit for the day so the sponsor could have a go doing Poacher. To say I was a bit put out was an understatement I was incensed. I felt upset and undermined, and I felt that the club were looking to put the importance of certain people into a simple matter of pounds and pence. I didn’t draw money into the club, but Mr Builder did and therefore his needs mattered more than mine. This wasn’t the case at all and never has been at Lincoln so after I politely refused saying that ‘the integrity of the character might be undermined’ the case was closed. James Lazenby agreed with me and no more was said. This came on the back of me finding out that a member of bar staff had been paid twenty quid to do Poacher in my absence which also shook my resolution to carry on as mascot. It’s a real slap in the chops when you discover that someone has been paid to do exactly the same job you have done for free for nine years. I worked it out, and at twenty quid a game I’d been done out of four thousand four hundred quid. Once again I was overreacting in the worst way. Laze explained that in desperation to get someone in Poacher for a photo shoot they had to splash out the cash. He followed this up with a heartfelt thank you for what I do for the club. To me that was worth four thousand quid of anyone’s money.

My resolve was tested prior to kick off. In the week James Lazenby had asked me if I knew anyone who’d be willing to wear ‘Splat The Cats’ uniform to promote a local building society. Under normal circumstances I’d see which of my mates was nicest to me in the week and then offer them the chance to blag a couple of free tickets. However my Dad contacted me the same night to talk to me about a retired gent called Ken Eades. Ken was a big and slightly eccentric City fan first and a retired schoolteacher second. He was one of the people I regularly bumped into in the bar before the game and one of the few people who had a point of view I respected when it came to discussing City. Ken is a touch eccentric, and a proper character, he took a bedraggled Chicken hat to every game as a mascot and I suspected he’d make a great Splat The Cat. I offered him the chance immediately for two reasons, one to fill the suit and secondly to make a City fan very happy. I knew how happy I was being this close to the action and thought after all those years of loyal service Ken deserved the same.

I met him in the bar before hand where he was having a few stiff whiskeys to pluck up some Dutch courage. I plucked him from the safety of his seat and the comfort of his beverage and took him round through the side entrance for his big moment. We went into my changing rooms to find his suit and get him fitted up for the show.

Unfortunately no one had told me that the suit wasn’t there. Nor was it going to be there at any point during the day. Splats owners had chosen to hold off on the promotional bit for a few weeks in midweek. I found James and enquired to the suits whereabouts.

‘Not coming mate, sorry’. Kens face fell but he took his disappointment wonderfully. James indicated that Ken would still receive a free ticket but that was inconsequential as Ken held a season ticket anyway. He was forlornly taken round to his seat in the Co-op stand and I’m told he sat silently through the game for the first time in his life.

As I changed I got a clear picture of how lucky I was to do the job despite the set backs before kick off. I could just be another Ken figure sat in the stands wishing I could be so much more, but I wasn’t. I went out that day with a renewed vigour for my voluntary position. It all went well and loads of fans asked me to go to Boston as they had done earlier in the year at the Rushden home game. Again I felt touched that these people considered me an important part of that match day experience and I said yes. Apprehension washed over me as I remembered the shirt-stealing incident from the year before, but could I let my fans down? Nope.

During the second half I was changed and watching the game with Casey. Dons’ striker Izzie Mcleod deliberately handled the ball and was sent off for a second bookable offence. Initially he wouldn’t come off the pitch choosing to stand and argue with the referee. I always wonder why players do this because its not as if the referee is going to have an overpaid cheat spitting and swearing in his face and then say ‘oh, seeing as you’re such a charmer I’ll change my decision’. I’ll be honest its actually a source of irritation for me. As Mcleod came off he was heckled by a few Imps fans and chose to have his say in return. It was my second season of standing by the tunnel and that meant that Mcleod would walk past me and down the tunnel. Once again I saw the red mist and was just about to tell the departing player what I thought. Luckily for me Casey had also seen the red mist and he dived over my shoulder with a few choice words. I underlined his statement by saying something along the lines of ‘yeah’ and I thought that was that. Sadly not so. Mcleod pushed away his coach and started out on a journey that would in a few seconds lead him to Casey. A security man stepped in the way to prevent trouble, but I made a mental note to myself. Players look a lot smaller on the pitch than they do off it, and at six foot plus Mcleod was an imposing figure. His impact was even more imposing as his penalty prior to being sent off sent us to a 3-2 defeat.

A week later I made my second trip to Boston this time on a Tuesday night. I took a different route that led me right into the heart of Boston, and I even took the suit in my car. Last seasons poor turnout from the home fans had led to my decision to brave walking through the town with a bitter rivals mascot on my back. I wasn’t completely unprotected though as I took Casey and his mate Scott to the game for back up.

We parked close to the town centre and as a complete surprise to me Casey and Scott disappeared to a local pub leaving me to lug my bag a half-mile to the ground. To further add to my precarious situation I had worn a short sleeved T-shirt that clearly revealed my Imps tattoo. I dodged down a few narrow side streets and crossed a main road to get to the ground. I can’t help but admit I was surprised to see a main road running through Boston designed to carry two lanes of traffic. I could only assume that to aid their technological development the town council were employing especially big horse and carts.

I needn’t have worried about my identity being revealed and me getting a kicking. Once again home fans were conspicuous by their absence and I latched on to a few away fans to get safely round to the car park.

Steve, otherwise known as the Boston Panther met me at the player’s entrance. Since last seasons shirt pinching scare I had made quite good friends with him, exchanging texts and a few phone calls. Despite the rivalry between us it’s always nice to have a contact at another club, mainly to promote my image of being ‘on the inside’. I got a few titbits from him and sounded knowledgeable at work when Boston related topics came up. Anyhow I deposited my suit in the washroom we changed in the year before, underlining the fact I didn’t want to find two Boston shirts in my bag afterwards. After all Andrex is only two quid for four rolls so it wasn’t like I needed them.

We once again had a drink in the home bar and again I was hit by its friendliness. A couple of hardened home fans met Steve and we had a chat about our prospects. They seemed to think we were in for a big win and I agreed. Boston were in a terrible state, skint and featuring a manager on trial for fraud. We on the other hand appeared to be in a strong position second in the league looking for a win that would send us top.

After a couple of swift halves (four poured into two pint glasses) we shuffled along the green-carpeted corridor and into the changing rooms. I saw the same old faces that I had the year before, as if the game were taking place the week after. I got changed and found the same jailer guarding the caged tunnel area that led to the ground.

Once out on the pitch I opted to make a few Steve Evans based jokes. He’d been involved I a fraud that’d netted Boston £323,000 they should have given the taxman. Using that money they elevated themselves from Northern Premier League to Football League in a few seasons. The FA found out and Evans was banned from football for two years. Two years later he returned to his job, but now the CPS wanted their slice and he was arrested and sent to trial. The verdict was a few weeks away and rumours were strong he was going down. I found a small stand for the disabled supporters that had a caged across the front of it to protect them from stray balls. I squeezed my suit down the row and grabbed the bars as if I were in prison. It was obvious that this was an attempt at humour and one I found immensely amusing. The travelling fans didn’t agree and I heard no laughs.

Its sometimes hard to judge what will be funny at what won’t in a mascot suit. I could picture myself and if I thought about Evans as well it would have at least raised a grin. Perhaps our fans weren’t thinking of Evans. Perhaps they were wondering why their mascot was sitting in a disabled hut virtually out of sight alongside two wheel chair bound hostile Pilgrim fans. I got out and got down to what I do best, geeing up our fans.

The Boston mascot had a similarly poor thought out plan at making the home fans laugh, he launched yet another attack on me. I would have assumed after failing twice at home and once at Sincil Bank last year he’d have learnt his lesson but apparently he was only just warming up. As I stood with my back to him lapping up the cheers of our fans he grabbed me from behind and tried to ground me. It wasn’t a successful or noteworthy attack as I shook him off and politely asked him to not try it again. I wasn’t particularly offended; I just didn’t want to have to get involved in a play scuffle that may result in trouble from the stewards.

I wasn’t completely convinced he wouldn’t try it again though so I climbed into our stand and got in amongst the fans. There’s no way he’d get me in there, so I made my way along the front row shaking hands, patting backs and generally trying to stir up some passions. It seemed my evasion method wasn’t entirely successful though because although I avoided the Panther I didn’t avoid the gaze of those pesky stewards. I’d just grabbed a kid’s sausage roll when two stewards came into the crowd and ushered me towards the gate leading back onto the pitch. I made the little jump of about two feet from stand to pitch level and re-entered the York Street turf.

No sooner had I got back on the pitch than the Panther came across for a chat. We pushed our heads together and had a quick chat about the atmosphere in the stand. He joked we had more fans than they did; I told him in all seriousness we didn’t outnumber them. I can’t for the life of me even begin to think what it looked like we were doing. I suppose we may have looked as if we were kissing or maybe even having a confrontation. Most fans assumed it was the latter.

We parted ways and I turned back to our fans. The Panther decided he wanted another bite of the cherry and confirmed most fans idea we were having a few harsh words. He jumped me from behind yet again and tried to pull down my shorts. Unfortunately for him he lost his footing and I wrestled him to the ground. By now I’d had enough of his petulant play fights so I held him down and sat my bum right on his Panther nose. I writhed around for a good twenty seconds screaming ‘owned’ as loud as I could so he could hear it. The titters of laughter soon rose to a mini crescendo and I jumped up confident I’d settled our score once and for all.

There were no sideshows or events on the field this time round so I made my way back to the changing room well before kick off. I knew the tunnel wouldn’t house me going one way and the teams coming the other, so if I waited I’d have to stand close to the home fans whilst the teams took to the field. I remembered being spat and and I couldn’t face that again so an early change was required. I wasn’t due out at half time so my latest outing at Boston was over.

The game was once again poor. We lost 1-0 thanks to ex Imp Franny Greens weak goal, we had a good strike disallowed and Lee Beevers managed to miss when glancing it in with his belly would have sufficed. The jailer also told me off before getting to our fans for taking a picture on my mobile phone. ‘No photo’s please mate’ he requested. I replied ‘I’m texting my Dad’ whilst thinking ‘why would the flash come on for a text?’ He accepted my excuse, probably because mobile telephones haven’t hit Boston yet. They only got channel five last year.

I saw Ken Eades in the stand with his chicken hat ensconced firmly on his greying head. He had put the disappointment from the week before behind him, but my guilt was beginning to weigh me down. I wanted to give him what I’d promised him, so I told him to keep the home game with Hartlepool free. I had a plan.

The ride home was predictably miserable as we lamented our luck. Scott and Casey hadn’t got into any trouble so we all piled in the car for a depressing ride home, made worse by me leaving my new glasses case at York Street. Steve offered to bring it out to me but I refused, as I couldn’t bear to see his smiling face beaming at the unlikely win. I had my victory having rubbed his lips and my bum and I didn’t want a little thing like losing the game to take that away from me.

Driving into Boston I’d be surprised at the wide roads housing no traffic, but on the way out I saw another picture. Masses of away fans getting out of the town caused bottlenecks all around and I’ve never been able to hold my temper in the car. I almost cleaned up a cyclist on the outside lane when trying to edge my way through a yellow box junction. He took one look in the car and then thought twice about speaking up thus proving my theory about taking muscle to away games is a good one. I got home around 11.30pm unhappy and dreading the ribbing at work the next day. My workplace was full of anti-Lincoln fans, which I guess is usual for a small City like us. I worked with two Arsenal fans, a West Ham fan and a Hamilton Academicals fan that between them had probably chalked up fifteen games as fans of their club in twenty years. This blasé attitude to football always fails to impress me as I fail to see why local men can’t support their local side, especially when it’s a side playing good football successfully. I did receive the stick I expected to which I always retort ‘at least I watch my side live’. I run out winner every time.

Away at Shrewsbury

Less than twelve hours after arriving home in Newtoft I was back on the road heading for the last English town before deepest darkest Wales. I had managed to procure a free lift by exchanging free entry to the game for my old boss Paul Stimpson, and that meant I was able to indulge in a few warm Carlings during the journey procured from Tesco in exchange for about four quid. Shrewsbury is just on the edge of Western England, a delightful little town cut into two by the River Severn. The river often spits its dummy out and floods parts of the town, in particular the football ground that sits tight on its banks. There are three or four routes you can take there from Lincoln and I’d tried most of them. One of them takes about four hours and involves no motorway, the other is closer in miles but takes two and a half hours and there’s the ‘all motorway’ journey that takes two hours but involves and extra twenty miles or so! With all the choices it wasn’t a shock that Stimmo knew a different one to me. Almost every route ended with you making the short journey past Telford, a hill called the Wreckin and some curiously named towns before entering Shrewsbury past a large statue of some fellow who climbed mountains and the local college. The rest of the town itself is both quaint and unremarkable, a typical English town with its collection of local shops and the usual high street brand. The only other point of note is that the IRA bombed it’s castle sometime in the nineties although it wasn’t explained to me why an Irish terrorist group would bomb a small castle in an English town populated by Welsh rugby fans. We got to Shrewsbury in good time and sampled the local lager at a pub called the Dun Cow that showed the Chelsea championship game. They were winning two nil and the pub wasn’t exactly full of travelling support so we made our way to a local Weatherspoons to meet up with a few other City fans. Stimmo went for a KFC and I headed for the door only to be stopped by a group of Shropshire Police Forces finest. They subjected me to an intense search as well as making me give them my name and address on video camera ‘just for the record’. Before I was allowed into the bar they also told me I’d be locked in until 2.30, which meant I’d be late for the game. I decided I’d be able to get out one way or another so in I went. Inside the bar looked like a who’s who of Lincoln bad boys and the reason for heavy police presence was clear. It wasn’t intimidating or anything like that as everyone in there wanted the same thing, namely a Lincoln win. I wanted it on the pitch and a fair few of them fancied it in a local street afterwards, but either way we both wanted to represent the club in any way we could. As well as most of the active members of the ‘Lincoln Transit Elite’ there were quite a few genuine City fans in the pub to. I met up with Wayne Casement, who doubles as the match day DJ at Sincil bank on a Saturday. Casey is quite a character who like me does his job for the love of the club. Lincolns iconic fan and general fat kid, Fat Kid was also there. Believe me when I say this guy’s arse is the size of a small car but his love of the club eclipses the size of his rear. I saw Casey put his arm around Fat Kid and simply say ‘Alright Fat Kid’ about thirty seconds before being bundled out of the pub as he’d offended a listening police officer! Casey was soon sent back into the pub and I guessed his warning was more due to the company he kept than the offensiveness of his remark. Like me Casey knows a few rogues and some of the other faces in his party were more familiar to me through the pages of the Lincolnshire Echo crime file! I admit I gave‘Casey a bit of stick to when I explained about my World Cup audition as a couple of games earlier I’d indicated that there might be a ticket for a helper as well. I hadn’t been told there would be but I knew he liked his tall stories so I thought I’d give him one of my own. I told him all had gone well and he slipped an arm around me and told me to ‘remember my mates’. Indeed I would remember those who’d helped me year after year and sadly for Casey I’d only known him for a few months so tickets would be out of the question, then again I wasn’t getting any anyway so it was all elementary. As late morning slipped into early afternoon I began to panic about reaching the ground on time. Periodic police patrols of the pub confirmed that the ‘old bill’ meant business and I didn’t rate my chances of getting out of the pub backed up by what would sound like a whimsical story about being a mascot. Luckily amongst our numbers was Matt Jenkinson who was on the match day security team at City and he confirmed he’d be able to get me out of the pub. I sat back and enjoyed a few more jars before prompting Jenko to seek out the Lincoln representative on the police side, community police officer Andy Pearson. He let me out the pub and I made for the ground slightly worse for wear. Lenny The Lion, also known more commonly as Ron met me at the players entrance and let me and Stimmo into the ground. We showed my guest to his seat and retired into the back room area to get changed, or so I thought. It appeared that Ron was no longer the dedicated crowd pleaser he used to be and he wasn’t interested in taking to the pitch until just before kick off at ten to three! He took me to the player’s bar for yet another beverage, and as I entered I felt I’d made a grave mistake. It was one thing walking into a pub in Boston with my Dad to be faced with a hundred Boston fans, but entering the bastion of Shrewsbury Town in my Lincoln shirt was quite another. There were a few murmurs from the girlfriends of players but generally I was surprisingly well received. True to my fears Ron stayed put until twenty to three before we were off to get changed. Changing rooms for mascots vary widely and Shrewsbury managed to provide a large space for changing under the main stand. The smell of damp and general ambience of a garden shed paled in insignificance when compared to the size of the room. It had to be a good thing we had so much space to utilise as I soon found out that Lenny The Lions wife, Mrs Lenny was to change with us. Most female characters are portrayed by a bloke but in this case Mrs really was Mrs. I can’t recall the girls name as I was sidetracked by the fact I was sharing a changing area with her, but obviously she was used to changing with Ron and didn’t exactly try to hide what she was doing! I know it wasn’t explicit but I couldn’t imagine changing in an enclosed space like my room at Sincil Bank with a young girl without some sort of cheap thrill involved. I changed in haste and rushed out onto the turf as quickly as possible. The reception I received has to rate amongst the best I’d received in all my years of mascotting. I expect it was the importance of the game coupled with the heavy police presence outside the ground. As I ran across the pitch towards the faithful who were now chanting my name I became aware of a pair of socks that had fallen from somewhere around my head and were now lodged tight under my chin. I’d somehow missed them when I put my head on and I must have left them there after my audition the day before! They were both soaking wet and had a faint odour about them that was manifesting into a taste on my bottom lip. I turned to head back to the changing rooms when a pair of worn boxer shorts made the same journey landing on top of the socks and nestling snugly between my top lip and nose. The current suit had a large mouth which was my main source of vision and that was now obscured by my own underwear still soaked in yesterdays sweat! I must have looked a real sight wandering aimlessly and erratically towards the tunnel before some poor steward had to handle my smalls to put them back in my changing room. I didn’t tell him they were worn. Back out on the pitch I allowed my excessive drinking before the game to go to my head. For fifteen minutes I ran around the Gay Meadow pitch like a man possessed by the ghost of Billy Whizz switching from adulation of the travelling fans to derision of the gathered natives. The usual chants of ‘What the flipping heck is that’ (or something similar I can’t make out the fourth and fifth word properly) were met with my usual response of mimicking blowing a kiss before planting my hand firmly on the tail end of the suit. It was paint by numbers mascotting but it always raised a smile if only on my face and that of a few interested City fans. I ended by heading over to our fans, jumping on the eight-foot fence that separates the away support from the pitch and shouting City songs at the top of my voice. I nearly fell off the wall twice and had to hang onto the fence for support and these actions secured the attention of a steward who made his way over to ask me to get down. Egged on by the inflatable woman from the Boston game I carefully chose words to the effect of ‘No’ and carried on my spirited rousing. Sadly the steward alerted his superior who came over and hauled me off the fence to a chorus of boo’s. He told me in no uncertain terms that if I went back up I’d be ejected from the ground. I glanced at our fans and back at the steward. ‘I’d like to see you try fella’ was my response followed by a cheeky clip round his ear. Pushing it maybe but its hard to be fair or objective when so many passionate people are egging you on to misbehave. Sadly my time on the pitch was over far too quickly. When at home I admit that I try to cut down the time I spend performing but having made a near three hundred mile round trip I would have enjoyed more than quarter of an hour lapping up the atmosphere. It’s the home mascots prerogative to dictate how long we go out though and my short appearance wouldn’t detract from my view of Ron. As always he was a true gent and allowed me to go wherever I wanted. He also bought the beer in the bar so he’s okay by me! The game itself was a non-event. We won one nil and coupled with both Peterborough and Bristol Rovers defeats it meant we were all but in the play offs. Gareth McAuley headed the winner as he had in both semi finals against Macclesfield the year before and the game was as dire as those clashes. Afterwards we were kept in the car park for fifteen minutes as the local constabulary continued to practise the more intense scheme of policing. As I sat back in that car park somewhere in Shropshire with a luke warm can of Carling for company I became very aware of the fact it looked like we were heading for a fourth successive play off appearance, and possibly a third outing at the magnificent Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. I swear the thought of that fantastic stadium and the possibility of promotion to League One made that awful warm beer taste as good as a freshly chilled chardonnay. My weekend was over and I’d covered nearly five hundred miles in thirteen hours for just thirty minutes of performing, and I received nothing of monetary value (other than two free tickets and a beer) to show for it. Strangely though I felt it was a job well done, after all its what being Poacher The Imp is all about.

World Cup Mascot Auditions

May Day 2006 brought a real double header of mascot action, and saw me travel hundreds of miles for just thirty minutes action! If any weekend really summed up the dedication and potential reward of being a mascot then this was it.

On the Saturday we were away at my second mascot home of Shrewsbury. Granted as Lincoln mascot it may seem strange to have a second home, but following 2001’s ‘Battle of the mascots’ I had a real affinity for the area. The local press ran several pictures of me in the weeks following the event and their mascot ‘Lenny’ managed to get me free tickets to a friendly against Wolves a few weeks later. Although the area was a good two and a half hours from the great city of Lincoln it still felt welcoming. This particular clash with the Shrews was the penultimate game of the 2006 season and one City needed to win in order to all but secure a play off place. We sat in seventh level on points with Peterborough who travelled to third placed Orient. Bristol Rovers were two points behind both of us and they had to go to Rochdale, whilst if Shrewsbury won both their games and virtually everyone else lost then they could still make it. In terms of League Two football it really was all to play for although a Chelsea win in their Premier League game against Man Utd on the same day would see them wrap up a second consecutive Premier League title, which would doubtlessly dominate the headlines. Either way it was events at The Gay Meadow that I’d be taking a real interest in, and so purely by virtue of the fact I knew Lenny fairly well I decided to make the trip and blag a couple of free tickets in the process.

The Friday before the game was a slightly more serious event. I had been contacted by a marketing company who were representing Coca Cola’s interests at the forthcoming World Cup in Germany who were looking for a couple of mascots to portray their own ‘Postie’ and ‘Titch’ characters. They were holding an audition in London and another in Manchester that only genuine football mascots could attend in order to find two lucky men to travel to Germany for the duration of the tournament. In addition to this they’d be giving away tickets for all England’s group games, paying all travelling and accommodation expenses as well as paying two and a half thousand pounds. Basically it was pretty much all any self respecting male in the world could hope for, and only liaisons with Keira Knightley could have made it any more attractive. I was given a choice of either Manchester or London and as I knew London was a rotting cesspool of evil and hatred I opted to make my way across snake pass to the home of Oasis and car stereo thieves.

Poacher At Shrewsbury, albeit in 2010

Before I went the company sent me a list of mascots who would be there auditioning, and frankly I wasn’t too upset at the numbers. There were only twenty or so mascots at both venues, which meant a one in ten chance of going to Germany and lapping up the festival of football in person. I noted that the Grimsby mascot ‘Mighty Mariner’ was going to be auditioning which I had to chuckle at because in all my years as a mascot I didn’t even realise they had a mascot! In our little world there are several mascots who attend every event and a few like myself that turn up periodically at a few events, but our fishy friends from close to the Humber never seemed to have a representative at any event. The only mascots I thought would be front-runners were Bladey from Sheff Utd, the new Chaddy from Oldham and perhaps the Barnsley guy. I couldn’t judge exactly which mascots from the south were going to be a threat because I didn’t know too many of them thanks to the north / south divide which I’ll touch upon in a bit. Locally other than Grimsby there was no mention of my good friend from Boston, nor the Scunny Bunny which was a little sad. It’s always nice to meet up with a few of the locals in order to preserve my place as Lincolnshire’s Number One mascot.

The opportunity to travel to the World Cup was perhaps just reward for eight years of voluntarily attending City matches, but given the choice I’d definitely shun the big events just to represent the club. Nonetheless it wasn’t a chance I was likely to pass up as I’d have the chance to say I’d finally achieved something if I made it, after all the World Cup is the biggest sporting event on the planet and would bring a different challenge to ones I was used to although I don’t know which would be harder; performing in front of millions at the World Cup or trying to rouse 1500 people during a LDV Vans game with Morecombe! Come Friday morning I was filled with anticipation, dread and a peppering of nerves as I set out on the two-hour journey up north to Manchester.

The journey was pretty unremarkable and after four hours I made my way to the Lancashire Suite of the Manchester Britannia for my 3.20pm audition. When I arrived most of the other mascots were already suited up and ready to go. Bladey was his usual shy and retiring self, harassing everybody and anybody who happened across the third floor of the exquisite hotel. The Grimsby guy was also there and shockingly he turned out to be far nicer than I’d ever have given him credit for. Anybody involved in football will tell you their county rivals have two heads and stink, but in truth opposition mascots are pretty much the same as I am. He seemed to genuinely love the club and it gave me the chance to remind him we’d stuck five past them in the league just weeks earlier. He rebuffed my abuse by pointing out he had recently been awarded Mascot of the Year at the East Midlands sports awards, an event I had been scheduled to attend. Sadly I’d travelled to Brant Broughton near Sleaford on the night when I should have been at Broughton near Scunthorpe! I feel my chance to shine had been snatched from me by my own stupidity rather than The Mighty Mariners excellence but it all made for a humorous atmosphere before business began.

I also had my first meeting with the new Chaddy The Owl. The previous Chaddy had been a self publicist who was more interested in his own ends than that of his club, but the new guy was the complete opposite. He slotted nicely into the mascot world and came across as a genuine guy who really enjoyed the job he did. Other mascots there included the Coventry elephant who was as always friendly, as well as the Port Vale guy. It turned out he’d been doing the job for about twelve years which came as a real surprise as I thought I was one of the longest serving in the business. Like me he wasn’t as much of an extrovert as Bladey or Chaddy, but he went about his job sensibly and could act up when required. Its interesting to see the mascots split into two groups, those who go out and live up to the whole mascot persona of madcap, beer swilling maniacs coupled with those like myself who enjoy the atmosphere without being a major contributor. Neither group is any less of a credit to the job than the other and in our own ways both sets of mascots fit together well. At an event like this its important to have both groups together to get maximum effect and today was no exception.

Me and my good friend Scunny Bunny from Scunthorpe

There was also a lively chap called Dave from Barnsley. For once I learnt his real name rather than the mascot name which is unusual for our profession. He came into our hotel room which doubled as everyone’s changing room and got me to sign his copy of the mascot book, reaffirming the notion that we may actual be the very minorist of celebrity! Later on in the day he’d also point out that as mascots we all smiled when having a picture taken, even with our heads on and our faces masked from Joe Public. Its an amusing thing when you consider it, a grown man smiling for a picture that won’t include any of his facial expressions, and even more amusing when you consider he knows his face won’t feature. I know it’s a natural human reaction but talking about it to other people made me realise that it wasn’t just me being vain.

Auditions were running late so once we were changed there was an unbearable wait before we were called into the audition room. We filled the hour and a half with a mix of high jinx with hotel guests and a bit of chat about our world in general. There was a group of female Spanish students whom we descended on for the usual photo opportunities, and the usual photo call where we all have to do something mildly amusing with a camera pointed in our faces. If they recorded audio as well they’d usually get a mixture of sarcastic remarks, bad language and today predominantly northern humour to accompany the child friendly pictures of a teddy bear exercising.

By the time half past four came around we were all exhausted simply from sitting around on a hot day in our suits waiting for something to happen. Just before my turn came around both The Pilgrim Panther (Boston) and The Scunny Bunny turned up. It was a little disheartening to know that there were a lot of mascots not on the list who were going to audition because it cut down my chances, and it could be a little awkward because I was sure the Boston guy thought I was a thief! I had mentioned our history to my compatriot from Grimsby and it was a little embarrassing when the guy I’d been gossiping about twenty minutes earlier walked in and said hello as if nothing had happened at York Street, although it was also comforting that he wasn’t shunning me as some sort of low life reprobate who went around stealing replica shirts from despised rivals. I was beginning to think that if we failed to go up I’d probably do York Street again the season after, but one step at a time!

Just before five I was ushered in to the audition. I’d love to relay every little action I did and every witty line I rolled out for the panels benefit but nerves and the searing heat of a non air conditioned conference suite meant I cannot recall most of the fifteen minutes I was there. I know I had to show the ‘judges’ what happened when City scored, then what I’d do if the opposition scored and finally how I’d react to extreme provocation from the travelling fans. By the time I’d done all that I had to request a few moments to take off the head as I thought I was going to pass out from the heat! I remember being asked a little bit about myself and things I enjoyed to do but it was hard to answer seriously with sweat dripping off my chin like a leaky tap. There were a few other bits of role play and a few more probing questions before I had to finish with a rousing rendition of the song ‘Jerusalem’ of which I knew neither the words nor the tune. They gave me a lyric sheet that was a big help but I had no idea of the tune so I just chanted it football fan style before ending with a falsetto screech and a bow. I left the room to some slight applause with a sense that I’d given my best in extremely difficult conditions. Some of the other guys hadn’t felt it’d gone that well, and despite knowing that it was unlikely I could have made that much of an impression in fifteen minutes I really felt I’d done well. By the middle of the next week I’d find out whether I’d be taking the trip of a lifetime to watch England or watching all the game sat on my sofa with a cup of tea and some biscuits.

I would just like to mention that the trip home took me twice as long as it should thanks to Manchester drivers apparently not having to abide by the normal laws of the road, and the councils decision to close almost all roads heading for the A57.

I found out a couple of weeks after that Dave from Barnsley had got the gig, and that I had been rated 3rd, meaning a £250 cheque and an internet advert featuring just me. It seemed a nice reward for my troubles, but learning that the other spot had already been filled before the auditions did leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Tomorrow: The next day at Shrewsbury

My First Away Derby – Boston 2006

Me at York Street in 2006

My first away local derby was Boston in early 2006. I’d managed to avoid these games as a mascot purely because of the fear factor. I’d been a home fan in enough local derbies to know I didn’t want any part of the hatred directed at the away support, and luckily thanks to a misplaced reputation as being a nasty side I didn’t get invited to the likes of Hull or Grimsby. However by 2006 Boston appeared to have softened in their approach to visiting mascots and my presence was requested as part of the pre match entertainment. I was reluctant to go but enough fans asked me the week before during our home game with Rushden that I thought it only fair to go. The people asking me to go were going to be there anyway and they had to pay £13 for the privilege, so I should really take up centre stage pre match for next to no outlay at all. I roped my old man into driving me down there as he often would, and that was that. I was going to Boston.

Boston is frankly one of the worst places on earth. A couple of weeks before the game I’d been there for a suit fitting and discovered that most of the inhabitants seemed in some way genetically mutated. Bottom lips that collect spittle and a limp for no discernable reason are the order of the day in this out of the way little town, consisting in the main of around 75% unemployed people and a further 25% unemployable. I hadn’t been impressed then as gangs of no future layabout youngsters wandered around like in any town in Britain, although I had noted that these layabout youngsters seemed to have something worse wrong with them than bad taste, bad diet and poor career prospects. These kids just seemed like the space between their ears was reserved for that magical day that they might actually produce a thought, or maybe even something that bore close resemblance to a conversation topic. However for the time being they were happy wandering round town blankly looking for something. I don’t even think they know what it is.

The town seems to be a jumble of tiny roads, nonsensical junctions and bland buildings. A couple of major retail chains have moved in, but I think the fact the major clothes retailer in Boston is still a local name just about sums up the consumer attractiveness contained in the town boundaries, i.e. zero. Okay they have a Tesco’s and a McDonald’s but I think even a trip to the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou will reveal a 24 garage and Tesco deli counter and I know Baghdad has an outlet selling Happy Meals and Double Cheeseburgers.

My visit may not have been such a discerning one had there not been a couple of letters sent to Boston in the week warning them on the dangers of having me there on match day. I took a couple of calls from Nigel Dennis Lincoln’s groundsman and James Lazenby the Marketing Assistant to check I had no plans to cause havoc, and obviously I wasn’t. As a staunch City fan first and a mascot second I did find it hard sometimes to keep my emotions in check, but I was also aware of the dangers of causing trouble in such a volatile atmosphere. I think the letters suggested I might have some sort of attack planned for Boston’s larger than life manager and dubious businessman Steve Evans. Don’t get me wrong I’d have loved to do something to a man generally despised in Lincolnshire anywhere north of Sleaford, but I didn’t fancy a criminal record for inciting a riot so I planned nothing. The oversize kilt and bag of monopoly money had to be put to one side in the interests of common sense. Boston’s club secretary John Blackwell rang me to check I was kosher and after a blunt conversation he obviously realised I was and clearance was received for me to attend.

With this in mind I have to openly admit to being apprehensive about the visit. You see rivalry between the two clubs isn’t on a level with your normal club rivalry. Normally there’s a history of on the pitch battles or bitterness that often boils over into violence and aggression. Between Lincoln and Boston there is none of that. We always have been and probably always will be much better than they are with better facilities, a better ground and something akin to a better history. Their entire existence has been made up of non-league clashes with a recent and less than successful visit to the football league. The rivalry comes from us being their closest geographical team. I soon found out that they don’t quite see it the same as we do.

My Dad was coming as a helper for the day. If I travel away I always manage to sneak the mystery ‘helper’ in with me. I don’t actually need help putting the suit on anymore as you get used to it after thirteen years but I take the opportunity to get one of my nearest and dearest into the game anyway. Being an unpaid mascot isn’t in any way financially rewarding, and these little perks do help to raise the profile of the job. I am usually okay to get a couple of visiting fans into Sincil Bank even if there’s only one mascot and it’s a bit like an unwritten rule of the profession that away mascots can bring somebody with them as support. There’s only Rushden and Diamonds that didn’t allow it, requesting that both my helper and me bought tickets. Needless to say I’ve never sample the delights of their hospitality and I sent them a letter explaining the way things work. Strangely their mascot never visits us either.

So with my helper in tow we made the short forty-minute journey down to South Lincolnshire on a cold March day. We parked in town and made our way towards what we expected was the ground. It felt like I’d stepped back into the eighties as we saw the floodlights mounted on huge towering pylons in all four corners of the ground that stood head and shoulders above all the buildings around them. It also felt like perhaps we’d come on the wrong day because there was nobody that resembled a football fan to be seen bar the odd red and white striped city shirt desperately looking for a boozer that didn’t smell of cabbage.

The suit had made the journey on the team coach so I made for the reception area where I’d been informed the suit would be ready for me. James Lazenby was to take the suit from the bus to the reception for my collection. What could be harder?

We turned into York Street, made our way past some terraced housing and into a clearing with the ground set back from the road. The ground and bar area looked like one of those large buildings you get at the seaside that holds indoor Sunday markets selling tat that no one really wants. The car park was lumpy and suited to off road vehicles, and the ground was dilapidated at best, on the brink of collapse at worst. I asked a vacant looking steward to point me in the direction of reception and followed his gnarled finger aimed towards a window in a brick wall. Easy.

Not so. The lady behind the counter was as much to us as tits on a fish. She peered out from the six by four box room in which she was stood with as much interest on her face as an OAP at a Snoop Doggy Dog concert. I asked her if the suit was in reception to which she replied ‘Well this is reception’ before scornfully looking around her cage as if to highlight its inappropriate size. In fact she made me feel like it was my fault she was ensconced in this bland box room that doubled as the hub of a potential non-league club. I was then ushered away from her window so she could deal with the other people behind me in the queue more worthy of her time, which incidentally numbered none.

I soon found a group of people smartly dressed in matching suits who’d obviously come with Lincoln City and I was able to locate my suit. I chose to leave it on the team bus whilst I sampled some of the local hospitality in the bingo hall come social club that doubled as a Boston fans meeting place.

Both my Dad and myself were reluctant to enter the domain of the Boston fan, but surprisingly the pre match beer turned out to be the highlight of the day. The bar itself wasn’t the Ritz but for a club of Boston’s size it was certainly adequate. Inside the large hall there was again the feel of a holiday club camp with its dark walls and extended bar that runs along on end of the room. It was shortly after making these observations I noted that the bar was also filled with wall-to-wall Amber and Black Boston shirts, with not a single Red or White stripe in sight. Sight was almost possible given that the room had no natural light in it, and the strange semi glow of artificial strip lights added a menacing angle to an already worrying situation. However neither Dad nor me had worn our colours so we made our way to the bar and purchased a couple of pints of the good stuff before sitting down. A large TV was screening the Aston Villa and Everton game, and we enjoyed a bit of banter with a tubby Boston fan and his son next to us. It has to be noted that despite purchasing three pints of a popular larger each tasted different despite supposedly being the same brand, but I wouldn’t put it past a club like Boston to be serving a cheaper ale masquerading as a more expensive brand. I suppose at under two quid a pint it really didn’t matter too much.

Most bars at Football clubs have shirts of bigger teams they’ve played hung on the walls, but as Boston hadn’t actually played many teams bigger than us they had hung a random selection of club shirts around the room just below the ceiling to form a topical border. Even this had been done on the cheap as I noted an early eighties Wolves shirt and a rare Chelsea away shirt that suggested a large bag of old shirts had been bought at a car boot sale and hung up. By the time we’d supped up and were making our way from the bar I felt like I’d walked out of a Sunday League club house after a mud soaked early morning amateur game. It may have been a pleasant pint but it wasn’t a clean one nor was it consumed in affluent surroundings. I should have taken note and not bothered entering the ground.

Once we’d collected the suit I met up with a young lad known to me as ‘The Boston Panther’. Most mascots are at least of official drinking age as we have to display a degree of common sense as well as exhibiting our own brand of entertainment, but as I started the job as a youngster I gave their lad the benefit of the doubt. He took us into the ground and along to the mascots changing room. I’d been in quite a few football grounds and sampled a lot of differing rooms for me to change in, but I have never seen anything quite like the Boston back room area. Once through the directors and players entrance a long corridor carpeted in something akin to the green cloth on a pool table stretches the length of the stadium. At no point did the corridor become any wider than the doorway and I had difficulty in manoeuvring the bag containing my suit along the walkway. On the left hand side of the corridor there were a number of open doors revealing a couple of cubicles containing a single toilet pan, two pokey dressing rooms and an even pokier boot room. Standing in the doorway of the Boston changing room was striker Julian Joachim, and I banged into him hard with the suit (purely by accident) on the way to my sumptuous changing area.

My changing area turned out to be the laundry room that contained three washing machines, a two by four square area of floor and walls. Small normally describes a room that is adequate but uncomfortable, and the room I was to change in was neither comfortable nor in any way adequate for two grown adults to put on large mascot suits. You have to sympathise a bit with a team who have surprised even themselves to be playing league football, but if you don’t have room for the players and officials to do their job you really shouldn’t go and invite the clubs mascot along as well. My Dad had to stand outside the room as you couldn’t stand three in our area and I became worried that we’d been sussed bagging a free ticket. It didn’t really matter, the two or three Boston officials seemed much more worried about making sure the players were okay to wonder why the tattooed figure of my Dad was loitering in their corridor. Whilst we were unpacking our suits I asked their guy if he knew anything about the letters warning Boston about me. I was told he hadn’t and that he’d spoken to John Blackwell who assured him I was welcome and the mystery letter writer hadn’t taken the calls Boston made to check the validity of his claim. The panther (I still don’t know his real name) then started to explain how he was behind the Boston chairman’s fight to relocate the club to a site out of town and selling off York Street for development. Most City fans sneered at property developer and Chairman Jon Sotnicks plans as it seemed he had more than a vested interest in the land and a less the enthusiastic interest in the club. As a gracious visitor though I listened intently to the argument for the move and against staying put and it didn’t change my opinion one bit. After a bit of banter I asked about the format of the afternoon. It appeared there was little planned for before the game, with a penalty shoot out going on at half time between four representatives from each club. It was suggested we have a play fight before the game but sensibly I refused, as I didn’t want to hurt the lad! He seemed a bit put out that I wouldn’t indulge his wish but I explained the politics and also that unlike him I had done the job for a while and experienced my first taste of crowd trouble and negative reactions whilst he was still at primary school. It may have come across a bit big headed but in truth I did know better and besides I enjoy the job, why would I put it at risk? We finished changing, and I followed the host’s lead by heading out to the playing area, hugging my old man as I passed. I know he’s kind of proud of what I do but as a no nonsense practical man I’m also sure he’s a little embarrassed when the furry Imp hugs him.

The pitch was separated from the changing room area by way of a large lockable caged entrance, which had to be opened and closed whenever somebody wanted to pass through. As we waited for the gates to be unlocked I got a strange sensation of being in prison. The guys with dark, ill matching suits stared at me menacingly as I pushed along the caged tunnel and then waited patiently for my jailer to allow me to run out past the corner flag and from behind the goal onto the York Street turf. The gate fell open, my host rushed to the home fans and I took a second to take in the view. The famous ‘Boston Stump’ church tower was visible over the top of the stand away to the other end of the pitch like a poor mans Lincoln Cathedral, the stand being filled convincingly by a mass of Red and White stripe shirts. Around the other three sides of the ground there was a mix of home fans and empty seats. The travelling faithful numbered roughly equal to the home fans and were therefore more vociferous and animated. The omens felt good.

I went through the usual routine of getting our fans going and generally acting about. The reception from the City fans was great and the sight of a Lincoln representative soon had them singing even if it was only me. I went over to them and shook a few hands. Most of the usual faces from the home games were there, from Fat Kid to the City mad woman who always hands me inflatables before big games. When we played Swansea she passed me a sheep to parade with, against Cardiff it was a leek and today she handed me a two-foot blow up carrot. Boston are known as inbred and carrot crunchers and taking the item was a little inflammatory without being completely offensive so I grabbed it and made off. It went down very well with the amused City fans but wasn’t universally welcomed by the locals. The home mascot obviously felt I was stealing his thunder and offered me another play fight in the goalmouth, to which I refused. I had that letter they received in the back of my mind and didn’t fancy being escorted from the ground by a couple of stewards. Their mascot also considered it an unwritten rule that he had to win the fight to keep the natives happy and I had no intention of losing a fight to a seventeen-year-old kid in front of 2,200 Imps fans. Had I tried to scrap with him he would definitely get aggressive and that wouldn’t be good. He’d twice tried it at our place three months before and both times I’d come out on top. He twice tried to take me down from behind and both times I stayed on my feet and ended up with him laid on the floor with one of my feet on his head. The home fans loved it but his non-appearance at half time of that game suggested he didn’t. Indeed I may have worsened our rivalry by pinching his Boston scarf from his suit at half time of our home clash then pulling it out of the rear of my shorts in front of our fans. I think he was put out but I don’t know if it was because I’d suggested Boston came out of Gods arse or because I helped myself to some of his kit in order to illustrate my point.

We had a penalty shoot out with a little kid from each team before kick off which wasn’t planned. The goalmouths were in use so we used a couple of jumpers for goalposts, which you have to laugh at. I know I keep banging on about the amateur feeling to the day but seriously jumpers for goalposts in league two? It occurred to me to use my carrot as a goalpost so I stuck it on a jumper and let the penalties commence. The Panther went in goal and I took up a position near him and received quite a verbal battering from the natives. Its usual to get a few gestures but it did shock me that more than colourful language was being used whilst I participated in a game involving another mascots and two five or six year old children. I went in goal listening to the same abuse and did my usual trick of saving the Boston kids penalty and letting in our kid’s attempt, which is a little childish but gives me great satisfaction! I turned to acknowledge the natives and thank them for their colourful support when the unthinkable happened; the Panther launched an attack on me.

You’d have thought he’d learnt his lesson at Sincil Bank, but as I turned around he came up behind me and tried to kick me square in the crown jewels. Before his foot even had the chance to make it between my legs I instinctively closed them and trapped his foot. Full of indignation at being attacked despite refusing to be drawn into his games twice I ripped off his boot and drop kicked it up the pitch. He moved his leg and I skipped off to lap up the cheers of the few away fans that’d witnessed the incident.

The Panther was absent for about five minutes because I’d apparently ripped his sock as I tore his boot off, and my carrot disappeared but it didn’t matter to me as I climbed into the crowd and gave out a few handshakes and hugs. I was under a close watchful eye of three or four beefy looking security guys before I climbed back out, but nothing came of it and the teams were soon out for kick off. After a few pre match photos and the torrent of abuse from home fans I made my way back towards the laundry room. Outside of it the Panther was on the end of a telling off from an official looking fella regarding his conduct. As we changed I found out he’d been reprimanded for entering the crowd and for generally acting irresponsibly. It seemed a bit unfair not to take it up with me too, and I wondered if some jobsworth was trying to score points over the youngster. I have to admit feeling a bit sorry for him after all he didn’t get paid either and was doing the job voluntarily.  He told me he wouldn’t be out at half time and some other guy who coveted his job would do it because ‘if he f*cking wants to do it he f*cking can’. He stormed off mumbling something about Boston sticking their job somewhere.

Once out and back in normal dress I asked to be escorted to the away fans with my Dad. We were made to wait as the jailer unlocked one cage and locked it behind him, then another and then a small gate. We were led along the front of the terracing housing the same fans that’d hurled the abuse at me earlier. I wore a wry knowing smile as we got through into our fans safe in the knowledge that the meatheads who’d sworn in front of youngsters had no clue who I was. It wouldn’t take Einstein to figure out who I was when I went back for the second half, but with three pints of beer and a lorry load of adrenalin I wasn’t too fussed.

On the pitch Lincoln were frankly rubbish giving possession away all over the pitch and conceding a sloppy goal from Julian Joachim, and before long I’d been escorted back to the prison gate to be changed.  The same kid had come back to do the second half having had a dramatic change of heart after seeing his side go in one up at the break. We changed and waited for the players to come off the pitch. It seemed strange having to wait in the corridor whilst everyone departed but there wasn’t room pitch side for a bike to pass so we couldn’t really stand anywhere else. The players came off, Boston ones smiling and Lincoln ones swearing especially goalkeeper Alan Marriott who was informing his team-mates they weren’t up to standard in a language I’ve heard my mother speak which she informs me is French.

Out on the pitch we were only really meant to be taking the penalties. Ex Imps player Warren Ward brought along an inflatable goal with a couple of labelled holes. Each hole was a different size and worth an amount of points. The idea was that the smaller holes were worth more points, and if the ball went through that hole you score that many points. Its something he does around the grounds and at Sincil Bank there’s prizes given away to the highest scorers. I was due to take the first penalty so I blindly stepped up and belted the ball as hard as I could. There was a small cheer before Alan Long tapped me on the shoulder and whispered ‘You’ve only got the hundred mate’, a feat which may have won me a holiday or free tickets at a City game. Today it meant we won the shoot out by 100 points to 10 and once again I’d got the better of my Boston counterpart, which was worth more than some holiday! We were given a medal each, as were the kiddies and the match day announcers who all took part. I went down towards the Imps fans to show them the prize, still down hearted that despite my win we were losing on the pitch.

This fact was one several Boston fans reminded me of as I headed towards our fans. As I mentioned before I’m a fan first and a mascot second, so when one of their guys got particularly heated I unfortunately lost control. I went over to him, pushed open the mouth of my suit so he could see my face and screamed ‘How did you get on last week? Five nil you ****, five  ******* nil ‘. They’d lost by five at Mansfield the week before but as soon as I’d done it I regretted it. I had let my status as a fan belittle my duty as a mascot, and I cut short my trip to our fans and headed back into the laundry room feeling a little shameful.

I went through the routine of getting changed, packing my kit away and went out through the prison gates for the last time. Again I was led through the home terracing, but this time a couple of the natives had sussed I was a Lincoln representative and hurled their abuse at me again. There’s a distinct difference between being abused in the suit and being abuse in your normal clothes, somehow its much more threatening when the aggressors can see you. As I made it into our fans I wondered if the guy I’d argued with had recognised my face. It soon became clear someone had because one of our fans pointed out I had a large blob of spit on my shoulder. I cleaned it off and tried to put it out of my mind. Nobody likes being spit on and in everyday life I’d probably have remonstrated with the stewards, but today too many people knew who I was. Had I caused a scene it may have meant me being ejected from the ground and that wouldn’t have looked good for someone in my position.

On the pitch the action soon heated up and City launched a number of raids on the Boston goal in front of us. Our enigmatic winger Simon Yeo broke free and was hauled down by a cynical challenge from a skinhead youngster called Gary Silk. Free kick, and on came the stretcher for Simon. In obvious agony he was lifted up and off the pitch. Silk got away with the challenge and as the free kick was lined up Simon was carried in front of the same Boston fans I’d just come through. As he was carried along a large number of those ‘fans’ lent over the wall and spat on him. He was in agony and dazed but these people continued to spit and cheer as he was carried off. Disgraceful scene unfortunately mirrored by our own fans as Gary Silk lined up to take the free kick. Both players were spat and and verbally abused, only one was laid on a stretcher and the other was on his feet guilty of causing the other mans pain. Which would you think deserved it?

Yeo’s replacement Marvin Robinson netted with his first touch and for a while it seemed like we might go on and win the game. However after forty-five minutes of constant Lincoln pressure Boston broke away up front and scored the winner in the last minute thanks to ex Lincoln player Lawrie Dudfield. A defeat snatched from the jaws of a draw and our first defeat in thirteen games. It was to be a miserable drive back up north with chants of ‘that’s why your staying down’ ringing in our ears.

After the game I wasn’t allowed back to collect my suit until the ground had emptied which seemed to take forever. Our car park ticket ran out at five and we were still there at quarter past waiting for one man and his sister to leave the ground in the far end. I witnessed some pretty nasty scenes, as a couple of Lincoln thugs tried to pick a fight with a St Johns Ambulance worker they thought was a steward. I think they said something along the lines of ‘you’re scum, you’re fans are scum, take that coat off and fight me you scum’ interspersed with the odd expletive. As the bully moved on the St Johns mans female co-worker turned to him and whispered ‘at least if he collapses you can save his life’. Priceless.

I got the suit and was escorted from the ground in the only acceptable way, which was out of the players and directors door. A few disgruntled City subs milled around in my way and had to breath in as I squeezed past them. ‘Better Luck next week’ I told Luke Foster as I left with a deep sense of foreboding that promotion chasers and real county rivals Grimsby Town would take us apart in a week’s time. I was still debating this point as we put my suit back on the team bus. I opened my bag to take out my damp towel and t-shirt, only to find two rolled up Boston Utd shirts in with my kit. I couldn’t believe my eyes as the vile Amber and Black shirt fell out onto the ground along with a soiled white away shirt. Before I could say ‘what’s this in my kit’, the Boston Panther appeared at the side of the team bus with my missing inflatable carrot! Due to a combination of embarrassment and suspicion I thrust the garments into his hands and muttered ‘ I must have picked these up by mistake’. I knew I hadn’t and I didn’t even begin to think who had put them there but even I have to admit it looked dodgy. The Panther turned to leave without so much as a cheers so I shouted him and shook his hand mentioning that I’d see him next season. With us on the cusp of the play offs and him holding two shirts I’d almost accidentally stolen I didn’t think the chances of a visit next year were very likely. Thankfully.

My Introduction To Mascotting

Welcome to my first blog of what will hopefully be a fairly consistent series. I intend primarily to blog about my various exploits as a football mascot over the last 13 or so years, as well as discuss some of the issues surrounding Lincoln City as well. I will have to be careful though as I don’t want to cross subject with my Sky Sports blog.

So I thought maybe to open I’d tell you about my introduction to the mad world of Football Mascots. I often get asked ‘what made you become the mascot’, and I’ve rehearsed the answer so many times now it rolls off the tongue like the GMVC winning side of 1988:(Batch, Casey, Clarke, Matthewson, Bressington, Cummings, Mossman, Smith, McGinley, Brown, Sertori) (and I’m sure some people will say I’ve missed people or whatever but that was MY XI from 1988. Anyways….).

It was June of 1998 and a youthful Gary Hutchinson was pondering his next move in life. I’d left school halfway through my A Levels and disposed of a lifetime of promise for an X Reg Escort and a 9-5 job paying £85.10 a week. I’d got myself one of them ‘girlfriends’ people seem to like so much who frankly was a bit of a pain. I needed rid but didn’t have the cahooners to do it myself. Then I saw the Echo ad: Mascot wanted.

She hated Lincoln City, and certainly didn’t want me giving up my free time to do a voluntary position at the club so naturally I applied. In addition to registering my interest I also prepared a portfolio on other mascots, what they did and how I would implement their idea in with my own to create a unique and vibrant matchday character. I was interviewed by Jerry Lonsdale and Alan Long, and both told me they were impressed with my attitude. Wasn’t long before I recieved the phone call from Jerry to tell me I’d be the new Poacher The Imp.

Much to my dismay the significant other thought it was a great idea, and so in July of 1998 she accompanied me to Sincil Bank for the annual open day. That was the first day I saw the suit, and tried it on. It was also the first day I was let loose on the public! I remember going into what was then Jerry and Kerry Frances offices and being greeted by the suit. My other half wasn’t allowed up as she didn’t have a regulation pass! The idea of me needing a pass now is a bit ludicrus, on a par with Alan Long being forced to have one I suppose!

I can’t recall much of the day itself. I was helped on the day by a player called Graham Lewis, a YTS lad who made the odd first team appearance back in the day. I’d love to have some tasty anecdote about my amusing antics, but the truth is the first time you wear a mascot suit your focus is on breathing and trying to work out where you are going. I’ll save some of my ‘lack of mobility’ stories for another time.

This chapter does have a happy ending though. Eventually the girlfriend did get annoyed at the amount of time I spent away on a Saturday, and eventually we did part ways. You’d have thought that once my plan was complete maybe I’d chuck in the fur and spend my Saturdays away from the Bank. Alas, no. I am addicted now to being Poacher and the only way I’ll ever give the job up is if they carry me out of Sincil Bank in a six by one and a half foot box.

So there we go, a fairly laugh free opening to my blog. I’ll be sticking pictures and the like on here as well, mainly of Poacher but as a litle aside I’ll throw a couple of others on that I’ve taken in my role as a novice photographer. As I don’t really have anything of Poacher worth putting on just yet, here’s this mornings sunrise over Snarford.