I was a Tigers' fan for a day, does that count?

Tom Varndell
By Dave Harrison
July 9 2007

Better a Tiger for a day than.... well, let's not go there!! The first game I saw of any note was the County Championship final replay of 1959. Cheshire versus Devon. Or rather the replay. The original match in Devon had been a 6 all draw, so the replay was staged at Birkenhead Park ....

 

In those days that Park were a first class club, which may seem strange to
you Leicester fans now. It probably seems strange to Park these days as
well. Cheshire were victorious. (I am unsure about dates and scores, they
are from memory. Somewhere in my archive I do have the programme.)

University in Cardiff in the late 60s saw me playing rugby for the first
year, then three years football. Well it was easier to tell which way the
ball was going to bounce. I did develop a great liking for the Welsh people,
but not so much for their rugby. I hardly saw England register a rugby win
at this time, I began to hope that one day English teams would beat the
Welsh. The early 70s were even worse for the England side. Except that by
some miracle England beat South Africa and New Zealand AWAY in consecutive years. Wales, for all their claim to be the best, never managed this.

Fast forward now to 2006-2007 season. Caldy, where I am a member, reached the semi-finals of the Intermediate Cup. A quick glance at the other teams in the draw was enough to convince us all that the team we did not want was Mounts Bay at their place. Guess who we got? I made the decision that I was going down to Penzance to watch the game. Several others from Caldy made the trip. We lost. However the Mounts Bay mob are a good crew, so I decided a trip to the final would be a decent day out.

A ticket was duly obtained (thanks Malcolm), and the big day arrived. In
advance I had picked my teams to support. Mounts Bay, because that was who I was going with and Pirates with the Cornish connection were immediately on the list. Northwich, being another Cheshire club was a definite as well.

That left the big game Ospreys v Leicester. Well no contest here, it had to
be Tigers. I went along, armed wiith my camera. It all looked plain sailing
in the first half, then Ospeys came back in the second half. When Tom
Varndell sped in for his try, had I had not been busy photographing it, I
might have jumped for joy. So that was it, my one day as a Tigers fan. A
great day out.

It might all have been very different. My paternal grandparents and their
families all came from the border areas of Derbyshire, Staffordshire and
Leicestershire. If my grandparents had not moved to Wirral, perhaps I would be watching Tigers. Or more likely Leicester City. A great-uncle used to be a footballer with Leicester Fosse. Lucky eh!

If you think I am going to move to Leicester just to become a full-time
Tigers fan, think again. Too far from the sea for me. If you a Harrison in
the Leicester area, I might well be your cousin!"