By Mark Davies (@bigmarkdavies)Recently on Scottish Comedy FC, we’ve started a feature called “I saw his debut”. I too would like to add a piece, although I will need to change the title slightly to “I saw his almost debut if you count his 3rd game and only then if you discount the numerous pints I had had before the game” – or as the youngsters say ISHADIYCHTGAORIYDTNPIHHBTG…….. think it may be the LOL of 2012.
The date is 18th March 1995 and today will be significant for 2 reasons. My club Bury are doing alright in Div 3 and are due to play Preston North End away. Me, my mate Paul, and my uncle Len have decided to have a day “on it” in Preston. We arrive in Preston at 10.30am and head towards the ground looking for a pub to hole ourselves in before the game. As 11am approaches we find our home for the next 3.5 hours, TV, dart board, pool table, juke box. Perfect!
Beckham and Sir Tom Finney seem to represent entirely different eras, both for England & PNE. Yet here's Sir Tom struggling to keep his footing after the pitch had been sprayed with his latest aftershave as a publicity stunt. Sales of "Part-time Plumber pour homme" would go on to break records in Paris and London.Unsurprisingly we are first in, we are 10 mins from the ground and we line up enough 20p’s on the pool table to let everyone know we are there to stay. The first hour is us 3 and the landlady, but she informs us that it will get a little busier later on with Preston fans. As noon passes the first of the 2 significant things happen. Paul and I line up for another game of pool and after letting Paul break I clear up, granny him, 7 ball him, whitewash him! Never done it before and never done it since but in that game – which was about 2 and a third pints in – it happened.
It was about this time a few Preston fans came in and within minutes we were chatting away. We were confident of a Shakers away win, continuing our push for promotion, they were also quietly confident as they had this 17 year old kid from Man Utd. This was his 3rd game on loan and he had scored in his first two games.
Beckham at Deepdale, the last known photograph of him heading a football. Moments later, his agent Simon Fuller, would step in and scream "Not the face! What are you doing?!"Here is when significant incident number 2 happened. The kid in question was David Beckham! As more and more Preston fans came in the more and more we heard about this “wonder kid”. Finally we left for the ground and the match programme had David Beckham on the front cover, the Preston fans were chanting “Sign him on” before the game, and we headed to the away end and met about 1500 Bury fans slightly confused by all this attention for a 17 year old loanee.
The game started and we were superb. I kid you not, we battered Preston. We hit the post, had a goal disallowed, and had one cleared off the line. Preston were awful and this wonder kid was non existent. As the clock reached 42 minutes the Bury fans were happy but frustrated that our superiority hadn’t been rewarded with a goal or two. Step forward Mr Beckham. For the first time we allowed him some space and he whipped in a cross that was stroked home! As we stood in the away end, gobsmacked, Bury restarted the game and within a minute had allowed him space again. Same ball, same result!
44 minutes on the clock and we are 2 down!
Tragically, a misheard Hollywood conversation with Charlie Sheen extolling the virtues of being "off my head on mushrooms" led to Becks spending a year disguising his head as a mushroom.I remember the amazement during that 15 minute break as Bury fans couldn’t believe that having done nothing for 42 minutes, two passes in 2 minutes changed everything. Honestly I don’t really remember much of the 2nd half. I know Preston scored another 3 and I know that Beckham was unplayable and a certain David Moyes scored. I think by the time the 3rd went in thoughts had turned to getting back to Bury and drowning our sorrows but there was something about that game which meant we couldn’t leave, a player on the pitch who was head and shoulders above everyone else. We had to watch, it felt wrong yet in a way so right.
2 games later Beckham returned to Man Utd and 8 weeks later Bury returned to Preston in the play-off semi final. 90 minutes later we left with a one-nil away win and followed that up 3 days later with a one-nil second-leg win. We lost at Wembley in the final but having seen my team at Wembley will always be with me, as will seeing David Beckham in his ISHADIYCHTGAORIYDTNPIHHBTG….. Told you it would catch on.
———————————————————————————————————-
About the Author
For as long as he can remember, Mark has loved football. Originally from just outside Manchester, he supports Bury FC so can’t be labelled as a glory hunter (although they do hold the record for the biggest FA Cup final winning margin, 6-0 in 1903 and it still stands today!). Mark drives a cab, so automatically he “has an opinion and usually it’s the right one!” All opinions are the author’s own, and they can be heard on twitter @bigmarkdavies. You can contact Mark via email at bigmarkdavies@talktalk.net
