It’s 6am on an unpromising Saturday, and I’m heading west out of London on the stretch where the A4 runs beneath the elevated M4 – two roads for the price of one choking up the same corridor of air. It’s a bleak spot. Even at midday the sun doesn’t trouble this murk. Distressingly, incredibly, there’s sometimes evidence of human settlement in the grim void between carriageways under the flyover. Shelters cobbled together from scrap wood, you know the kind of thing.
It’s the last place anyone should be sleeping, obviously, and no place for a pedestrian, either, at any time of day. But here he was, with dawn barely broken, an old boy bearing a shopping bag. A little stooped and listing to one side, he was making slow progress along the pavement. The poor, poor guy.
I wondered where it all went wrong for him. No sooner had I passed him, than I had to stop for a red light. Observing him in my rear-view mirror I noticed, slow-moving as he was, a purpose to his gait. He didn’t have the look of someone wandering without anywhere better to go. It was as the lights changed and I drove away that I clocked that he was wearing a red and white football shirt. Ah, this shone a much happier light on the scene. We were close to the stadium of Brentford FC, who I recalled were playing at Sunderland that day. And I knew with some degree of certainty that this man was making his way to the ground to take his seat on a supporters’ club coach to convey him there.
There are those who, knowing this, may well have felt yet more sorry for him, and even questioned his sanity. A 600-mile (965km) round trip to watch a football match? Madness. But for me, he’d gone from looking like the loneliest man in the world to someone who I knew, today at least, would be anything but lonely. In an instant, I’d gone from feeling sorry for him to being rather envious.
I’ve spent many a Saturday on coach trips like this, to watch my team, West Bromwich Albion. As a kid, with my grandad, beside myself with excitement, and many times since. These days I’m just as excited, albeit with lower expectations of seeing us win. But the joy of it is less in the football match than the sharing of the journey. Each coach will carry supporters from nippers to ancients, many of whom will be familiar to one another.
Based on my extensive experience, I’d wager that these coaches, whichever club’s supporters they’re ferrying, feature a similar cast of characters. There will be those who’ve not a missed an away game since before some fellow passengers were born. Always there will be someone convinced – no matter who the opposition is – that their team will win. Someone else (me) will be convinced – no matter who the opposition is – that defeat is inevitable. Some passengers will never stop talking, others may never start. Somebody will have baked cakes that will be handed around. Every weekend, it’s a great comfort to me to think of all these travelling slices of life criss-crossing their way up and down the country.
It wasn’t until Saturday evening that I checked how Brentford had got on at Sunderland. Despite taking the lead – joy – with 20 minutes left to play, Brentford swiftly conceded an equaliser before Sunderland, horror of horrors, scored again to win the match right at the death. Oof. Trust me, it’s a long way back from Sunderland after losing like that, wherever you’re going back to. Come to think of it, it’s a long way back from anywhere after losing like that.
As I went to bed near midnight, I thought of my man shuffling home along that same wretched road late in the evening, his stoop more pronounced, his shopping bag empty, but already looking forward to next time.
• Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist
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