Turnstile-phobia

I have recently discovered that my wife is riddled with a rare disease.

Turnstileitis.

Having bought a part season ticket for two seats in the posh new stand at the Leeds Rhinos Headingley ground I have invited her to partake of the rugby league action on three occasions recently - and each time she has buggered up the act of passing freely through a turnstile.

Now I've been doing the Headingley turnstiles since I was ten years old so its sort of incomprehensible to me that someone would not know how to use one, but they have become a complete mystery to her.

The first time I took her I explained how they work - you hold your smart card under the scanner with your left hand, it bleeps and shows a green light, you push turnstile with your right hand and you walk through - job done.

So I went first to show her how its done, worked perfectly for me.

She steps up, holds card under the reader, it bleeps, turns green, she stands and watchs the turnstile, it stops bleeping, it won't work again with her card now because you get just one go at it, I have to go and find a steward to unlock the turnstile and let her in manually.

The next home game I explain the function to her again, very slowly this time, she agrees to go first this time so I can coach her as the action happens, she holds the turnstile with her right hand, she presents the ticket to the reader with her left hand, it bleeps, it turns green, she pushes the turnstile with her right hand, it turns, she stands still.

"You're supposed to walk through the bloody thing when it turns" I explain, kindly, as if talking to a five year old.

We go and find a steward who has to unlock the turnstile and let her in manually.

Last night we attended the last home game of the season, she has extensive coaching outside the gate, we repeat the action of pushing and walking at the same time until she gets it right, she goes first, I stand behind her, she is pushing the turnstile before I present the card, this is a good sign, she says "Now ?" I say "Not yet", I present the card, she says "Now ?" I say "Not yet", it beeps, it turns green, she turns and says "Now?", its still beeping, she's not pushing yet, I give her the biggest thump in the back and shout "Now!!!" and she flies through the turnstile and out the other side like a champagne cork out of a bottle and a steward comes over to see why we are fighting inside a turnstile.

She's a bloody embarrassment.

Rhinos good...

I am now the proud owner of a brace of season tickets for the Leeds Rhinos thanks to the former owners decision to emigrate to Bulgaria to start up a guest house business.

Not just any old season tickets though, these are Carnegie Stand seating tickets.
And not just any old Carnegie Stand seating tickets, these are centre section seating tickets.
And not just any old centre section seating tickets, these are back row centre section seating tickets.

Apparently the best view in the house in the newest stand in Super League - we'll see on Friday night at the Wakefield game.

It was 1966 when I went to my first game of rugby league, England had just won the football world cup, the year before Leeds Utd had been beaten by Liverpool in the FA Cup final and I was nagging at our dad to let me go to Elland Rd, home of said Leeds Utd, but the word "hooligan" had started to creep into football and he didn't want me to be exposed to the foul and abusive language that pervaded the round ball game (I was a delicate child and did not swear at all until my wedding day) and so he agreed to let me attend the Headingley ground of the Leeds Rugby League Football Club, being that it was only up the hill from where we lived and would save on bus fares, and of course I never heard any foul language at the rugby matches did I, oh no.

The full story of that very first visit to a rugby league game is fully described here but I've been hooked ever since and whilst I've owned a season ticket for many of the intervening years I've never owned one for the sitting down part of the ground, it just seems all wrong to sit down and watch sport, sitting down is for cinemas and theatres, sport is for standing up and not having a very good view because the fat bloke in front of you is also tall.

So on Friday night I finally seccumb to the world of the seated spectator, I expect that I shall applaud lightly when the team enter the field of play and utter mild rebuke such as "dear, dear" when the referee makes a poor decision and the most animated I will become is when my team score and I fling my top hat in the air with a loud and hearty "hurrah".

Theres a new world waiting for me there in the Carnegie Stand...

Headingley tonight then...

Its about time I returned to Headingley, the home of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team I thunk to myself earlier this week, its about bloody time.

I've been a Leeds rugby league supporter since 1966, since the day that a far distant relative took me to a night match on his Vespa scooter, full story here.

But this season the house removal has got in the way, I started off well going to the first two games of the season but then whenever I mentioned "theres a rugby match this weekend" I got the look from Suzanne that said "leave this house instead of packing cases and you are 200lbs of dead meat", and so I didn't go.

Tonight though is the biggest game of the season (so far), at home against St Helens and its a game of such prominence that deserves my attendance, so I "got her telt" this week, bought my ticket over the phone, and I'm off, she will sulk and find some spurious jobs for me to do today but tools will be downed at 5pm, scarf and rattle will be donned and I'll disappear from the house for a night of delight or disappointment, or a combination of both, such is the pleasure of supporting a sporting team.

Rugby League is a game where supporters still mix freely before, during and after the game, we don't need to be segregated like the supporters of the game known as "football" or "soccer" or as I prefer to call it "nancyball" as the prime requirement for any professional footballer appears to be the ability to look and behave like a big nancy.

Rugby League is different and tonight, as is my want, I will be standing on the Western Terrace with the St Helens supporters whilst cheering on Leeds, its more fun that way and you get to meet some interesting characters and strange as it sounds you get to see the game differently when you stand with the oposition, you can actually see your own teams failings much easier when your not stood in amongst your own partisan section.


As can be read at your leisure in the excellent jerrychicken biography, the reason that I can be so accurate about the date of my first visit is that once again I can fix the date from the music that was payed at the half time interval, in particular the number one hit of the time "They're coming to take me away (ha ha)" by Napoleon IV, rather appropriate given the infatuation that pervades the brain when a sport grabs you - but isn't it strange how evocative music can be ?