About 1998, actually yeah it must have been as the World Cup was on. It was that one where Phil Neville gave a last minute penalty away. Seem to remember Nigel Martin was playing as well.
The company that I was working for in York were based in Whitehaven and they had some sort of outbound bound type training place in the Lake District. All the geeky IT systems boys used it for courses and one of them gave me a key for the weekend for a litre bottle of whiskey. I'd never heard of the place before, but it was somewhere near the village of Mockerkin.
So on a Friday night me and my mate loaded the car with ale and burgers and made our way there. He did the driving and petrol, I provided the grub. We went halves on beer and drugs. Found the place eventually. It was truly in the middle of nowhere. We thought we were Withnail and I except we weren't in a desolated cottage but a glorified barracks. It was fucking enormous inside. Loads and loads of bedrooms, huge kitchens, the sort you find in a school, and a couple of massive lounges.
The night that England played, must have been the Saturday, we went into Cockermouth which was about 8 miles away. Must have got a taxi. We went around a few boozers and interspersed with smoking this ridiculously strong hash and taking other daft stuff, got severely fucked up and fell into one of the rare taxis round there. The driver agreed to take us back as he said he had a regular shag somewhere near Aspatria. This place, Aspatria sounded like some made up micro-state from an Ealing comedy with a governor that wore ostrich feathers in his pith helmet. Got chatting as best we could with the driver and quickly realised he was as fucked as we were. Practically zero risk of being stopped by the fuzz round there. We asked if we were all right to have a smoke in the car and he said fine and had a couple of tokes himself. By the time we were out of town and winding down these dark country lanes, we were all banjoed and giggly and the driver was crawling along slower and slower. Eventually got back to the barracks and he came in for a can and to use the phone. We tried to get him to stay for the night but he was on his promise in the land of the free. God bless Aspatria 🫡
I remember it as a warm night so we had all the doors open and continued with the bodily abuse. We went for a wander out the back and into the fields, staggering through sheep shit in nice trainers.
When we got back to base we carried on and as there was no one around for seemingly miles, had the music at the highest volume. Dark Side of The Moon was on. My mate went off for a piss and after about fuck knows how long hadn't returned. I staggered off to find him. Started looking through all the rooms in the rabbit warren and then I got the fear and felt like I was in The Shining. Desperately searching all of these empty rooms and corridors and shouting his name. Dark Side of the Moon is echoing round the place. All the doors open and the wind is blowing in and there's all sorts of creaking so I decided to go outside to try and get my head together. I went up this small hill and sat on a rock. Soon there were sheep gathered together nearby and my head was really fucked and I couldn't decide if it was real or a dream. I heard music playing in a building not far away with a couple of lights on. I got up and headed there as it was the only place around. When I got not too far away I realised the music was Pink Floyd, I know this place.
Then I'm looking in the mirror and I've got one of those 90s Caesar type cuts and I'm thinking it's too long at the front so I get some scissors and cut a bit away and then another bit and then try and even it up. By the end I look like one of those French women collaborators where they've had their barnet hacked off in the street, all patchy an that.
So I fuck off to one of the hundred bedrooms and in the morning I find my mate asleep under a bed.
Fucking Phil Neville.
