"Not bad, for London"

Even by admission of self-appointed Mission General, Mark Ingram, who usually hates London with a passion, this was one of the best missions the LTLF crew has ever undertaken. Not only was the result what we had hoped for, and David Johnson's winning strike enough for creamed pants all round, but we managed not to get lost while travelling through London!

Following last week's vote on whether or not I should observe the Wimbledon boycott in which 60% said I should go regardless of moral issues, I was picked up by Mr Ingram at around 8:45, an early start in mind of the recent travel problems (and who says missioniers lack the sense they were born with?), before heading into Nottingham to pick up Caygill and Matt (aka Captain K) from the City Ground.

We set off down the M1 and were soon making good time, probably due to Ingram pushing his trusty vehicle to the limit...



...which considering the weather conditions...



...probably wasn't very wise. Still, we were already ignoring travel advice not to head towards London from the North, warnings about high winds, and the risk of the match being cancelled before we even got there, not to mention planning to travel on the tube despite the added risk caused by the fire strike, so speeding along a busy moterway in the fog and rain was nothing, especially for a bunch of dare devil missioniers like us!

After more than an hour on the road, we stopped at Toddington services where Ingram nearly forget his keys. As you can tell, he was very pleased to find them.



Perhaps his confidence had now taken a dent, as he even considered buying a map! Or maybe it was just another excuse for a cheesey photo ... the expression on the other guy's face says it all really.





With keys safely found, and maps arrogantly ignored, we got back on the road towards Landan tarn. We were planning to park at Finchley, in the north, and then use the train system to get to Selhurst Park, in the south.

Upon arrival at Finchley, Ingram and Caygill, like the children they are, decided to have a snowball fight to use up the energy they had built up from such a long journey. As you can see from my 'Exclusive Snowball Fight Action' shot below, they both throw like girls, which was of much amusement to myself, but probably less so to the passing locals.



We headed to the station and bought ourselves all-day passes at Finchley Central. Neither of these pieces of information are particularly useful or interesting at the moment, but later on in this report (should you bother to read that far) they may aid your understanding of a couple of situations which could prove somewhat amusing, although I make no promises...



We were kept waiting at the rather cold platform for 15 minutes, which was enough time for the crew members to get thoroughly fed up and start complaining, in very loud voices, about how crap London, and everyone who lives there, is. Again, the locals were not amused.

Our train eventually arrived and we rode as far as the London Bridge station where we went in search of a pub to have lunch in...



...a search was eventually ended by an establishment called, believe it or not, The Elusive Camel...



...which was a proper bonefide Ozzie bar with a genuine Australian bar maid from whom we ordered a some lunch. As I was suffering throughout the day with a slight stomach upset (awwww) I didn't fancy much so just had a bowl of "cheeps" and a pint of "laaaaga", both of which were reasonably nice but worryingly over-priced. Still, it was during this luncheon that Mark Ingram provided the title to this piece and reluctantly declared that his meal was "not bad, for London".

After lunch, we decided to be tourists for a bit and went for a look at London Bridge at the surrounding buildings. We couldn't help but notice that Ken Livingston's new house..



...was leaning somewhat. We deduced that he must have foolishly decided to store all the money he's making from congestion charges on the top floor, the extra weight causing the whole building to lean.



As official mission photographer, I had so far avoided being in any of the photos. But upon the discovery of my camera's timer function, it was decided that we needed a picture containing the whole crew.



Yep, there I am on the far left. And that's the last you'll be seeing of me for the rest of this report, I'm afraid. (Stop cheering!)



We wandered around for a bit, past HMS Belfast...



..and then back to the station where we would catch our train to the ground.



We arrived with about an hour to spare, so headed to the nearest pub, the name of which escapes me (although after The Elusive Camel, it would have to go some way to make an impression). It was there that Ingram, with the aid of the backpage of the Mirror, decided to do a rather good impression of Peter Ridsdale, as seen below.



After a few pints, we headed for the ground with which I was quite impressed, especially the big stand with the curly roof, although Ingram disagreed with me somewhat. You can make up your own minds.





As you can see, it was about as popular as Michael Barrymore's last birthday party. Those photos were taken about 10 minutes before kick-off, and the empty seats didn't fill up much before the match started.





Forest fans were given the Auther Wait stand, an alarmingly big construction which had 50 (50!) rows of seats. Unfortunately, anyone sitting in the first 40 rows spent the whole game with their hands glued to the foreheads due to glaring sun shining over the top of the stand opposite, as demonstrated here...



With this in mind, we decided to sit at the back. The view wasn't great, but at least we could see without risking serious eye damage.



As you can see, this position wasn't particularly advantageous for taking match photos, so I put my camera away for a while and enjoyed the match.

The game itself was somewhat strange. Because of the low home attendance, the game had an atmosphere similar to that of a friendly or reserve match at the City Ground. The 2,000 or so Forest fans who had come along were the drunken fools who were making too much noise and annoying the handful of Wimbledon fans who had turned up (the only noises they made was banging the seats every time the get a corner - no wonder Palace want to get rid of them if they destory the ground every match).



Maybe the strange surroundings confused the Forest players, as they also seemed to think the game was a reserve match. Forest breezed through the first half without every having to work too hard, but in the second a lot of the players (the defenders in particular) spent too much time watching the game passing them by, allowing the Dons to get back into the match.

Everyone was just about coming to terms with another throwaway by Forest when DJ flung himself at a desperate cross from Louis-Jean. Somehow the ball found its way into the net and everyone went slightly mad...



So Forest had won and everyone celebrated like we had just won at Wembley - and after recent weeks where we have deserved to win but didn't, who can blame them for being happy about winning a game in which we played quite poorly at times.



We left the ground happy as a royal butler rooting through Princess Diana's knicker draw and went for another pint before getting back on the train for our long journey back through London.

On the train to Victoria, we met another group of Forest fans, one of whom decided to flash the rather attractive girls sitting innocently on a waiting train next to ours. We expect to see him on Crimewatch any time soon - "Have you seen this prick?", as his mate suggested the appeal might start.

When changing trains at Victoria, there was a hairy moment when Matt realised he had lost his train ticket (see, I told you it would come up) which forced us to use our maximum, err, cleverness to fool the ticket-checking machine.



For the rest of the journey, we amused ourselves by laughing at the tube. The unfortunate commuters in the carraige with us probably though we were shy moor folk or something by the way we were fascinated by the whole concept of a talking train. It wasn't so much the fact that it talked, rather the announcement: "The next station is... closed."

In the cold light of day it doesn't seem that funny, but perhaps we were just over-excited following the match. Either way, it kept us amused for a good ten minutes.



We then entertained everyone by singing football songs about Finchley Central. As you can tell, we don't get out much.

So it was Mission Complete and all that remained now was the drive back up towards Nottingham, during which my poorly tummy came back with a vengance. Despite this, a good day was had by all on a mission that proved to be well worth the effort and surprisingly problem-free.