The Bizarre Adventures Of Coach One.

dimanche 5 octobre 2014

This is a long post, but please stick with it.



I usually drive to away games. I live in North Kent, so Dartford Crossing, M25 and your away......

....But seeing as a couple of people in our usual group were working and only two of us could make it, my daughter Chloe and I decided to go by official coach to Hull. A rare treat for us.

We used our 2 for 1 voucher so the cost was reasonable, even though I had an hour and half drive to get to Selhurst in the first place.



The coaches left Selhurst Park at 8-15am. We were on coach one.

We took some bottles of water, and a few snacks with the view to getting something to eat on the way up in the morning at a service station and again on the way back.

I'm actually looking forward to a nice drive up the A1 as we leave.



The seats on the coach are relatively comfortable, even for a big old unit for me. Toilet on board, a bit of aircon as well.



The first thing that struck me was that the steward on this coach seemed to be wearing a football shirt under his hoodie. It wasn't a Palace shirt. It turned out to be a Brentford shirt, which could have had a significant bearing on the ridiculous route we took out of London on our journey to the east coast.



Whilst I'm not a graduate in the geography of England, I like to think I know my way around a bit, so was a bit surprised to see the coach head out of South London in a westerly direction, after all, once you get north of Norfolk, it doesn't get much more east than Hull.

I stuck with it though happy in the knowledge that we had a massive six hours to reach the Humber.



As the coach weaved it's way though Chelsea, past West Ken Station onto the A4 I wondered if the driver had mis-spelled the word Hull and had the word Swansea written into his satnav.

Anyway, we go round the Hogarth roundabout and onto the M4, past Brentford FC (see why I'm suspicious?)

OK, I think, give the guy the benefit of his superior knowledge and expect him to go M25 clockwise onto the M1. Bit of a long way round, but he knows best.

Wrong.

Bizarrely, after joining the M25, he then takes the M40 northbound towards High Wycombe. In my very humble opinion we are now going miles out of our way. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against the M40 (if I'm going to Birmingham!).

After going through driving rain it was as if somebody had whispered the word Hull to the driver, we found ourselves going east for the first time on the A46 then the M69. A weird way to get to the M1 in anybody's book.

We join the M1 at J21 (not J1or 6a where we could have joined it) and stop after about 4 hours at Leicester East service Station where the other coach was unsurprisingly waiting for us.

Mr Brentford told us we had about 40 minutes to stretch our legs.

For the rest of the journey we had east and get onto the outskirts of Hull where the traffic is moving very very slowly.



We eventually arrive at the KC Stadium at 2-40pm to the sound of the Palace fans already happily inside the ground singing their love to Julian Speroni. while we are still outside.



If there was another 10 or 15 minute hold up between Leicester and Hull we'd have been hard pushed to make kick off.



There is a thread on the BBS somewhere suggesting that the inside lane of motorways may have syphilis, well it would seem that the whole A1 has it as far as the coach company and Mr Brentford are concerned.



I estimate the on the way to Hull we travelled about 330 miles in 6 and a half hours.

Surely the way is from Selhurst out across Hayes Common onto the A21, then M25, Dartford Crossing, M25, M11, A1.

According to my satnav that would be 217 miles and take about 4 and half hours (not including stop, so 5 hours).



The journey back was less eventful, but did have it's problems. This time the coach driver did manage to find and stay on the M1 and stay on it, but this time when we got to Leicester Services we were told we only had a 15 minutes stop. Barely enough time to have a wee, let alone eat.



When we got back on the M1, instead of taking the most direct and probably quickest route back to Selhurst, we went anti clockwise on the M25 and left (I think) at J12 and ended up going through Twickenham, East Sheen and Putney! and then back down to Selhurst. It really was bizarre. The driver was throwing the coach about the streets of SW London like you throw a Vauxhall Corsa around the back streets of Peckham.



This whole post may seem a bit of a moan. After all, after using a 2 for 1 ticket the fare was reasonable for a trip around England. The thing is, is that I wasn't the only one thinking the whole thing was a bit surreal.



So what does a steward actually do? Does he choose the route? How did this particular steward get the gig? Is it acceptable for him to wear a shirt of a different club on our coaches?

Isn't it right that people would take more snacks and drinks for the outward journey, so a longer stop would be needed for the journey home when those things run out?

We had a Mother & Daughter sitting near us on the coach who obviously wanted to get a meal on the way home. We saw them start to queue for something to eat, then give up and go hungry when the queue didn't move that quick and they thought they'd go over their allocated 15 minutes.





To prove I'm not just an old moaner. I thought the team did ok. Going in to half time I was confident, despite us having to change the defence around (Mapps had a really good game by the way).

With better substitutions we could have maybe nicked it, but I thought a draw would have been a fair result.




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