By Penguin Jack
January 20 2005

Hello there and welcome to Penguin Towers, North Devon and to the latest Jack's Flashbacks. Now I am aware that my reputation may be bordering on the drunken sexist pig line... After all, my previous Flashbacks have not exactly been family reading at times..

So I would like to tell a tale of youthful bliss and ignorance that happened to me and a friend back in 1992 and by sheer coincidence, it was against Norwich City at Carrow Road on Halloween of that year.

So here we go. Boro were in the Premiership and had been holding our own. In fact, we were looking OK for a mid table berth come the end of the season.

But Boro being Boro, we became absolutely dreadful at around Christmas, just for a change and went and got ourselves relegated.

So how did I get to Norwich? Well a friend of mine from childhood had a penpal whom he had been writing to for many years and she came from Norwich.



So to cut a long story short, he had arranged to meet her and spend the weekend in Norwich to coincide with the Boro game and I was asked if I would come as well.

And of course the penpal had a friend, so I was keen not only to see the Boro away, but this young lady may be decent and she might fancy cementing the Middlesbrough - Norwich friendship a stage further.

So we travelled up on the Friday via a very long train ride and after several changes, we arrived into Norwich and met the young ladies in question.

Now this was before the internet and webcams and picture message mobile phones and such like but I still could not have been prepared for the shock of meeting a female Giant Haystacks look-alike whom I was supposed to spend the weekend with.

So after settling down at my mate’s penpal's house and meeting her nice family, we as a foursome went out on the town in Norwich and I was shitting a brick.

Honest, I was scared as she kept staring at me and she looked like she wanted me. Whether she wanted to eat me or to fulfil her sexual desires with me, I dunno...



I had at this time of life (17) discovered the delights of alcohol and what silly things it can make you do if you drink enough of it, so I avoided drinking too much for the want of becoming a sexual conquest of Miss Haystacks.

As the night wore on, it became apparent that my mate and his penpal had hit it off and this had a strange affect on young Miss Haystacks, as when I tried to squeeze past her to go to the loo, she grabbed me and tried to kiss me!

I escaped, just, and hid in the toilets for bloody ages, or so it seemed, until my mate came in to see if I was OK and to tell me that we were leaving now.

This was a life or death situation and it was getting worse by the minute. We all went back to one of the girl's houses for coffee and I just could not get away.

She kept staring at me, following me around the house, sitting next to me, touching my hand, telling me I had nice eyes... I feared for my safety, I tell ya.

Anyway I survived the night but still had a full day and another night in Norwich to contend with.

The next day we went to the game, me and my mate leaving Miss Haystacks to fend for herself in what ever way she pleased. And as long as I wasn’t there, I didn’t mind what she did. I told my mate to protect me and he just laughed.

The game itself was OK. We scored through our top scorer Paul Wilkinson, Norwich hit back and after much huffing and puffing the game ended all square at 1-1.

The Boro end was quite full and I saw a few familiar faces and told them of my weekend and how so far I had avoided being eating alive by Miss Haystacks.

A couple of my mates offered helpful hints like 'you don’t look at the mantlepiece whilst poking the fire' and 'any old port in a storm'...

All of this was just made me feel worse as I didn’t wanna hurt her feelings, being such a nice guy, but I was buggered if I was gonna extend my then limited carnal knowledge any further with her.

So after the game we had been invited to a 21st birthday party of someone or other whom the Norwich girls knew, so not knowing anyone at this place I got completely smashed.

Miss Haystacks was not speaking to me after my mate told her that I didn’t fancy her at all and would you leave him alone, so I was free to mingle with the rest of the females at the gathering.

Well she did ignore me until later on when in my drunken state, I pulled some other girl who found my accent sexy and she said she fancied a walk round the car park outside with me to take in the evening air. Well who was I to argue?

But this triggered Miss Haystacks into action and she went on to demonstrate her full wrestling potential as she kicked off and a full girl on girl fight ensured with me beating a hasty retreat to find a kebab shop for some scran.

So after getting my kebab, I decided to head on back to the house that I was staying at but as I often do when I am pissed, I went and forgot where the bloody place was.

And the taxi driver was getting fed up of looking so he kicked me out somewhere near where I was staying.

I eventually found my abode for the night after asking some alarmed locals for directions, and knocked on the door only to hear shouts and screams coming from inside.

So I did another runner, thinking that the fight I had caused with my over active loins was still in full swing, just in a different location.

Anyway I spent a very cold night in a kiddies play park with only my denim jacket to protect me from the elements. The only bright spot came at around 2am when a pissed couple on their way home from a night out decided to have open air sexual intercourse on the slide that I was sheltering under!

It cheered me up no end I can tell you and I still don’t know how they never saw me hiding there.

As it turned out and upon further inspection the next morning, I had gone to the wrong house and spent a needless night sat outside freezing my nuts off.

Anyway I survived to tell my tale and I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane.

Till next time
Up the Boro
Jack