A Man Without A Team: What We Are Really About

This is what we're about

* people not profit and a donation to charity of the proceeds from the sale of our wonderful Comrades shirts.

* stories about world-famous goalkeepers nearly signing for us - something I and many long-term fans never knew about til this week. Yep, Bert Trautmann himself nearly put pen to paper.

* comrades on TV spreading the word: The manager of the old team speaks too, and they lose. But the Comrades talk truth.

The old club of mine lost 1-0 yesterday to Llandudno in the league cup. Tudno are a league above us now, having got promoted about three years back.

I like Llandudno. I like a good day out there rifling through boxes of vinyl and shelves of books and CDs. I've done that for nearly 30 years, on and off. Not consecutively. Just from time to time. My folks love it too. It's got a lot of happy memories in it, has Llandudno. And some slightly off ones, I admit.

Once I swapped a Spritualised 12" into a Carri On Sex Pistols album, and vice versa. I bought the Spiritualised record, which of course had the Pistols in it. That was not something I'm entirely proud of and the record shop is now defunct in Llandudno. But it happened.

I have wandered around Tudno drunk as a skunk with a load of close mates, in our annual Trip to Llandudno (which we did about three times). Some of us drank Thunderbird. Others lager. One of us - not drinking alcohol anymore - necked a litre of chocolate milk, was sick, and went home on the train early. Dave, you are missed. But always remembered. I think of you sometimes when I'm there. It's still something I giggle at 20 years later.

I've seen Ash, the Manics, Space and Mike Peters there. I played the bass in a production of The Wiz there one summer when I was about 23. I've climbed the Orme countless times, sat on the beach eating icecream, sat on the promenade watching Punch and Judy, gone on the 2p machines and played bingo and gone on the slide on the pier and sat at the end of the pier listening to overloud, horrendous Hammond Organ twisted versions of 1950s pop hits; I've thrown stones into the sea, played footy, had psychedelic moments and played gigs there both with my punk band, and with the Bangor Cathedral Choir. (Not together. Separately. Although that would have been good.)

I've shouted at seagulls like a mad old tramp there, because the bastard things have nicked my missus' sandwich out of her hand. I think I offered the gull a fight actually. Being a seagull it just cawked, laughed and fucked off again. Horrible little twats. Mind you, I looked well hard. Or maybe just ridiculous.

I've eaten at loads of the chippies, the restaurants, cafes and the all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. There's always somewhere to go for a panad and a scran. All-year round as it goes. The summer's just busier.

I like Llandudno a lot. It's a bit fucking Tory, in terms of the inmates, but as a place it's a nice old Victorian town that hasn't changed a huge amount in 200 years. And in the rain, wind and sleet of another inevitable North Walian autumn/winter, it has a rough, dominating grandeur that is intimidating and comforting in its stolid grimy grace.

What I don't like is the idea that a club that once nearly signed the world-famous Bert Trautmann is now reduced to seeing a 1-0 home loss to a club our reserves used to play, and beat, regularly. And is counting it as a good performance against a better team. Llandudno is great. But this situation is not.

I mean, fucking hell.

Talk that one of the owners hasn't been very visible round Nantporth of late; I suspect there's an element of wishful thinking involved.

Ay, but one day this will all, too, just be the ramblings of a fading-out ghost won't it.

The men at the end of the pier will still be there, not catching fish.
The pleasure boats will still circle around, laden with raincoated, red-raw-stripped-faced tourists determined to have fun, because that's what British people do.
The boarding houses and B&Bs will still serve up Full English Breakfasts in a price war.
There will still be scrotes trying to blag cheap deals on records, and scrotes trying to rip off their customers.
The Punch and Judy man's descendants will find his marionettes in a dusty attic one day and wonder what the hell the puppets were for.
The winners at the shoot-a-duck game will still collect their prize of 10 tickets, and find out that a tacky cheap plastic not-watch costs 5,000 of them.
The pier stalls will still sell mostly knock-off replica shirts of English Premier League footy teams. And people will buy them.
The Hammond Organ will now be playing Nirvana and Radiohead with a musical theatrical flourish.
Beer will be drunk. The people will be drunk. Maybe one will puke from their milkshake obsession.

And life, whatever that may mean, will still go on.

Football, I suspect, may too.

If a club fails in a forest, will it make a sound?

(Tl; dr:
A man without a team has too much time to think.)