28^th December 2004 and it is the last away fixture of the year for the Mighty Shakers down at Sixfields, where Bury are yet to win for some seasons!  After the harsh knocking out of the F.A Cup, Mark and Stu decided that they must get to this game at all costs (something, which turned out to be a big test) as we thought the lads would want revenge!

           As we had a fans match, we left Walshaw at 06:40, stopped off on the way to pick Chris and Phil up and headed off to Gigg to meet the other lads. At 07:10 we set off to Northampton in good spirit, something which wasn’t going to last unfortunately!  We arrived at our meeting point – Watford Gap services at 09:40 for a much needed stretch of legs and toilet break! We set off in convoy to get to the pitch where we would play the Northampton lads! At 09:50 disaster struck! We were going around a roundabout and found we were in the wrong lane!  Staying in the convoy we tried to move lanes, to find someone in that lane, so we had no option but to get out of the way and crashed into a bollard!

           We pulled over at the first possible place to find Stu’s front left tyre had punctured!  We quickly changed it at the side of the road and continued on our way!  We arrived at the playing fields at 10:25 to find we had no changing rooms so we got changed at the side of the road!  Still a little shaken, Mark and Stu play very average and the game finishes 5-2 to Forever Bury!  We set off to Sixfields for a shower and something to eat when disaster stuck again!  Stu’s back left tyre was flat and we had no spare!  We arrive at Sixfields at 13:05 and Stu has a look at the car while Mark tries to see if a share wheel from another car (from the fans team) would fit, but unfortunately they were all too big!  To make matters worst we then found out that his tracking was offset!  The gods weren’t with us today!

           At 13:45 Stu shot off with Dave (our knight in shining armour) to a garage on the top of the hill and after several trips back and forth we had a little change of luck!  The guys at the garage said he would have the wheel fixed for after the game, so we could pick it up and then drive back to the garage and get our tracking done!  15:00 and the game kicks off and Nugent hits the bar, Murphy missed from yards and Flicker gets sent off for a second yellow and we are playing poor!  15:45, down to ten men the lads return to the pitch and we play even poorer and lose the game 2-0!  At 17:20 Dave returns with the tyre and a bit of luck for the Whites as he tells us it’s free of charge as the guy forgot to do our tyre!

           17:30 we drive up to the garage to get Stu’s tracking done and found out that we only have to pay £15, as we didn’t have a lot of money on us!  The kind lads of Forever Bury FC have a whip round and raised enough money to cover the cost of the repairs!  At 17:50, very tired, annoyed, cold and upset at a poor display from the lads but more importantly Stu’s car, we set off back to Walshaw and arrived at home at 20:55!  Hopefully 2005 will bring us better luck!