MODES OF TRANSPORT FOR AWAY GAMES

Was reminiscing with a mate about away travel after my special train post this week, and he remimnded me of a lad who was two years older than us, Alan Hughes from Penywaun for those that knew or know him, all I remember was he was a painter and decorator.

Well when we are around sixteen or so most of our travel to away games was on trains with a big bus for certain games, but where ever we'd get to we'd bump into Alan, he was a tidy lad but would always travel and stay on his own more or less.

But it's how he traveled that I found mad, he would hitch hike everywhere, sometimes setting out on a Friday after work and sleeping rough somewhere on route, and doing vice versa to get home, so his whole weekend sometimes would be spent traveling and then watching football, it seemed odd to some of us at the time, but now looking back it seems even madder..

We would offer him a free lift home some games on the coach, but he preferred to make his own way, hitching was a more common site those days, but not to places like Carlisle for f**k sake.

I used to hitch from Cardiff to uni at Lancaster early late 70s/80's - much more common in those days. The Uni is based 3 miles outside of the town, so if you didn't want to take the bus you could hitch - they even put up an official covered stand and called it The Hitching Point!

best hitch I ever had was when my mate and I were going up to London for a weekend of sex, drugs and rock n roll (we hoped ). He lived up off the A48 just before Cowbridge, middle aged woman gave him a lift to my house in Cardiff, and she promptly offered to give us a lift to London; when we got there she parks up in Harrods as she was a Harrods Gold card customer.

Worst hitch - 2 days in snow and ice travelling from Lancaster to Cardiff.

Most bizarre - being dropped off at the M6/M5 interchange by a Met copper - walking along the hard shoulder not knowing where the f**k I was, I came across a couple parked up looking at a map. They roll the window down (no electric then boys) and ask me directions - fuckers then drive off leaving me there!

I used to hitch from Cardiff to uni at Lancaster early late 70s/80's - much more common in those days. The Uni is based 3 miles outside of the town, so if you didn't want to take the bus you could hitch - they even put up an official covered stand and called it The Hitching Point!

best hitch I ever had was when my mate and I were going up to London for a weekend of sex, drugs and rock n roll (we hoped ). He lived up off the A48 just before Cowbridge, middle aged woman gave him a lift to my house in Cardiff, and she promptly offered to give us a lift to London; when we got there she parks up in Harrods as she was a Harrods Gold card customer.

Worst hitch - 2 days in snow and ice travelling from Lancaster to Cardiff.

Most bizarre - being dropped off at the M6/M5 interchange by a Met copper - walking along the hard shoulder not knowing where the f**k I was, I came across a couple parked up looking at a map. They roll the window down (no electric then boys) and ask me directions - fuckers then drive off leaving me there!

F*ck me how long did it take to hitch hike to lancaster? I drover there for a wedding couple of months ago took me 7 fecking hours although I did have a blow out which took 2 hrs to fix and then stuck in traffic for an hour.

Still a fair old way to hitch mind

A real nice City though. Enjoyed my weekend there.

Barry Van Hire or any other van, bedford or luton we could cram into and then in the middle of the town or by the ground all dorrs would open and surprise quite a few

Went in a workies van to Stoke in 2000 when we had to go through that metal detector / spaceship type thingy.

Had a bit of a dressing down off the OB after they tried to make out the workies tools for weapons for us to use

Luckily they didnt check the grooves in the roof where we had hidden all the narcotics

For a good few years i would travel with Paul chips Thomas from Merthyr along with a few others,Stuart Moss RIP was also a regular, Paul woul drive his old mans three litre Granada and as soon as we got on any motorway he would foot down and we,d be doing 130mph until we got there, it was like time travel.

I remember we came out of Brentford some time mid seventies, we somehow were out of there and on the road befor five and he dropped us off in Aberdare at six thirty, we got there before the football echo, what a trip.

For many years i would hire one of the Rhondda Tool hire vans, but at the same time the loonies from Aberdare and Maerdy, Needs, Bomber,Marksy, Jeffries, and some right darlings would use one of the other Rhondda Tool vans, often we,d pull up at a ground and the coppers would storm us, and Jeff the copper would shout "not that one, it will be the next one" their van would then pull up, and the coppers eyes would be spinning when they seen the state of the boys and how many were in there.

I used to hitch from Cardiff to uni at Lancaster early late 70s/80's - much more common in those days. The Uni is based 3 miles outside of the town, so if you didn't want to take the bus you could hitch - they even put up an official covered stand and called it The Hitching Point!

best hitch I ever had was when my mate and I were going up to London for a weekend of sex, drugs and rock n roll (we hoped ). He lived up off the A48 just before Cowbridge, middle aged woman gave him a lift to my house in Cardiff, and she promptly offered to give us a lift to London; when we got there she parks up in Harrods as she was a Harrods Gold card customer.

Worst hitch - 2 days in snow and ice travelling from Lancaster to Cardiff.

Most bizarre - being dropped off at the M6/M5 interchange by a Met copper - walking along the hard shoulder not knowing where the f**k I was, I came across a couple parked up looking at a map. They roll the window down (no electric then boys) and ask me directions - fuckers then drive off leaving me there!

F*ck me how long did it take to hitch hike to lancaster? I drover there for a wedding couple of months ago took me 7 fecking hours although I did have a blow out which took 2 hrs to fix and then stuck in traffic for an hour.

Still a fair old way to hitch mind

A real nice City though. Enjoyed my weekend there.

It is a nice City now - bit different then mind, though a f*cking palace compared with Morecambe, where they shut the cinema in the winter!

If I could get a lift across to the Coldra, trip time to Lancaster was pretty good most times - loads of lorry drivers would pick you up, some car drivers. Otherwise out to Gabalfa. Often get up to the Midlands in one go, one trip I got a lift from Wolverhampton straight to the corner of Fairwater Road, 10 mins from the house.

Layers were essential otherwise you'd get hypothermia in the winter. Strange thing was didn't used to cost anything like as much then as nowadays on BR - my motivation was saving the travel grant for the bar, a much worthier cause. "We woz poor but we woz happy" bollix we were f*cking freezing yer nacks off in some shithole

transit vans from capels of pengam, we used to take those vans back in a hell of a state