When Peter Todd looked at the fixture list and saw that Hunslet were playing London Skolars on a Saturday afternoon, he decided that he would make the trip. As he doesn’t live close to the South Leeds Stadium he decided to make the journey by car, rather than join the Supporters Coach – and that was his first mistake.
He studied the route and timings according to Google maps (other map-thingys are available, probably) and duly saved this on his mobile phone, which also served as his SatNav. The journey was timed at 3 hours 30 minutes and so the plan was to set off at 11am to arrive an hour before kick-off. He would normally plan to arrive 10 minutes before kick-off (watching the players warm up is not particularly entertaining) but Covid requirements suggested that an earlier arrival would be a good idea.
But back to the journey.
Peter set off at the allotted time of 11am and SatNav – via his phone – confirmed the journey time as 3 hours 30 minutes BUT, after driving for 15 minutes, SatNav changed the time to 4 hours 40 minute!!! So from arriving an hour before kick- off, he was now going to miss the start.
SatNav said something about a blockage on the motorway around Doncaster and so Peter thought that he would check for an alternative route. Being mindful of safety considerations, and the fact that he was driving at something like 60mph on a motorway, he resorted to using Voice Recognition on his phone – and that was his second, and BIGGEST, mistake.
He asked his phone for directions to “London Skolars” and his phone kindly came up with new directions, with an arrival time of 3:15. Not perfect for a 3:30 KO and Covid considerations, but probably OK to see kick-off.
The next hour or so went smoothly and then he reached the dreaded North Circular Road.
SatNav said go right (West to you geographically minded people), which seemed a bit unexpected to Peter because, whilst it was a few years since he had visited Skolars, it didn’t seem to be the right direction.
But, checking SatNav – with due consideration to Road Safety – he seemed to be heading in the right direction.
After some time on the North Circular, SatNav took Peter down a leafy lane before entering a built up area and, finally, into a short dead-end street of terraced houses – and then it occurred to him that this was not the home of London Skolars.
Having finally come to a halt, after four hours of driving, he had the chance to look properly at his phone and discovered that when using Voice
Recognition his phone had directed him to London Scholars. It seemed to be a dubious address for a legitimate business, although apparently it’s some sort of tutoring set up (other tutoring thingys are available, probably).
BUT the search for directions to London SKOLARS now gave an arrival time of 4:45, and so he could maybe see the last 5 minutes of the game,
So he – no I, as you may have realised by now, it is me writing this – decided to go home.
At least SatNav took me to my home address, and not to Holme (near Huddersfield)!
But, to finish on a positive note, Peter/I plan to attend the next away game against West Wales. However the good news is that he has booked a caravan in Kidwelly (look it up) which is only a ten minutes drive – so it will be much harder to get lost.
Hello former GM
Amongst “other map-thingys are available, probably” are paper maps. You’re old enough to remember them, and how you could never re-fold them into their original format.
Thanks Anonymous and you’re right – I am well old enough to use proper maps (but too old to notice replies to these electronic thingys for some time).
In fact I live by Ordnance Maps usually, but I find it quite hard to spread them out on my lap whilst driving.
So thanks – and getting cross with a bit of shouting and swearing always helps to fold them back up (but not whilst driving)