Donny Races, Thursday 2nd May 2024

Donny Races, Doncaster Racecourse, att. c.250

It pays to have friends in high places. This evening I’m being offered the chance of a visit to Donny races as part of an owners’ syndicate. Brilliant! I don’t even like horse racing. But when you’ve a 2 course complimentary dinner and great company, who cares!?

I’ve been to see the nags once. My other half is from Newmarket, ‘the home of horseracing’ (even our horse today is trained there) and we visited with a friend of hers, years ago. After seeing the same race 6 times (from the top of the hill to the bottom) we left without seeing the seventh. You’ve seen 6, you’ve seen ‘em all. Weirdly, Newmarket has 2 courses...and I learnt tonite that I was at the poor man’s course. ‘But how does the July course make money if it’s only used in July?’ ‘It isn’t.’

I learnt a lot tonite. Like, if your nag isn’t winning (our 2nd favourite came 5th of...7?), give it a couple more races then geld it. Whatthehell is ‘gelding’? If you don’t know, stay ignorant. Suffice to say, telling me you’ll cut my balls off if I don’t beat Usain Bolt won’t make me actually beat Usain Bolt. It might make me TRY harder, but how will a horse know?

As I said, we were in the owner’s enclosure, a hospitality suite on the 2nd or 3rd floor overlooking the course. Not that you can see the whole track. Half the course is the other side of the trees. I’m reminded of those big gigs where you can’t see the band on stage, so you watch them on a large screen. Still, there’s commentary, and, indoors, it’s not too obtrusive. Indeed, it’s so unobtrusive I don’t even know races are on, and tend to only see them as they’re coming past the winning post (on the screen, natch).

We go out for one race. THE race. This is both a disappointment and a boon. Boon in that I’d put horse racing up there (down there?) with Formula 1 and golf, but a disappointment as, actually, I’d have liked to see another race, especially one I’d no horse in (pun intended). The one I did see was with the other owners (‘other’...I can get used to that!) as our passes got us into the parade ring before a chat with the jockey. What’s his hopes? Tactics? I felt for him as the horse trailed in somewhere behind the leaders (lost by 20 lengths, I’m told later). Who else in their job has a post mortem for 15 minutes after they’ve put in a shift? I spared him my two’pennorth.

We had climbed back up the stand for the race. An early evening meet at Donny was sparse to say the least, but it didn’t stop any steward from demanding my pass. There’ll be no roaming for the hoi polloi round here. (Out of interest, do you think my pass will work again? They only glanced at it. Is it a different colour each meet?)

I asked if there was a dress code. ‘Smart casual’ I was told. Words that bring me out in cold shivers. Smart? Fine. Casual? I can do casual. But WTF is ‘smart casual’? I’m not one for wearing jackets over sensible trousers and pointy little shoes. Or dressing up as a Peaky Blinder. So I wore brown dress shoes, black jeans (owned for 20 years and worn perhaps 3 times), with a Liberty print shirt. Coat with a hole in. Well, it’s smart casual, innit? No-one mentioned the coat. Impeccable society. I enjoyed it! My favourite bit? I dunno, I wouldn’t want to upset anybody, but stroking the (losing) horse after the race and finding it lathered in sweat both pleased and surprised me. He was a magnificent beast, and the stablelad won 50 quid for best turned out horse. He was a beauty. Just don’t cut his knackers off. Please.

The Damage:
free ent
c.£30 round for 4
£8 taxi
£22 train
= c.£60

*despite the sweat, the horse ‘wasn’t even blowing’. He’d put no effort in when the jockey ‘went to make a challenge’ and so his future has been decided. He’ll be gelded before his next meet, poor thing.

Doncaster Rovers 1-0 Barnsley, Saturday 17th January 2015

'Get him sent off you pie-eating ba5tard.'

No comment

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days.   Forgetting match tickets and watching a dreadful performance was tempered by copious drinking including sessions back in London with Norwegian gaolers and a large braces-wearing Russian businessman (gangster?)

The day started badly.  I read a text saying my mate and his son couldn’t make it, the mother-in-law was in hospital and on her way out. So I completely forgot the match tickets. I called Donny’s box office, can I buy a ticket on the day?  After explaining my situ, they told me to phone BFC and ask them to e-mail Donny with the ticket details and they'd give me reaplcements. So I did.  I explained I’d left 3 tickets at home and BFC e-mailed Donny.  So I was quite chuffed when we met a ticketless Reds fans from Cheshire in the pub – he’d take one off my hands.  Got to the ground, only one ticket was there for me.  I blame BFC.  So I bought an extra and, fair play to Donny, they said they’d reimburse me if I write to them.  (Andy remembers Donny doing the same for Tim one year, so well done them.)

That's more like it

Got to Donny to be met by Salisbury and piles of police.  We ducked out of the way and avoided the forced march to the stadium and went to the pub.  The town centre was full of coppers too, as marauding Donny scrotes looked for kids their own age to fight.  Cos they’d have been panned by anyone over 16.  Older Barnsley scrotes later left me locked out of the pub, as, outside making a phonecall, a bunch of them arrived at the pub with coppers in tow, who quickly barred their entry.  When I went to go back inside, explaining I’d just been on the phone, the jobsworth in yellow refused while a tarn knobhead shouted ‘dunt believe him, he’s wi’ us’.  Pr*ck.  Luckily, we had a match to get to.

An industrial estate, somewhere in Doncaster.

Ah, the match.  Absolutely f***ing awful.  Donny passed it around, giving and going and generally being made to look like Arsenal, while we couldn’t thread the simplest of passes.  We made it to half time somehow level.  It should have been 2 or 3, but their forwards were as bad as our midfield, failing to seriously test Turnbull.  No panic, Danny will change things at half time and we’ll get a grip.

Second half – exactly the same.  Though Wilson later makes some bewildering changes so we end up having a big centre forward playing out wide, the marvellously named Mike Phenix.  We proceed to give him plenty of supply, while starving an actual winger (Kiwomya) on the other side.  It’s difficult to say who was the worst of the worst, though by us it was Jennings taking the most flack.  Fat and s*** appeared to be the jist of it.

The Super Reds come out.  As good as it got.

Salisbury had had enough with 20 minutes left, suggesting we leave.  I have to hand it to him, he was right about us being unable to withstand the Donny pressure. I think he told me that every 5 minutes in that second half, until they did.  And what a blow, as Holgate, making his 1^st mistake of the match, is punished.  Holgate gambled on winning the ball, lost out and found himself the wrong side.  Still, Forrester had plenty to do as he cut inside and curled an absolute beauty into the far top corner.  Great strike. Mason’s performance further implodes as he takes injury time a little too literally and goes through Tyson.  That’s him out for 3 games then, but on the plus side, I s’pose it means we won’t sell him in this January window.  (Or will we?)

*** M’Voto.  Probably the reason Turnbull had so little to do despite the Donny pressure.
** Turnbull.  A couple of good saves and confident handling.
* Nyatanga.  1 or 2 dodgy moments but compared to everyone else’s 10 or 11…

Londontykes top 3:
1. M'Voto
2. Smith
3= Holgate / Turnbull

Despatches:
Jennings – fat and s***.  Waring – 6 feet 5 and never in the right place to win a header.  Kiwomya – the invisible man.  Hourihane – what DOES he do?  Berry – problies the best of a bad midfield bunch.  THAT’S how bad we were.  Smith – someone teach him to cross a ball.  Lalkovic had a few promising moments before fizzling out, problies the best of what could loosely be termed our ‘attack’.

Then we walked the half an hour or so back to town, all the time being flanked by police and once near the centre, every street blocked off in an effort to force everyone to the station.  No thanks – there’s beer to be had.  And 2 Greggs’ pasties.

Final Score.

Drink du jour: vodka and orange.  And 6 pints once we got back to London.  Yes, I fell asleep on the bus back and missed my stop.  And yes, Sarah’s been in a mood with me all day.  (Seems she doesn’t like being woken up by a drunken lout.)

Away: 2,548.  Our ‘ultra’ element took over the far corner, bounced around and let off a flare.  Everyone else spent the game moaning. 

Match action

Meccano must be making a fortune these days...

Depresseds of Barnsley.

Barnsley 0-0 Donny, Saturday 9th November 2013

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.