By Mark Deeks
August 20 2002

Mark kick starts his columns with an account of his day. The day that Toon beat the Hammers 4-0 to go top of the league :) MATCH 1.
TOON 4 vs WEST HAM 0.
HOME. MONDAY 19TH AUGUST.

I hate Monday night games. Well, what I mean is, I
hate it when the Toon are playing on a Monday. Anyone else is fine. I mean what could be better than coming in from work, cracking open a beer and watching a game between two teams you don't care about, I mean......I digress.

I'm a teacher. For now. You see, I hate it. Apart from the holidays. So for the toon's opener, the plan was a leisurely drive from sunny Wakefield where I live(that's near Leeds guys), sometime mid-afternoon, to be followed by a nice homecooked meal at the folks(probably scotch egg but no doubt we'll come to that later in the season), and a short Metro trip to the Mags' Mecca.

At least that was the idea. My regular journey takes about an hour and three quarters. I set off at 4. I reached my seat in the NW corner at five to 8. I had not been home. I had not had a nice homecooked meal. I had not had time to put my traditional £1 on at the stadium bookies.

What I had managed to do, however, was, upon hearing of 7 miles of tailbacks on the M1 in North Yorkshire, select the worst alternative route in the history of time since Afle Inge Haaland thought, "I'll just run this way towards that nice boy Keane, he looks like he's let bygones be bygones."

Not for me a simple route. No. I had decided that the rush hours of Selby and York city centres would be much more to my liking. There. That's better. Of course my delirious state of rounding another bend at 2 miles per hour was only heightened by the similarly delirious disposition of the Five Live travel reporter announcing that the M1 was now all clear. Marvellous. And had been for the last half hour. Great.

Anyway, once past Thirsk everything was plain sailing. Apart from, of course, the joy of trying to park in the toon centre with 20 minutes to kick off. No worries. A haphazard angle here, a slightly loose approach to parking regulations there, and Bob(by)'s your uncle.

Is there any better feeling than walking up the stairs and out into the open air of the stadium for the first time of the season. You find your seat, you shake hands of firm friends (Big Doug et al). You also shake the hand of at least one so-and-so who always has the greatest insight into the game ever, who you let think is your friend....(more of my fellow NW corner residents as the season progresses.)

And off we go again. The expectation. The hopes. The fears. You all know what I mean. The first half passed without much incident except Tinky-Winky (that's Big Doug's name for Lua Lua) looking like he had a divine directive to beat the bubble-blowers single handedly, which was complimented by a cameo role from Joe "I'm
so good at whingeing I should play for Manure" Cole.

And the rest is history. The second half was
excellent, with assured displays from Hugo Viana (or Boss Man as I like to call him) and Jenas, and of course the aforementioned Lua Lua. West Ham looked like they didn't want to know as soon as the first went in, and we were left thinking how many the score would have been had the whizkid "Little Craig" been on the park. Oh well, it's early doors as they say.

A sprint back to the car, a 50 minute 4 mile journey, and my old bedroom awaited. A quick check on Five Live just in time to hear Alan Green say "Newcastle weren't THAT good" in as derogatory manner as he could manage, but I didn't care, and sleep set in. After all, "We
are topoftha League, say We are top of the league!!!"

Long may it continue. Back down the M1 tomorrow. Hour and three quarters. Easy. Till next time.