Cast of Characters: (Real identities concealed to prevent embarrassment and possible court proceedings)
Mr ‘T-’: Driver of the car, the John Lennon of the Finn Park terrace, generally regarded as ‘a few cans short of the full six pack’.
Mr ‘D-’: Driver of the van, bloke in charge of finding accommodation, generally regarded as ‘not the full shilling’.
Mr ‘A-‘: A fat balding veteran of 22, just back on the beer after a month of sobriety, generally regarded as ‘a few digestives short of the full McVities’.
Mr ‘B-’: One of the best-known Harps supporters, a silver tongued Lothario with a charming turn of phrase, and even when compared to the impressive standards of this group, this man is generally regarded as ‘a few sandwiches short of a picnic’.

Saturday, 10:00am: It begins. Mr ‘A-’ and Mr ‘B-’ rendezvous outside the Dry Arch Inn and inform Mr ‘T-’ of their presence. Mr ‘B-’ has turned up with a bag of stuff almost the size of himself, but as there’s only 3 of us in the car it’s ok. Mr ‘T-’ arrives and we set off on one of the longest trips in Irish football. The Journey Harps prospects for the game and for the season are discussed in massive detail and after much analysis we agree that it’s probably more sensible to wait until after the first game before really forming an opinion on what the season is likely to hold. A single magpie stares at us defiantly from the middle of the road. “Bastard” comments ‘A-’, and sums up the general mood. In Newtownsteward we are forced to pull into a little car park to allow the passing of an Apprentice boys march. While ‘A-’ and ‘T-‘ try to be inconspicuous ‘B-‘ leaps out from the back seat. The other two almost suffer heart failure, but instead of shouting abuse ‘B-‘ just contents himself with a cigarette and all are saved from a premature end to the trip, and probably their lives. Attempts to raise ‘D-’ on his mobile prove unsuccessful, as he is unconscious in the back of his van somewhere near Thurles.

We stop in Carrickmacross for a bit of breakfast and run into a busload of other Harps supporters. We are heartened to see new faces among the travelling support. We wonder if they realise what they’re getting themselves into. ‘D-‘ is finally contacted and is despatched on a mission to find accommodation in Waterford. He sounds a bit rough as he is nursing the mother, father and entire immediate family of all hangovers after a serious session at a Shane McGowan concert the night before. In Carlow we encounter the only real traffic delays of the trip. As we sit at a set of traffic lights a particularly attractive female crosses the road in front of us. “There’s some boogie-woogie on her”, comments ‘B-’, and the other two nod in agreement, before realising that the statement actually makes absolutely no sense.

At intervals ‘D-‘ informs us that his efforts to find a bed and breakfast have not been successful. We speculate that he is getting langered in Waterford somewhere and hasn’t actually done anything. Eventually he secures two rooms with two single beds and a double for us. This isn’t ideal, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of Harps. For the moment we all assume that we’ll have a single. At 4:15pm after travelling through 10 counties we reach Waterford and by 4:30 we have reached our accommodation. Pre-match build up ‘T-‘ and ‘D-‘ claim the singles meaning ‘B-‘ and ‘A-‘ will have to share the double. Both decide to sleep in the van if they don’t claim the bed first. The owner, a wrinkled woman displaying all the signs of the old and utterly bonkers, already appears to be regretting her decision to let us stay when we ask her where the nearest pub is. She doesn’t know, but after a walk of around 2 miles we eventually find the hotel 50 yards behind the house.

We appear to have found a pub as uninterested in football as is possible, and the locals ignore the 4 Harps supporters and instead watch the GAA on the big screen. ‘D-‘ is still suffering from the night before and ‘A-‘ is worried that his month without drinking will see him unable to keep up in terms of alcohol consumption. As it turns out, his fears were unfounded. A few renditions are made of the Harps song are given as we attempt to get the new verse written by ‘T-‘ straight in our heads. ‘B-‘ slams a pint into him and sings a long rebel song that none of the rest of us know the words to. At 6:45 we set off for the ground, singing and chanting as we go. We get established in the main stand and all the Harps supporters get together for a change.

The Match:The match proves to be an absolute classic, with both teams playing good attacking football and both defences playing like mentally deficient six-year-olds at times. The Harps supporters make all the noise, even resorting at one stage to doing Waterford chants in case the home fans have forgotten them. ‘B-‘ displays a disturbing tendency to attempt to throttle ‘A-‘, pausing from time to time to sing long rebel songs that none of the rest of us know the words to. Harps take the lead through Paddy ‘Rivaldo’ McGranaghan then Waterford score two quick offside goals, prompting ‘A-‘ to choke on a tirade of abuse towards the linesman and enter something resembling a fit.

‘T-‘ advises him to use smaller words next time. Kevin McHugh scores to leave the game level at half time. Early in the second half Niall Bonnar scores a stunning goal, but Waterford fight back to equalise, and event so momentous that that home support briefly makes its voice heard. In the final moment Speak scores the winner to send the Harps support insane with delight, and Harps are truly back in the first division with a bang.

The Aftermath: We applaud the players off the field and leave the ground singing to the heavens of our imminent league winning exploits. We ask the supporters on one of the Harps buses for a lift into the city centre, but to our astonishment we are refused. We set off walking and as the bus towards us ‘D-‘ suggests we “moon the bastards”. This we do, in the process freaking out a local woman, whose experience of the incident involved seeing us walking towards her unfastening our belts. Having successfully taken our revenge and evaded arrest for indecent exposure, we returned to the B+B to drop in our scarves, and in the case of ‘B-‘ to apply at least 3 and a ½ bottles of after shave. As we congregate in the hall to head into town, the landlady expresses disbelief that ‘yis are going out, AGAIN’, and almost has a heart attack when ‘A-‘ requests a second key in case the four get split up.

Disregarding her obvious insanity, we set off for town. Our first port of call was to be the Grattan, the pub that sponsored the game, but on observing the utter deadness of that particular establishment, we retire to a bar on the quays, which turned out to be even deader. ‘B-‘ was happy, as he chatted up a 46 year old, the only female in the bar. We explain to the locals who we are, who Waterford United are, and why we’ll probably start singing in a minute, but as the bar staff encourage us to go ahead, we don’t bother. We set off and find a slightly more lively hostelry and this time we do sing, much to the delight of everyone in the bar. Bemused at the level of approval, we talk football with the locals who come over to talk to us. We are advised to go to ‘Rubys’ and off we go. We get bored looking for Rubys and instead go to the first half- decent looking pub. After about half an hour of serious drinking and pondering where the bloody hell Rubys actually is, ‘D-‘ looks out the window and spots it about 20 feet away.

The night continues in a similar vein until that time of night arrived when greasy food became the number one priority. ‘A-‘ purchased the worst chicken supper in the history of bad chicken suppers, while the rest of the lads got pizza. Having finished our food, and possibly sang a bit, we decide to get a taxi. This proves difficult, even though ‘T-’ tries to stop one by standing in the middle of the road with his arms spread out. ‘B-‘ is proving somewhat elusive and keeps wandering off, eventually disappearing completely. After some more fruitless taxi- hailing activities, we walk home in about a quarter of the time we wasted attempting to get a cab. We enter the premises extremely quietly, but the recently reappeared ‘B-‘ ruins this by wandering about the house smoking and asking ‘D-‘ if he can “borrow the keys of the van so he can listen to a few auld tunes”. The landlady has been waiting for this opportunity and ceases it with a relish that belies her ancient demeanour. She berates him as “ a disgrace” (in the process making infinitely more noise than ‘B-’ ever did) and repeatedly screams at him that he has to out by 11 in the morning.

Bewildered by this verbal assault, ‘B-‘ retreats to the room and goes to bed beside the already semi-conscious ‘A-‘ and the two remain utterly motionless with a uniform 4 foot gap between them until morning. The Aftermath of the Aftermath At 9 ‘B-‘ rises and takes his breakfast and some more verbal abuse from the gloriously psychotic lady of the house. After this he disappears and ‘A-‘ hears the crazy old bag giving out about him and his buddies in a very loud voice to one of the other guests, who appears to wish to remain neutral on the issue. At 10 she enters the room of ‘D-‘ and ‘T-‘ and asks if there’s any chance they’d take their breakfast. She repeats this process every 10 minutes, causing them to delay getting up by a good 45 minutes.

The breakfast is fairly terrible, and bang on 11 we depart on the long journey home. It will take 6 and a 1/2 hours to get home. We discuss the match and how promising the team looks. Near Omagh we encounter a lone magpie regarding us with the same air as the one the day before. We all voice our derision and scorn the avian’s phophetic powers. After one last pint in the Dry Arch Inn, we go our separate ways and agree to meet up before the Sligo game in order to get the craic going. We are also thinking about the big trip to Cobh in a couple of months. It is shaping up to be quite a season.