Friday 7^th June 2002
1:15 pm
Halifax PLC, Preston

There are certain things that are best avoided during the daytime – alcohol, television, anything to do with Heart FM (best avoided at any time, actually) – and for a brief period in 2002, I added ‘watching football’ to that list also.

I began the World Cup with such high hopes as well. With the tournament being held in Japan and South Korea, the matches were shown on British TV at either 7:30am, 9:30am or 12:30pm. As a 23-year-old night owl who used to stay up until the middle of the night listening to music or watching old films, the World Cup was in danger of passing me by without so much as a flicker, but I was determined to catch as many games as I could. The summer of 1998 was now a distant memory. Four years on, I was in a far more settled place, although still a bit fragile at times, and was ready to enjoy a World Cup again.

And I started well. On the first Saturday of the World Cup, I stumbled out of my bed just before 7:30am to watch the 1-1 draw between the Republic of Ireland and Cameroon… at least, I think that’s what the score was – I was so damn tired. Still, I felt a real sense of achievement. It didn’t matter that my bedroom was right next to the lounge in the apartment that I was renting in Preston, and only took four or five footsteps to get from one room to the other, I had done it. I felt like Edmund Hillary.

So it’s just such a shame that it was pretty much the only 7:30 game that I saw in the whole tournament – the draw of my comfy bed taking precedence from that moment on. Before long, I would be missing the 9:30 games too, and the World Cup would start to disappear from before my very eyes. How deluded I was.

Mind you, there was a lot of stuff going on during that time. Having graduated from university in 2000, I made the decision to stay in Preston. Part of the reason was that I felt settled there, having made a lot of friends at the church I was attending, and also the fact that Mike and Andrea, two of my best friends from uni, had decided to remain there. But the main reason why I stayed up north was because in 1999 four of us from church had formed a band – Kev on vocals and rhythm guitar, Phil on drums and Mark on lead guitar. I was on bass, having been inspired to take it up a few years earlier after watching John Deacon, who I always thought was the coolest member of Queen. It was also much easier to play than the six string guitar, but we won’t mention that. Anyway, we were initially called Acquiesce, after the Oasis song, but unfortunately we had to change our name to Aquiesce (minus the ‘c’) after Mark’s brother spelled the name wrong when he was registering a website for us. But nevertheless, it wasn’t long before we realised that there was a chemistry between the four of us, and we therefore decided to make a go of things. Thus, I stayed in Preston and got myself a part-time job at the local Littlewoods call centre, where I took phone calls from (mainly) women ordering items from clothing catalogues. This was the crazy rock ‘n’ roll playboy lifestyle that we were living at the time.

We eventually changed our name from Aquiesce to Blindride at the end of the year. We got a bit tired of people being unable to pronounce it when we were introduced on stage (‘Would you please welcome onto the stage, Acq… Acq… ACQUIENCESES!!!), plus it was a sign of us trying to take things more seriously. We started gigging around Preston from the start of 2001, instead of just playing in churches or at Christian events – a decision which nearly gave our youth leader of the time a stroke as he told us that we were ‘wasting our talents’. Still, we were ably supported by our girlfriends (we only had one each, I must point that out) and church friends who made regular trips to The Adelphi and The Corner Club to cheer us on. Friends of friends were also invited along, and they seemed to like us too. By the summer of 2002, we were getting a bit of a name for ourselves, and it was all very nice and exciting.

Those adjectives could not be used for the paid job I had at the time, though. After being made redundant from Littlewoods and working a seven-month finite contract at an agricultural company, I found myself working for the Halifax at one of their major admin offices in the centre of town. Ah, the Halifax – ‘the bank who gives you Extra’. If by ‘Extra’, they meant stress, pain, bitchiness and a feeling of desperation akin to someone on Death Row, then, yes, it was a pretty accurate description. As someone who normally looks for the good in people, I just couldn’t understand the obvious dislike from some of the most senior members of staff for the temps who worked there. Most of us had just completed degrees, so maybe that was the reason – a feeling that they were stuck in a rut whereas we weren’t – but none of us temping there were anything other than friendly and hard-working. We were treated like complete crap and the place was an utter hellhole. I hated it there.

A few weeks after starting work there, I moved into a rented apartment with Kev and Phil, where I would struggle to make it from my bedroom to the lounge for early World Cup matches. The flat was on the same road as the Halifax office, so you would think that there would be no problems getting to work on time – and on most days there weren’t – but occasionally my lack of punctuality would rear its ugly head, and thereby allow Annie to rear hers – a horrible witch of a woman who insisted on belittling us temps at any given opportunity. She was just one of a number of people who made our lives a misery, and any relief from their treatment was most welcome.

So the events of June 2002 came along at just the right time. The start of the World Cup coincided with the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. For the first time in a long time, it was acceptable to wave a Union Jack out of your window and the country’s nationalistic fervour was for once healthy and lovely. The highlight of the celebrations was the fantastic concert from Buckingham Palace, featuring my musical hero, Brian Wilson. Poor old Brian looked a little confused to be there, but he was great, and his comeback from personal problems was very inspirational to me at the time. Plus a four-day weekend meant time away from the Halifax, so thank you Ma’am.

On the same weekend, England started their World Cup campaign – a 9:30 kick-off that I did manage to get up for. I later wished I hadn’t bothered as we struggled to a 1-1 draw against Sweden. That result, coupled with Argentina’s 1-0 win over Nigeria (we were in that year’s ‘Group of Death’) and Sweden’s subsequent 2-1 victory against the Nigerians meant that England had to beat Argentina on the Friday lunchtime to realistically stay in the World Cup. The build-up to the game was so intense that across the country, firms and offices made allowances for their staff to watch the game. Incredibly, so did the Halifax, showing that they did have a little bit of humanity hidden underneath their dark souls.

On the day of the game, I made it into work at 8:30 – for some reason I wasn’t late that day – and sat down with about 20 work colleagues to watch the game just before the kick-off at 12:30. Although the temps had had problems with some of the managers (and other wannabe managers), the younger members of staff were generally nice and could see what was going on there. One of the lads there – David – was extremely cool, with an unkempt beard and a penchant for indie music. His attitude was at odds with the company’s ‘pull the ladder up and sod the rest’ culture, and we got on quite well. He was among the group sat down for the game, and the atmosphere in the room was, dare I say, quite pleasant.

I too was attempting to grow a beard during that time. There was no real reason for doing it – I just fancied one for a while – and so for the duration of the World Cup, I had a beard in the style of Abraham Lincoln – aka no moustache. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as impressive as his, and was ginger, patchy and incredibly itchy. I did manage to go to the local hairdressers next to work for a ‘beard trim’, but how the barber managed not to laugh in my face is beyond me. At least he didn’t say ‘What beard?’ – I couldn’t have stood the shame.

And so to the match. As it kicked off, John Motson made a few references to the fact that the game was taking place at lunchtime. It was indeed unusual and a nice way to break up the Halifax stress, but he did seem to be over-egging the cake somewhat by consistently talking about it. But maybe that was his way of getting through the game as it was incredibly nail-biting. As Gabriel Batistuta and Kily González went close for Argentina, and Michael Owen hit the post for England, some people bit their fingers, others screamed, while I sat there and slowly stroked my beard like a Bond villain. I think it was partly to check that it was still there and hadn’t done a runner to avoid the tension of the game.

But on the stroke of half-time came a breakthrough. A Paul Scholes pass found Owen in the box, who turned and fell under a challenge from Mauricio Pochettino (later to become manager of Southampton and now Spurs). The replay showed that Owen clearly took another of his customary dives, but referee Pierluigi Collina (he of the bald head and scary eyes) pointed straight to the spot. Penalty.

Blimey, this beard is feeling a bit itchy…

Up stepped David Beckham and the tension in the room increased even more. Everyone knew that this was his chance of redemption for four years before. He was now England captain and doing a superb job, but that sending off in Saint-Etienne still hung over him. He needed to score.

Ok, this is starting to get ridiculous now. Scratch, scratch, scratch…

Beckham waited for what seemed like an age, and then ran up and smashed the penalty into the centre of the net. 1-0. The way he struck the ball and his impassioned celebrations afterwards exorcised all of that frustration, anger and emotion, and offices around the country joined in with him. We all jumped up and went mad, but not quite as crazy as my bearded friend David, who screamed ‘YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!’ continually, before making a couple of peace signs to calm himself down and slowly sitting back down in his seat.

Half-time came and went, with everyone dashing for either a kettle or a toilet, and then we were back in position for the second half. England started well, with Owen and Beckham putting shots past the post, and Scholes and substitute Teddy Sheringham both volleying thunderbolts which forced Pablo Cavallero into making a couple of decent saves. But then the pressure started. Argentina moved into the ascendency, and mounted wave after wave of attacks on the England goal. David Seaman – complete with ridiculous ponytail – made a couple of great saves, including a brilliant stop from Pochettino, while normally unsung players like Nicky Butt and Trevor Sinclair performed with bravery and plenty of heart, keeping the Argentineans out.

I’m shaving this damn thing off as soon I get home…

When the final whistle went, we exploded with joy. The ghosts of 1986 and 1998 had been expunged, the Halifax for once seemed like a nice place to work and England were back in the World Cup. But of course, this optimism wouldn’t last. England would be knocked out in the quarter-final by Brazil, leading to a mass taking down of the flags which had by now become dirty and raggedy. The Halifax would soon return to its one-upmanship and nastiness, and within a month I had left, joining a much happier office at Preston Magistrates Court.

As for the band, well, it sadly wouldn’t last for me. By the next summer, I was living back in Birmingham, trying to get my head around a number of personal upheavals and wondering what the hell had just happened. It wasn’t as bad as the summer of 1998, but it came flipping close. However, I wouldn’t change a thing. My Preston days were both good and bad, but it’s the good stuff that lasts longest in your memory, and I look back at that time with immense fondness.

I never grew another beard, though.