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Published: April 24th 2016
About 25 years ago, some friends of mine were walking down Maid Marion Way and a car pulled up alongside. A cheery American leaned out and said “Can you tell me the way to “
Looga Barooga”. We still call it that to this day. Loughborough, pronounced
Luff Burra, just doesn’t flow off the tongue. We haven’t been for a while and had never been on the bus before. The journey seems to take an eternity. The Other Half got agitated. We were en route to what I would refer to as the Hereford trilogy, but more of that later.
The bus now takes a detour through the Railway Station. The Railway Station is somewhat divorced from the town centre. A typical Victorian add-on to an existing town. The Brush engineering plant seems to have shrunk and is now occupied by other engineering and industrial businesses. We alighted the bus on Baxter Gate, which now forms a sort of Bus Interchange with a portion of High Street. The link between the High Street and The Rushes is no longer, with a pedestrian only access from Biggin street and Churchgate.
We wandered up Churchgate, which understandably leads
to the Parish Church. The Other Half used to work in town going back nearly 20 years, so we are quite familiar with this area. I used to like browsing in the Left Legged Pineapple, a music emporium that has long since retreated online. A shame. In the days of vinyl renaissance, it would have surely been able to hang on to high street status. The Left Legged Pineapple aside, the majority of businesses seemed to remain the same. In retail world, this seemed quite remarkable. The immediate area possibly has had an injection of foot fall with the new retail complex on Biggin Street. A T K Maxx, M & S Food Outlet, Next and a Sport Direct have created an extension of the traditional shopping area and brought new customers into this pedestrianized zone.
The Market Place was buzzing, funnily enough with market stalls. It seems Loughborough has bucked the trend and their Saturday market is thriving. The shops are a mix of high street names and old local establishments, some selling upmarket products such as Mulberry handbags and expensive independently sourced wine. The Town Hall is the centrepiece, but the banking buildings are pretty
impressive. However, I have always been drawn to the art deco cinema a few doors down. We walked down Granby Street to Queens Park. The Library contains a wing built with donations from Carnegie. The Charnwood Museum lies in one corner, together with a large foundry bell monument. Loughborough is the home of John Taylor – the world’s largest bell foundery – which has turned out bells for St Paul’s Cathdral, York Minster and others. The foundry is way from the town centre on Freehold Street, ironically next door to Peel Street.
Queens Park is dominated by the War Memorial. It is without question a significant building in it’s own right and totally disproportionate to a town of this size. We sat on a park bench and ate of lunch, whilst the sun reflected off the tower. The green roof stood out against the bright blue sky.
The delights of “
Looga Barooga” exhausted, we headed south towards Quorn. The object was Hereford’s visit to Quorn FC. The old Hereford United had a bit of a dispute with the tax man and thus went into administration. The reformed
Hereford FC. Forever United has a bit
of a ring about it and the town has got behind it in the way that towns do, when something has been taken away from them. The club got Edgar Street back and set about the long and winding road towards the giddy heights of League football. Alas, it is a long way from the Midland League (Premier Division). The fans seem undeterred. A staggering 4000+ turned up for a home game and the regular away support has been 400, with many more joining the bandwagon for the shorter trips. Quorn FC’s last home gate was 69. It would be a fairly typical attendance in this league for most of the clubs. Today, Quorn were expecting between 500 – 800 Hereford. The eventual attendance was listed as 612, but the majority were traveling fans. As a social media tweet said from a Quorn fan,
“I’ve never seen Quorn play before more than 200. I am quite looking forward to it”. I joked on to myself that I should get an away season ticket, having now been to 3 out of the last 4 trips. We’ve had goals, large away supports, 3 away wins, pitch invasions, minor crowd trouble and a
95
th minute winner, so you can’t say it hasn’t been value for money.
The parameters of our bus ticket stopped at the town centre, so for the sake of a 30 minute walk it didn’t make sense to make a further investment. We passed the Loughborough Endowed Schools – otherwise known as Grammer Schools, the cemetery, the Grand Central Railway line and duly arrived at the Farley Way Stadium on the northern edge of the village. The word village implies that the “Stadium” is just a play on words and it is no more than a fenced off field. In reality, this was quite impressive. A large car park, a massive club house, a 400 seat covered stand running down the opposite side and a 4 step covered terrace behind the car park goal. Quorn FC are geared up for bigger things, courtesy of one Luke Varney. After being spotted playing for his home club in 2003, he has been on a magical merry go round into Championship football via Crewe, Charlton Athletic, Derby, dirty Leeds and Ipswich among others. The trick was the sell-on clause insisted upon on when the sale to Crewe was completed.
The Hereford FC roadshow looked a little uncomfortable today. There was no fluent football. The weather probably didn’t help. The pitch had stood up well to the rain on Friday, but one minute it was bright sunshine and the next, hailstones were pounding down. A couple of Quorn players resorted to the school boy tactic of pulling their sleeves down to keep their hands warm, which should really be a sending offence at this level. A rash 2 footed challenge from the Quorn winger did result in a sending off and changed the outcome. The hailstones blanketing the pitch were soon forgotten, after a monumental clanger let Hereford in for the first goal. The way hordes behaved themselves and stayed off the pitch. The prospect of being banned from a FA Vase Final in May was enough of a deterrent. A late strike made the victory seem more convincing than it was and the bandwagon rolled on. 20 away games. 20 wins. Enjoy it while you can. It will never happen again.
The sunshine returned just in enough time for our walk back to Loughborough or is it “
Looga Barooga”?
Appendix 1 Midland League (Premier Division)
Date: Saturday 16 April 2016 @ 1500 Hours Venue: Fackley Road Stadium, Fackley Road, Quorn, Leicestershire 
Quorn FC 0 - 2 Hereford FC 
Attendance: 612 Scorers: 0 - 1 Symons (Hereford FC) 63 Min, 0 - 2 Haysham (Hereford FC) 85 Min Appendix 2 Midland League (Premier Division) Date: Saturday 2 April 2016 @ 1500 Hours Venue: Ron Steel Sports Ground, Lenton Lane, Dunkirk, Nottinghamshire 
Dunkirk FC 2 - 3 Hereford FC Attendance: 376 Scorers: 1 - 0 Holden (Dunkirk) 31 Min, 1 - 1 Haysham (Hereford FC) 34 Min, 1 - 2 Own Goal (Hereford FC), 2 - 2 Whitt (Dunkirk) 54 Min, 2 - 3 Symons (Hereford FC) 95 Min
Appendix 3 Midland League (Premier Division) Date: Thursday 31 March 2016 @ 1945 Hours Venue: Grange Park, Long Eaton, Derbyshire 
Long Eaton United FC 0 - 4 Hereford FC
Attendance: 395 Scorers: 0 - 1 Bundu (Hereford FC) 20 Min, 0 - 2 Mills (Hereford FC) 69 Min, 0 - 3 Green (Hereford FC) 78 Min, 0 - 4 Mills (Hereford FC) 83 Min
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