One of the joys of Sunderland’s inevitable promotion to the Championship is that no longer will this devastatingly handsome, outrageously funny and star of the 2021 Wise Men Say (with Danny Collins) Live Show column have to waste anymore time ridiculing Accrington Stanley’s roofless stand.
No longer will we have to waste valuable space on the internet highlighting that Andy Holt routinely says how poor his football team is, while charging supporters twice for the same game. And no longer will we have to admit that a trip to Accrington is surprisingly nice considering none of us would ever dreamt of visiting at any point in our lives.
Here we are though, still on an ill-advised high of winning a trophy we routinely ridiculed and ready to tear a team that was bodied by a milk advert limb from limb. And one day, that stupid roofless stand will be something we fondly remember, conveniently forgetting just how bloody awful it was.
How To Recreate the Wham Stadium experience?
Take your TV or laptop outside – preferably in a monsoon – and just inflict pneumonia on yourself. At around the 70th minute, buy another streaming pass and watch the same match from the beginning and have someone just repeatedly tell you that they are “not Chelsea you know!!!” before your entire Twitter feed is filled up with morons saying “fair play”, “respect” and “great to see an owner finally talking some sense”.
Does This Place Have Any Good Brews?
On Cans & Megabus’ last venture to Accrington, the whistle was thoroughly whetted in Grants Bar supped a few of the delicious whistle-whetting beverages served up by The Big Clock Brewery. So why not celebrate St Patrick’s Day the correct way by slurping down a pint of their 6% Irish red ale, Lucifer, or just royally ruined on their 7.3% Imperial stout, Ghost.
Did You Know?
Maybe this handsome, witty and devastatingly good at table tennis column should cut Andy Holt some slack. After all, his club hails from a town where none of its buildings have roofs. In fact, the people of Accrington are famously proud of their lack of roofs as they feel it sets them apart from the rest of their Lancashire brethren.
The tradition goes back to 1884 when the town’s founder, Stanley Accrington, refused assistance from neighbours Billy Burnley and Tony Blackburn to build roofed homes, stating that “we Accringtonians would never bow to bourgeois roofed structures of you decadent Lancashirians’. Hence why even today you will never see a roof in the town limits of Accrington..
Tom Walsh
