Cambridge Blue

An incident free trip to Darlington and an early arrival too - I popped into the covered market for some food then got to the Quaker just as Tony was walking in - ever the gent he got the first beers in whilst I got chatting to a ticker chum from Newcastle who was avoiding the football fans in his home town. Sadly, we have no such problems in Darlo.

I managed to get through all the new beers on offer today: Beartown Bearskinful and Bearly Spring, Loddon Harebrained, Wold Top Spring Thing, 1648 Ruby Mild, O'Hanlons Port Stout, Potbelly Pigs Do Fly, and Cleveland Brewery Ironmaster.

The Bearly Spring was a real surprise, pleasantly so - quite light but very fruity - whilst the Port Stout was simply gorgeous - consistently one of the top stouts around.

Brian, Trevor and then John B joined us - all the talk today was of the forthcoming semi-finals against Gateshead and the chairman's recent call for 2,000 adult season ticket holders to book up in March. Highly optimistic to say the least but good results in the next few games might go some way to tempting a few of the stay aways.

Up at Number Twenty-2 there were some good beers, including Elgoods Pagaent and Wensleydale Black Dub as the stout on offer. I stuck to the Pagaent.

(left) MB-W warming up

Down at the ground, I went up to the first floor for my pre-match ablutions - it doesn't do to have a full bladder during the game because if you sneak off, everyone knows where you're going - and I bumped into my old mate Geoff Thompson who was running a Darlo Tykes day out.

It wasn't long though before he took some money off me for raffle tickets - but all in a good cause as all profits are going towards youth team development.

We had faced our opponents Cambridge just a few weeks ago when we made hard work of victory. Today was much the same.

For the first half, the Quakers applied a lot of pressure but with little end product - the Cambridge defence were solid and former Quaker keeper Brown managed to hold on to anything that slipped past them.

Sam Russell didn't have a lot to do but towards the end of the first half, he came to the edge of his box to clear only for the ball to fall at the feet of a Cambridge striker - thankfully he missed an open goal. Phew!

Brown continued to be the busier of the keeper and he was to make a good save to prevent sub Chris Senior from scoring from a header. However he could only push it into the path of Liam Hatch who headed the ball home. A well deserved goal and a sigh of relief ran round the stadium.

With twenty minutes to go, Cambridge finally had to go for goal but had left it too late as Darlo comfortably held out for the win.

On the train home I was delighted when Martin suggested we drop into the Euston Tap after the game - looks like he has been listening to me after all - and so we went straight there after arriving back at King's Cross.

(right) Verma and Senior celebrate Darlo's goal

The place was quite busy but we were able to find elbow room at the bar. Martin has now taken to choosing his own beers now - the training is obviously working but have we created a monster?

It appears not - he makes a good decision by opting for a pint of the Marble Pint. Also on offer was Marble's W90, Thornbridge Raven and Rooster's Yankee so it was difficult to go far wrong.

We were served by one of the contestants from BBC's MasterChef, a guy called Tim, so we get chatting to him. The series is on-going although recording has finished - he is down to the last nine but refused to divulge how well he has done.

We tell him that neither of us watch it - in fact I've not seen it since Lloyd Grossman presented it - as I dislike the two presenters and the way in which it has turned into a highly competitive and nasty programme. It's just cooking for fuck's sake! Nevertheless we wish him luck.