Tyre Pressure & the Power of Twitter!

Not my actual car!

Last night, I was hoping for a nice quaint trip to Stalybridge for the game against 'Celtic' and so after finishing work a little later than planned, I still managed to make an early start from Chester, looking forward to the game and catching up with Jim Harvey.

All had been going well, listening to Talk Sport on the way, with the usual controversial subject of the day being very entertaining, and then time to make a few phone calls - hands free of course - and whilst on the phone to one just heading past the M6 junction, an almighty bang, then the worst case of vibrations experienced since the Ann Summers shop opened up in Chester!

Luckily I was in the slow lane, as I had to pull on to the hard shoulder, and with every bang you do of course think that your car has given up the will to live - especially when it's a 10 year old Saxo, but hey it's only done 30k miles (hence the reason why I bought it!), but when something goes wrong with a car I always fear the worst.

So, stepped out to assess the damage and thankfully the engine hadn't gone - always my first concern, and then looked down to a sorry looking front wheel which had pretty much exploded!

So, being the car mechanic that I am certainly not, I surveyed the damage and though, "shit, I may have to change this" - now I'm not the most gifted when it comes to cars, and all previous cars of mine have had a spare wheel safely stored away in the boot, but this one...underneath - hmmmm.

I got back in the car to gather my thoughts, and thought I'd send a tweet looking for assistance - out of hope more than anything else! Unfortunately in the Saxo, I'd not got breakdown cover - typical, if I'd used the other car, I would have had.

With lorries and cars breezing past me at speeds of over 70mph, and my arse twitching as each one went past, I decided to make a couple of calls, the first was unsuccessful, then the next would be using one of those emergency phones on the road that I thought I would never use!

As soon as I picked the phone up it was ringing, cool. Then answered straight away by a fella from the Highways Agency who then told me that no-one could come out to fix it, but they would tow me to a garage to sort it out tomorrow, with the match at Stalybridge kicking off in just 90 minutes, being towed to a garage was not on my radar - but it would have been completely off the radar if what happened next hadn't happened.

On my way back from the Highways Agency phone - who by the way told me that I had 2 hours to remove my car from the hard shoulder or it would be towed away anyway, and charged for it in the process, all this whilst seemingly standing in an infestation of ants - the kind that looked like those off I'm a Celebrity, in fact I ended up showing more footy skills than David Beckham booting them away!

So, I decided that I'd try and make a few calls to avoid being ripped off, and on the way back from the phone had a black Vauxhall Corsa blast past me tooting their horn (thanks Jay!), and then when I'd given up all hope, up popped a Blue car, and it was none other then the Whelans, and Matty had checked out his Twitter to see that I was stranded - okay, I'd had a tyre pop, but to me anyway I was stranded!

Thankfully out popped Steve from his car, and came over to help me with my problem, and ten minutes later the wheel had been replaced, he made it look so easy, and it probably was to him and any other like minded person, but to me it was a nightmare.

I managed to drive off and take my time, and thankfully get to Stalybridge in good time - thank god I'd set off early - and arrived to be offered a cuppa by one of the home officials, but instead all I wanted was a sink so I could wash!!

Being the Tweeter for the night for ChesterFC it was then time to quickly pick up the team sheet, but as Paul Wheelock from the Chron had already tweeted the team news, I decided to take the easy way out and retweet it - yep, the lazy option.

In fact the rest of the evening it became a battle of who could get the match news out the quickest, but Paul won it hands down - and I gave in due to the fact that typing on a pc is much better and quicker than typing out tweets on a HTC phone, especially one that was rather annoying on the predictive text!

So, the match was a fairly open one, and two goals in the first half did the damage, and that damage also ensured my final bodge of the night, when what was supposed to be my final tweet of the night I stated that we'd won the second half 1-0, completely forgetting that we'd actually drawn it - oh well!!

So, all in all a nice evening weather wise in Stalybridge, complete with a king sized sausage & bacon bap for £2.80, which more than made up for the result last night.

Next stop...Bangor City - thank god that's at home though!

Thanks to The Whelan's for being the (Blue and) White Knights of the Road last night!