‘Confessions Of A Rosso Swimmer’

The time has come to delve into the solid pine frame with slatted top and base and hanging rail single wardrobe with canvas effect cover and lob out a couple of those unwanted skeletons.

Cast your minds back to May 1999 and you may recall sponsoring either my sister or myself to go on a fund-raising bike ride for the club. Our destination was Mansfield in order to witness my other team, Cardiff City, celebrating promotion to Division Two at their last match of the season. Thanks to my dad’s pace setting we got to the ground in plenty of time to claim our tickets and settle into our seats for the match. There had been tension during the game and so at the final whistle the police did their best to keep a neutral zone between the two sets of supporters. Unfortunately our bikes happened to be locked up in that particular neutral zone. As the police finally let us through it became clear that we would not make it back to Rosso before darkness set in and so we decided to cheat a bit. We managed to do the Mansfield to Worksop leg on slightly more than two wheels, by jumping on a train at Mansfield station. In all fairness we did cycle the rest of the way and besides we managed to raise around £250 for the club.

This all began at Morley on FA Cup Final day three years ago. It was the final Barnsley Minor League Division Two gala of the year and we were already certain of relegation. Stocksbridge on the other hand were to be promoted, and were getting quite giddy about the whole thing, and so a plot was hatched amongst the older swimmers to enable Rosso to have the last laugh. It was decided that Gavin O’Malley and myself would kidnap the Stocksbridge mascot, however we were unsuccessful as each attempt was thwarted by at least four swimmers surrounding the giant fluffy cow. Determined not to come away empty handed though, Michael ‘The Seven Foot Man’ Atkinson very discretely ‘acquired’ for us a Leeds City Council Lost Property sign. Since that day a number of items including, ‘No Entry’ signs, various pool-side notices, a starting-block number, and many others from venues such as Adwick, Denaby, Epworth, Knottingley, and Bridlington have come into the possession of Raising The Roof. My personal favourite is probably the ‘Profondeur D’Eau 1m.80’ notice from Sportica, which spent the back end of last year above my shower at Uni. One of the more recent additions may take some beating though as I did manage to come away from Wakefield last year with the referee’s pen.