Saturday 23rd May 2026, 7:20pm
A poignant moment.
Or as poignant as any moment can be sitting in a hot car on level one of Beaconsfield railway station multi-store carpark, munching a previously cool-bagged cheese & tomato sandwich and guzzling down a litre of weak orange squash in companionable silence with Daddy BRAPA.
Dad turns 80 next year, and granted he's the youngest 79 year old on the planet, but important I savour moments like a dramatic Hull City promotion to the Premier League. They don't come along very often, almost certainly won't happen in similar circumstances again, and I didn't want to let it pass me by.
Dad picked me up from BRAPA Towers at 6am. I'd barely slept. Excitement? Nerves? Hard to say.
A week ago in North Lancs, we'd decided to 'take back control' of the crazy situation regarding Southampton's 'spygate' shenanigans by cancelling our Croydon hotel and move our train tickets to a date in mid-July, and travel by car instead. Too many unknowns meant we didn't know for sure who we were playing until Thursday, or the exact day and time of kick off. A shambles!
To my surprise, the football league DID have the balls to kick the Saints out. Middlesbrough reinstated. Crikey! Also a slight surprise to me, but wishful thinking on my part that we'd just get automatically promoted. Pleased for 'Boro though as their fans seem a decent bunch. But interesting to see our owner lawyering up nice and early just in case we lost!
To avoid having to worry about dragging our car into London, I'd devised a plan to find a town to the north where we could base ourselves, from where we could get a train directly to Wembley. After looking at Watford and High Wycombe, I struck gold with Beaconsfield. I also 'spied' three pre-emptives getting top CAMRA beer scores, so the day wouldn't be a total BRAPA write off.
The first hour on the motorway was chaos, more Boro' than Tigers cars, but it kinda settled down and we turn off for Beaconsfield just in time to avoid the nose-to-tail traffic on the M25. Couple of stops at services en route, and we were at our pre-booked carpark pretty much bang on 10am. Like clockwork!
Chiltern, Beaconsfield is one of the more modern Wetherspoons out there, not as dull as some of their other newbie offerings and is already scoring full marks on the CAMRA website, and in a part of the world (South Bucks) where ale quality CAN be questionable, I'd say this is a shoo-in to make the 2027 or 2028 GBG. I'd already realised that one of my other high-scoring beer pubs, Vinny and Ted, was situated in the old town and too far away on this crazy hot day to be bothered with. Plus Vinny and Ted as a name doesn't scream GBG, does it? A group of our fans are sitting outside so I say a quick "thought we'd be the only ones to use Beaconsfield as a pre-Wembley base haha!" but they just make some weird Hull vowel sounds so I slope off for the above photo. Two nice 'Boro boys say "hiya lads" and the carpet is an almost Tigerish 8.5/10. Twickenham Grandstand goes down the hatch nicely, we move seats because our table legs are wobbly which takes us close to the fresh air and more jolly Smoggies. My grandad, great grandad etc. lived in South Bank so I'm a bit Teesside myself! Dad tries to wedge his seat into the doorway so no one walks in past us, but it doesn't work. Vale Marathon Runner is the next to glug down nicely. 'Tis a Marathon, not a sprint! A lonely old woman who supported Chelsea in 1949 and has strong views on bees, bad hips and tattooed Victorian ladies comes over for a chat. "Pssst!" calls a modern tattooed lady beckoning me over to a pillar she's hidden behind. "Careful not to encourage the old dear too much, you'll never get rid of her!" but Dad seems to be enjoying the conversation to a point, so all is good. Noon finally ticks around and I've another 3* CAMRA ranking tick around the corner, and the change of scenery will be nice.
A real nice town is Beaconsfield, could live here if I were a rich man. I'd actually been here before, fleetingly, catching the train and walking to the Royal Standard of England at Forty Green. A truly astonishing pub with questionable beer quality.
But we didn't have to worry about our next tick, because it doesn't even have any cask. NOT that I'm ruling it out of a future GBG appearance because I went to a place in Newton Aycliffe on Friday night which was deliberately 'four beers from the tank, five craft kegs and a selection of bottles'.
The Taps @ Beaconsfield might have an annoying @ sign, but I can't speak any more highly of it. Guv'nor delighted to see my colours. "Gotta a soft spot for 'Ull" he claims, bet that's what he says to all the boys, later admitting there's only one fanbase he'd not be truly welcoming of and that's Man Utd! He's a QPR man and they always beat us anyway. A QPR fan has driven me around Glos/Somerset and Gwent and I'm convinced it is because he feels sorry for me supporting such an abject team. Plonk us down at Loftus Road, and we look like we've never seen that spherical shaped thing before in our lives. Thrillingly, our main man tells us the McBurnie clan used to be regulars here. And how Oli's Dad is like an older dour Scottish replica of him. And how his wife/girlfriend is gorgeous and he thought she was gonna be a 'right dolly bird' but don't underestimate her because she's actually shrewd and watchful for anyone taking advantage of 'R Oli. Shame I didn't bring Owlie. And just when you think it can't get any more Hullish, the only other customer who happens to be a solid Irishman, reveals he went to school with our heroic centre back John Egan. Dad asks if he could tell he'd be a pro footballer. "Oh, John was good at everything, could've turned his hand to whatever he wanted to do in life". One awkward moment as I accidentally accuse his hero, Roy Keane, of being a grump, but while I'm in the loo he departs having necked a couple of lagers in ten mins in true Irish style. Dad and I agree that with omens like these, surely we're going to win. The Glasshouse 'Bring Seshy Back' and the Tartarus 'Peryton' had glugged down well, Dad doing good work with Piper's crisp purchases, and the guv'nor buys me half a Windsor & Eton stout, what a gent! I'm just getting settled and wondering what mynext beer will be when Dad reveals he's paranoid about Wembley trains. "We've got ages til kick off, we could stay another hour .... we'll only be stuck in a stuffy busy Wembley stadium drinking overpriced fizzy shite" I protest, but Dad's made up his mind, so I decide to humour him. Wembley here we come!
We're in the ground before we can blink, and hate to say I told you so Daddy but we're stuck in a stuffy busy Wembley stadium drinking overpriced fizzy shite, though to be fair the Camden wasn't terrible.
Tis' like a sauna though!
Sir Quinno messages to tell me Bass has been spotted at Wembley recently. Sounded like a piss-take but apparantly not. Someone confirms with a photo. Damn! Not in our section today, probably saving it for the 'Boro fans who frequent the Sun in Stockton. Oooh a lovely cool banked Bass, how amazing would that be right now? Never mind.
We do some 'people watching' to pass the time. Who are all these unfamiliar faces? Finally, we see a guy we know. Alan from the ticket office, so go over for a quick chat. Then Dad spies our former hero defender from the past Justin Whittle. Or 'Sarge' as he was known.
Dad's whispers "I'm going to ask him for a photo, am gonna do it, let me just psyche myself up!" and I spot our more recent central defender Jacob Greaves just behind him, and I'm like "Dad, pulls them both in to the photo for the win!" But just at that moment, evil former owner Ehab Allam (you may remember he and his Dad wanted to rename us 'Hull Tigers' and told the fans they could die when they want) appears on the scene and starts chatting to Greaves. AS IF that arsehole has the temerity to even show his face!
So Dad just goes Whittle ....
Ahhhhh!
The game is a predictable slog of few chances. We let 'Boro have the bulk of position cos that's how we like to play 'away from home' but they don't do much with it, and we do even less!
Punctuated by 'hydration breaks' before they were cool! Dad tries to get us water in the second half, but none to be seen. We're dying of dehydration! Extra time and pens looms. Ugh!
And just then, late in injury time, the afore mentioned McBurnie grabs a winner. GOOD LORD!
Dad later says we spent over an hour in the ground celebrating, but time just didn't seem to exist post-match , and that's weird for me because I'm so painfully conscious of the clock every second of my life!
We finally traipse back to Beaconsfield, for 19:04 aptly because it is the year Hull City were formed, smiling sympathically at the sad 'Boro fans on our train without wanting to look condescending, a tough facial expression to pull off! Some are looking at the stats and consoling themselves that they won the xG battle.
And that brings us back to where we came in, level one of Beaconsfield multi-storey station carpark, supping that heavenly litre of weak orange drink, probably the only Hull City fans in the world not celebrating with alcohol .... and with MY reputation(!) But we did get a boozy tasting Strawberry Cornetto at Trowell services later on.
The following day, I was hosting a party anyway with a black n 'orange' colour scheme, though I wasn't allowed to call it a Hull City promotion party, only an 'Gateway to Summer Bash'!
The whole weekend feels vaguely surreal looking back and on bank holiday Monday morning with reality setting in, I got on the LNER website to book a bonus BRAPA #ThirstyThursday trip to Surrey to make up for the ticks I'd missed this weekend!
I'll be back tomorrow if I have the energy after 1am England v Mexico for tales of a dire day in the Lothians. If not, Tuesday because I'm out Wed AND Thu ugh.
Keep it pub, Si
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