A Seasons Reflection - Chris Hoddle

By Chris Hoddle
June 2 2003

With the 'championship' game at Twickenham marking the end of another season its time for the COYSDCers to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) to give us their reflections of the season. First up our Lancashire reader, Chris Hoddle.

A Seasons Reflections - Chris Hoddle

Pre season created eager excitement at the Hoddle household. It started one day in July whilst looking at the Offy site message board “Try comeonyousaints .com it is much better”. So I did and since then I have notched up nearly 1000 posts.

There was the thought of travelling to Europe; we booked flights and a few days in the posh hotel in Biarritz. The “clock” was ticking down to August 30th and my “home” fixture against Sale.

Perhaps that day in August was going to sum up the season for the Saints and for me personally. Just a few hours before the game my wife Beverly felt unwell and didn’t make the game. In fact she was only able to trouble her season ticket once throughout the season. The trip to France had to be cancelled, finally claiming the insurance money around Christmas. Still she is now improving and is taking up the offer of next season’s ticket.

So to that game in Sale. My brother was able to join me as he did for many games throughout the season. To my surprise a number of people mistook us. It is strange that through the course of the season I was to meet about 306000 other “family” members that I had not seen before!
Saints were always there or thereabouts. Coming back strongly to claim an important and well-deserved draw………..until Charlie dropped the goal in injury to snatch the result. As I said, sums up the whole of Saints season?

Thus started my season’s adventures. In all I made it to 27 games- 14 home and 13 away. Of these Saints won 17 and didn’t in 10. We scored 684 and let slip 539.

During the Autumn I “discovered” the railway and “The Trainline dot COM”. Booking tickets through the Internet became quite easy and was cheaper than driving down. I did however have mixed fortunes.

My favourite journey was down to Bath for the league game, arriving in time to join other Saintly people at “The Boater” for lunch.
After another victory, the return journey was made, stopping at Temple Meads and sampling their station pub, nice marble floor. My seat on the train was close to the bar and they sold Stella!

The most worrying journey was travelling to F.G.. Leaving my house to walk to the station at 6.00am. Made it for the 6.59, only for it to break down on the way to Wigan. Now what do I do? Well the train driver phoned for a taxi to take me to Wigan, The “very nice” Virgin man changed my tickets and I made the game with just 15 minutes to go.

The worst was when we played T****s at home. The loss was bad enough as we played very poorly, but sitting in Wigan station for the 40 minutes waiting for the 21.05 only to be told is was not coming was too much. I said no so they paid for a taxi to take me home to Bolton!

I must also mention the weekend of December 7th and the “walk”. I had to work late on the Friday, but managed to get to Northampton just after midnight, so I could be part of the walking party. What a great time we all had! OK it was a little cold and damp but it was well worth it helping to raise £3000? for such a good cause. Thanks to everyone that made it possible.

And so to Europe.
The walk was followed by yet another home win in Europe.

It seemed that throughout the season the European “away” fixtures were going to elude me. Cardiff next up, another trip on the train? Not on that Sunday no trains from Bolton and a bus that took an hour to Manchester, still could watch it on the telly. There was always Ulster in January.

I had contacted Ulster to make sure that I could get a taxi from the airport in time for the 19.30 KO. Great! But no, the time was changed and my plane would not get there in time.

Still we qualified and a trip to Toulouse was on the cards. The club were even going to put on the “Cinderella” flight. I was one of the first to sign up! We all know the fate of that flight, it meant cleaning the grate for another weekend!

The only benefit was that all the European games that I hoped to get to, but didn’t, were on telly.

The Powergen Cup offered the chance for another “home” game. Uncle Keith made his very kind offer and I saw him in “The Station” pub…along with a few other hundred Saintly people. The game was worrying, as we all know. Good old Jorgy, Orrell didn’t see him in the dark!


I was able to make it to all the rounds of the cup and up to half time of the final thought that we were in with a chance. Still there is always next year.

Performances in the League games were occasionally mixed. But to finish third was excellent!

I managed all the games at F.G. and many of the away games. Those that I could not get to I listened to through the net or on a couple of times on the telly.

My Favourite journey was to Newcastle, up to Carlisle and across to “The Falcons”. I took the time to explore the Roman Museums and visit Hadrian’s Wall, an area that I had never been to before. If you stay the weekend I can recommend the countryside. The game of course should have been all over by half time, it wasn’t and we lost.

The worst journey must have been that silly Friday in May at The Stoop. It took just over a couple of hours to drive the 150 miles to Northampton, then another 3.5 hours to get to London. Why on earth do they have games like this on a Friday night?

In all I have travelled about 9000 miles following The Saints, and never been outside England! It is a bit worrying as the cost of travel must have been about £900. Still next season I will save a bit going to Rotherham instead of Bristol.

Taking photos is one of my hobbies, and I am glad to be able to share some with you on this site. Thanks to Oxford and Chris for doing all the Techy stuff to permit this. In all I have a collection of around 700 from this season. Some of these are blurred; evening games and dark gloomy days in Winter do not really provide the ideal conditions for the games.
I seem to have taken nearly every line out that we have ever had. Perhaps next season I will actually be able to get a try?

So to next season. Well I am waiting for the application form to renew the ticket. I have looked at Stockport County to see where the ground is. Mark's Fixture list has been coloured and printed out and I am already preparing some of the journeys.

I have this feeling that we will do even better next season, and I for one cannot wait to be part of it. Roll on September!