Banbury away only turned into a Scottie Tour, as it was Scottie's birthday. A lame excuse to go to football on the train and have a good drink up. Unfortunately, compared to recent Tours, it was a damp squib and the day was saved by a pasty or two.
Before the day kicked off, the train tickets needed to be booked and with a recent land slide at Leamington Spa we could no longer go via Coventry. This meant we had to go via London and that always turns out heavy on the wallet and the liver.
So an early start at Luton was somewhat spoilt by the lack of breakfast. The Scandinavian Cafe was no longer, due to sad death of the owner Gaz Palermo. Gaz and his wife Teresa had been open on High Town Road for over 40 years and his breakfasts will be sorely missed.
Replacements cafes were not open and we decided to hit the train and get some grub at Paddington. On arrival at Paddington we popped out of the building into the back streets to find a decent cafe. Eventually, we found one and stocked up on bacon rolls and coffee for the trip to Banbury.
Even the ticket collector questioned our sanity when we explained our journey, but sympathised when we explained about the landslide. On arrival in Banbury we made our way into the town centre as we had been recommended a pub in town called the Banbury Cross. It wasn't in the GBG so we were apprehensive, but as Charlie Wells establishment, it should have been a decent standard.
How wrong were we? Most of the beer was off and the only cask beer on was McEwan's IPA. A quick chat and we decided to do the off and picked up a couple of pasties from The Cornish Pasty & Tea Shop. A variety of pasties were sampled from traditional to beef madras and was so far the highlight of the day.
Our walk to the next pub was interrupted by a random woman who wanted to tell us her life story, as she marginally came from Dunstable. We thought of dragging her to the game, but her husband didn't seem keen.
So on to the next pub, this time from the reliable WhatPub website. The Bell was very quiet, at one point we were the only ones in the bar, but with the excellent Ruck & Roll from the St Austell Brewery, we made up for lost time.
The least said about the game, the better. Banbury thought they had won the FA Cup by their celebrations and their goalkeeper was offering our supporters out, which was interesting. Even more laughable was when his Nan and Grandad had a go at us as well on leaving the ground. With their recent record of game abandonment's, from throwing objects at referees and the unnecessary attitude from the knuckle dragging locals, I really hope this shower get relegated. (Your wish is our command - Southern League Fairies)
The long, disappointing journey home was improved by a stop off at the Euston Tap, where we were chatted up by a homeless chap who claimed to be 18. He must have had a heavy paper round! All told this was the worst Scottie Tour so far, maybe because the others had been so good, or maybe because from missing breakfast, the whole day rapidly went downhill.
There's always next time!
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