Pirates Press Gang Supporters Club on the road

By Dick Straughan
April 1 2007

For those who travelled to Newbury in January the Camborne Wreck will live long in the memory. Now consigned to Press Gang folklore such hardships can be forgotten. For yesterday there was legroom a plenty and the luxury of five forward gears in the bus that headed eastwards to the capital.

A different hire firm was used this time and from a dingy office at the back of a vehicle workshops in Redruth a set of keys were finally obtained after a forty minute interrogation.

Two formidable ladies of a certain age were the keepers of the keys and they were not giving them away lightly. They asked lots of questions, scolded customers who queried what they were told, and produced rental agreements from wonderfully complicated and precariously perched piles of handwritten records. They had a computer in the office. It sat on a shelf like an ornament. The monitor on the floor holding open a door. There was an air of indifference to the needs of customers that worried me. The skinhead at the next desk was really getting a hard time, thumbscrews and a severe beating would surely follow next. It was Victoria Wood`s Acorn Antiques, The League of Gentlemen, and a dash of Python all rolled into one.

Able Seaman Yog failed a late fitness test on match day itself and like the Pirates team the Press Gang travelled short of hands. Miles of soulless motorway passed without incident as the bus headed up to London. Landfall was made at Old Deer Park well before kick-off, and the crew mustered in the clubhouse bar.

Marshy arrived fresh from his challenge to drink a First Great Western express dry. He had clearly had a good go at it and didn`t know where he was. We sat him down whilst he contemplated drinking London Welsh dry too. Pirates turned up from all corners of the country. A humble innocent inadvertently bedecked in Cornish colours running into Leicester Pirate and others in Richmond, an experience he will never forget. Allies from Quins sallied forth in support as the Pirates team were summoned from their beds in intensive care.

That we lost is of no consequence. Well done to the Welsh - they deserved it on the day. Our boys looked knackered at the start. Gavin Cattle`s afternoon in the sun with a copy of The Sporting Life lasting just one minute as Duncan Bell, wounded in action, was helped from the field.

Apologies poured forth from the players at the end. It mattered not. We didn`t mind. Some you win, some you lose. Dicky was still smiling and so were we. The humility of our team in defeat much admired. They had worked their nuts off out there.

After an afternoon in the warm spring sunshine the Press Gang headed home. Marshy, locked in a titanic struggle with the contents of the clubhouse cellar, promising to return sometime. We met the team again at Exeter as they dropped into the services to graze. Tired, battered and still apologetic. Sam Heard gave Paves a public head massage and then promised everyone they would see his recently devoured burger again before the end of the night. How very front row!

With charging badgers, fearless foxes, and suicidal rabbits all avoided on the run back down the A30, our home port of Penzance was reached just before 1am. Another successful mission for the Press Gang - I counted them all out, and I counted them all back again.