🎶 We love you Tranmere, we do, oh Tranmere we love you 🎶
All is forgiven for the crossbar incident of 2010 if you do the business against Northampton on Monday, you lovely little Birkenhead scallywags
Saturday 6 May 2023
“Hi mate, I’ve written an article for the website (genuinely) with the title: ‘We love you Tranmere, we do, oh Tranmere we love you.’ Can I get a quote on your thoughts?”
“We absolutely fucking don’t.”
I hope that’s given you a little chuckle on this Saturday morning. It made me chuckle. That’s precisely why I sent the text to Andy Turner (of A-T Garden Services fame; call 07815 138449 for all your garden requirements) because I knew what his reaction would be. His second text tickled me as well.
“I’m dreading a Tranmere chant coming out of the Cheadle End on Monday. No chants, no changing your profile picture, no scarves, no tattoos, and no changing the fucking dog or cat’s name to Tranny!”
I’m with Andy on the Facebook and Twitter profile pictures. Don’t get me wrong, having written the title at the top of this page (I feel about four years old at this moment in time), I know I’ve completely lost any cool points I had left in the bank, but I must admit my testicles did shrivel up in embarrassment seeing hordes of County fans changing their social media avatars to the Tranmere badge last weekend. Whatever your thoughts on the Wirral club, though, and however you choose to display them, we are all honorary members of the Super White Army on Monday, for 90 minutes at least.
The automatic promotion places in League Two could have all been sewn up last Saturday. Orient were already up. Stevenage clinched their place on the day. But Bradford’s 2-1 victory at Northampton opens the door ever so slightly ajar for County. It’s out of our hands, but if we beat relegated Hartlepool, we’re up, providing the Cobblers don’t win at Prenton Park.
So, let’s send lots of love and support and kisses and cuddles over to Merseyside this weekend. That’s basically the theme of today’s article. If Northampton had secured their place in League One last Saturday, this article you’re reading today wouldn’t have even started life as an idea in my head. I’d be producing some topical, hard-hitting journalism today, like what would King Charles make of a night in the Bamboo, or the top 10 places for a coronation chicken sandwich in Stockport.
But the Cobblers didn’t go up last week. We’ve still got a chance of third, and I’m happy to send some Birkenhead positivity out into the atmosphere today - possibly even forgiving them for snapping our crossbar in half on the final day of the 2009-10 campaign - if they can help us secure a couple of juicy local trips to Wigan and Port Vale next season, and a couple of seaside weekends at Fleetwood and Blackpool, plus loads of former Premier League grounds such as Reading, Portsmouth, Charlton and at least three of Bolton, Barnsley, Derby and Sheffield Wednesday.
I do appreciate there’s loads of County fans (like Andy) firmly in the “sod Tranmere” camp - there’s been some lively debate on social media this week - but I’ve already started this article now, so stop moaning, tuck your tracksuit bottoms into your socks, stick on your half-and-half County/Tranmere scarf, and strap yourselves in as we woo the Wirralites.
Today’s edition is sponsored by The Marple Plumber Ltd, who have a fantastic offer for The Scarf My Father Wore readers. They’re currently offering a full boiler check and service for just £65. Scroll down for further details, and if you have any boiler issues whatsoever, be sure to give Paul a call.
Enjoy today’s issue.
Des Junior
I enjoy getting our readers involved with articles from time to time. Having come up with the idea to sprinkle a load of gushing love and affection over Prenton Park, I thought I’d email our 500+ subscribers for suggestions of things they quite like about Tranmere Rovers or Birkenhead.
Three replied. (And only two of those were positive offerings!)
Now, I can think of only three reasons for that.
A) Tranmere Rovers are useless and Birkenhead is a bit of a dump.
B) County fans don’t want to tempt any fate or count any chickens ahead of the final day.
C) Unlike the editor, our subscribers have got better things to do with their time than write about a team and a town they’re not really that arsed about.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Apologies to any Tranmere fans reading this. I was hoping to publish reams and reams of loving prose to get you all onside in a joint mission to screw up Northampton’s season. But as you’ll see in a moment, all we’ve managed to come up with is a folk band from the 80s and a load of cheap tat off your market.
We’ll crack on, though. So please find below, for your reading pleasure, those three aforementioned contributions from a trio of our subscribers.
Nigel Blackwell, main man of Half Man Half Biscuit, is a massive fan of Tranmere Rovers. (This is a great article if you want to learn more.) Nigel is a brilliant lyricist and astute judge of what is right and wrong with the world. I have been to my fair share of HMHB gigs down the years. Let's hope Nigel is smiling after a Rovers win on Monday.
Sandy McGregor
Back in the early 70s whilst at college in Liverpool, I used to love getting the ferry 'cross the Mersey on a Saturday morning to grab some bargains at Birkenhead Market.
Linda Hook
Towards the end of my working life, I spent a lot of time overhauling ships’ engines at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead. Now I know you really wanted favourable comments about the area but the Lair of the Camel Lord was never one of my favourite places to work. As subcontractors hired in by the ship owners, it suited the shipyard for us to delay the job rather than them, so we were always low on the pecking order, well below the yard cats and the people who failed to clean the toilets. You want to bring your van in? That's your car park over there in the distance, around two miles from the vessel you're working on. You need the crane to lift the cylinder heads off the boat? See you next Wednesday. The compressed air's gone off? One of our blokes needed it, so he's pinched the hose you were using. You need somewhere to get changed and have a brew? The back of your van, the one in that car park two miles away, in a snowstorm, that's as good as it's
going to get. You want the spares to finish the job from the stores? They aren't here.
Never mind that you can see them not ten feet away, they aren't here. Yes, you were told to be on board for midnight to do trial runs on the engines but they're cancelled. We told all the yard blokes but we thought
you'd enjoy a little run out to sunny Birkenhead this evening so we didn't
bother telling you. Thank goodness I'm retired…John K Bilsbury
Three’s an alright number, isn’t it? I mean, it was a “magic” number for whoever recorded that song in the 70s. Lots of other good threes as well. The Three Amigos, The Three Musketeers, The Three Tunnes. I do feel three might be a little light for this article, however. So you know what we do in this situation don’t you boys and girls. That’s right, it’s over to Des Junior’s three County-related WhatsApp groups. They’ll be able to wax lyrical about Tranmere and Birkenhead and save the day…
The Stork Hotel do a decent pint. But that’s the only bright spot in amongst the general detritus of Birkenhead.
Is there anything to love about Birkenhead?
Having worked in Birkenhead for four years I've plenty of memories. Used to love "skid row" for drinks, especially The Crown and Cushion (run by Pat and Martin at the time). In general the Mersey side of the peninsula is a shit tip though.
Bin lid breakfast baps from the Woodside cafe - 10" baps with six rashers in.
I had family in Ness, not far outside of Birkenhead. Gene pool of three, that place; horrible backwater full of scrotes.
I lived in Neston briefly, proper gene puddle, swinging capital of the north-west.
Isn’t Hamilton Square like the biggest concentration of Grade 1 listed buildings outside of London or something?
Put it this way, I've got two mates from there who I know from going to watch Lancashire in the cricket. It’s that rough that they won't drink in the Spoons, and one is a taxi driver who will only work days. Enough said.
A former colleague at work - lifelong Liverpool fan who’s been all over the UK and Europe watching them - once told me that the most scared he was at an away game was a third round League Cup tie at Tranmere. He was walking to the ground with a mate and heard Tranmere fans saying, “Let’s get these Scouse bastards.” It was going off all over the place before, during and after the game. Because they live on the Wirral, they think they are a class above, even though Birkenhead is such a shithole!
Oh, for fuck’s sake. If this continues, Tranmere’s players are going to be queuing up to knock an own goal past their own keeper on Monday. There’s only one thing for it. Your editor will step in and salvage this wreckage and smooth things over with the team we need a favour off. Here’s his 10 things that really are brilliant.
1) Awaydays is a pretty cool film.
2) Dave Challinor’s ace isn’t he?
3) And Clint Hill.
4) Jesus, I’m struggling already. How many’s that? Only three? Shit.
5) Do you know what, I’ve actually always thought Tranmere are alright. Home games on Friday nights, in the shadow of two big Premier League clubs, traditional third tier/fourth tier sort of team who had a good run in the second tier in the 90s. They’re not too dissimilar to us.
6) They’ve got a stand named after John King, which I think County should also do as a tribute to one of our all-time legends.
7) Some of their cup runs were fantastic to watch as a neutral; Stuart Barlow’s winner against Southampton immediately springs to mind.
8) The away end’s decent, always get a good allocation there.
9) Birkenhead Park looks alright.
10) They’ve got some impressive murals around the town from artist Paul Curtis.
There, let’s see if that little lot sends any positive vibes their way.
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Today in SK
👑 For those looking to join in with today’s coronation celebrations, there’s no better place to do it than Coffee Block (SK1), where you’ll be “treated like royalty” as you tuck into a cappuccino and a doughnut cronut! Open till 5.30pm.
🎈 As part of King Charles III’s coronation celebrations, between 3pm and 4.30pm at the Dog and Partridge (SK2) there will be an entertainer, magic tricks and balloon modelling. Later in the evening, there’s live music at 8pm from The Indie Pendants.
🕺 Bask (SK1) is the place to be in Stockport on a Saturday night at the moment. DJ Gareth Brooks is on tonight from 7pm till 2am.
Photo of the day
As it’s the coronation day, we feel our readers should all pledge allegiance to the king. And here he is.
Never mind Google or Yell.com, we’ve got you covered
STOP! That got your attention, didn’t it? Just a quick one… I’d hazard a guess that at some point in May, all of our readers will use Google or Yell.com at some point looking for a particular product or service. But before you do, please have a quick look at our own directory to see if we have what you’re looking for. A number of great businesses support The Scarf My Father Wore, allowing us to publish fresh content every day, so let’s send a few enquiries their way in return.
Click here to have a look at all the businesses in our directory.
Funny read as usual. I remember going to Prenton Park with County when the away end was terraced, Some cheeky chappies in the Tranmere section came up to the fence & an exchange of banter started - "You see that river out there la, that's the river Mersey la, best river in the world".........."Yeah, It start's in Stockport mate & we s%£t in it"
Impressed with that mural though, be nice to see a few County one's like that around Stockport.
Birkenhead Park was the model for Central Park in that New York, apparently.
There you are, something positive to say about the place...