Dateline: Sunday December 16th 2007 7:00 am
Place: Baton Rouge Louisiana USA
Great 3 points yesterday against a team we should really be looking to beat at home. Finally, after 3 seasons in the Championship, we seem to be settling down a bit and taking care of business on a semi-regular basis. Adam Pearson always said that it would take two or three years to establish ourselves up here and though he is gone now it appears that he was right.
This week I would like to give you an insight on what it's like to be a Tigers fan from a distance and give you a feeling for the ex pat matchday experience. I have had Hull City World for 4 years and Saturday mornings are as much a ritual now as they were when I used to walk down Anlaby Road with my dad to Boothferry Park all them years ago. I do walk the 2 miles to work wearing my City shirt to listen in at my office, and on the way I'm singing songs in my head like EIEIEIO etc. I do that because it gets me in the right frame of mind for the game. At the office I check in on the message board roll call to see who else is listening. Other fools just like me from Canada, Botswana, Johannesburg
I then tune into Hull City World to pick up on Burnsy yacking about who Scunny are playing and how bad Grimbo are doing, or for team news on who is playing etc. The pre-match anticipation is great. At this point we are on a roll heading towards the promised land and our team are turning the corner and heading for great things. It makes no difference whether you are sitting in a seat in the East Stand or in a rickshaw in Hong Kong or in a snow blizzard in Toronto Canada; 5 minutes before kick off we are all in a zone of blind hope and anticipation.
The game starts, the usual message board threads come up: "ex tigers scoring today", "match stats", "why isn't JJ on the bench, are we saving ourselves 15 grand?" and hopefully the familiar "GOAALLL!!!!!" and "get in there!"
There is a real community spirit amongst ex pats for these games and it makes you proud to be part of something that, for some, goes back generations. Although my dad couldn't have even grasped the concept of the internet in his day, he would have been sitting doing exactly what I do every Saturday if he was in my position.
The game ends, hopefully like it did yesterday and we tell each other that Brownie has got it right and the future is bright. We compliment each other and wish everyone a great weekend then we all wander off just like people disappear from the KC but we wander off into places like the Carolina afternoon, an Arizona blazing hot morning, a Canadian blizzard or in my case to a Louisiana swamp to go catfishing. But when we leave, we leave as one, just like we did back on Bunkers or Kempton. We have had our Hull City fix for the week and we have been grounded to our roots and we all remember who we really are deep down inside.
Sometimes in modern football people forget what the game is really about and forget that we all started watching because it was fun! I still have fun during every game I listen to and thank you all for being with me in the tiger nation.
Have a great week
Love from Louisiana
John Firth