Last minute weekend getaway
By Wayne Humphrey
The following is a tale of the need to plan, my first visit to Candlestick park….
A child of the 70’s and a teenager in the 80’s in art class a friend at the table produced some shiny key rings,” hey guys have you seen these, who wants one?”, his name was Philip and was a local boy from the village, immediately I grabbed for the 49ers one only to be met with not that one, that’s my team (I’m not sure if he’s still a fan, we’ve lost contact), so I think I ended up with a Washington (Redskins at the time) key ring, secretly wishing it was a 49ers because it looked so much cooler than the others. We chose our teams based on the keyrings we had, but inside I knew i wasn’t a Washington fan but as teenagers do I played along to be part of the gang. That was the beginning, my parents split around that time, and my new stepbrother who was a fair bit older was already into NFL and would watch it on channel 4, and while I had no clue what was going on I enjoyed it too….
In the mid 90’s I became an Assistant Manager of a Whitbread chain “hogshead”. In 1999 I moved down to Bournemouth where I was promoted to Manager, and here’s were the story takes a twist. Hogshead was a chain of spit-n-sawdust style real ale houses, focusing on quality beer and honest pub grub, background music and NO TV’s were the norm, however, due to the location of this specific branch being near to the Uni and another sports bar, there was a real need to at least accommodate the locals on match days, and while not a fan of English Soccer it was always broadcast on match days, every other day was the music channels.
A random Sunday night in September 2000 the music channel was playing something god awful and I happened to accidentally switch on Sky Sports, I have no idea what game was on but it was NFL, I quickly changed back to another music channel, when a voice piped up “oh, can we watch the NFL?”, the bar was practically empty being 21:45 on a Sunday and back then we shut at 22:30, so I said we’re not supposed to but, go on then. I recognised the guy he was a Sunday regular, we chatted for a while, his name was Mike and he was a San Diego Chargers fan, before we knew it the staff had locked up and we were having a lock in until the game was over.
Mike came back every Sunday and watched NFL with me and we talked about going stateside to watch a game, I had a passport for ID purposes but had never used it to travel abroad and had in fact only been abroad once with my mum when I was 10 to Spain, he said he would only travel to see a Chargers game, I was happy to see any game and would rather have a travel companion than miss a chance. With time booked off, tentative plans went in place but nothing confirmed, suddenly he had a big contract awarded to him and he had to cancel, he broke the news to me while we were watching a game on Sky 22nd October 2000, our plan was always to get a last minute deal, at the end of the game Sky announced that the 49ers would be game of the week “next week” live from Candlestick Park. That night I went online and found (via some cheap flights site) flights for $199 return, and a game ticket for $80.
The following morning after a few emails (for tickets) and a phone call (for flights), it was booked as I had “planned in my head” and the phone call went something along the lines of, “Hi I’ve seen these tickets, are they real? I want to leave Friday any time and come back Monday after 6pm” [Call Center response:] “we have flights departing at midday on Friday and 6 o’clock Monday with TWA, change at St. Louis….. Sold!
Landing in SFO and getting through customs without even having a hotel booked, I got a cab to the most seedy hotel somewhere in the south of the city, not a great first impression, but the next day I managed to get myself a night room down in Fisherman’s Wharf, picked up my game tickets on the way, did some sightseeing and shopping at Pier 39 in the NFL shop, met some cheerleaders who were doing signing’s, but they were not the Goldrush, and caught the fan bus Sunday morning over to the stadium.
Sadly, due to an issue with my “new camera” I don’t have any useable photos from that trip as seen In the next image, the colours shifted and it was only a 0.3MP camera, so files are not worth bothering with. Arriving on the bus and seeing the stadium for the first time was just WOW, I got off the bus and followed the crowd, I had no idea where my seats were or how to get to them, I walked up some stairs, found an entrance and made my way into the seating area. Up to that moment I’d never experienceda large sporting event or infact, a stadium environment, I walked out into the seating area at the rear of the end zone with the commentary booth up to my right, I cant explain the feeling I got, chills ran through my body and I was so gobsmacked I just stood there for a good 5 minutes just taking it all in, it felt so surreal. I wandered the outer walkways buying hot dogs and drinks, briefly looking out at the tailgate not knowing what it was all really about. Eventually found my seat right in the middle of the away team section at the 50 yard line, surrounded by Rams fans, who were all amazingly friendly and forgave me for sitting with them because of how far I’d travelled.
I don’t really remember the Charlie Garner 4 yard rush as the opening score, but seeing the likes of Jeff Garcia throw 2 TD’s to Terrell Owens was something else, watching The GOAT Jerry Rice warm up, he got some game time with 6 receptions for 53 yards but nothing longer than 13, and no points. Ultimately the 49ers suffered a 34 to 24 loss at home to the Rams, but I made memories that have lasted a lifetime.
I caught the bus back to Downtown and had some beers in a bar, grabbed some sleep before shopping in the morning (draining my bank account to the last £10, and maxing out my credit card, I was getting paid in 2 days so why the hell not!). I eventually jumped in a shuttle bus to the airport that I had the foresight to prebook for 15:00 arrival, so as to be on time for the flight.
The look of confusion on the check-in desk ladies face will haunt me forever, after calling a supervisor, I was politely told that there was no 6pm flight and in fact I was due on the 6am flight and I’d missed it by a solid 9 hours, with no chance of hopping on the next flight they washed their hands of it and left me to fend for myself, I hadn’t checked the flight ticket times because I had previously specified 6pm and he said yes 6 o’clock return, it never occurred to me to ask or double check. Any way your last £10 English Pound Sterling doesn’t last more than about 90 seconds on an international call home, in fact after around 8 calls collect to various family members over the next 48 hours, my phone bill came to around £250 that I needed to pay family back. My step mother had to go in person to the travel agent to buy me a ticket which I could then collect the next day at SFO airport, having not eaten since Monday afternoon, I arrived home early Thursday morning, the only thing I had eaten by then was the flight food.
I Moved pubs the year after and never made it over with Mike, but the following year in 2001 myself and another friend did go back for a proper holiday for a week with some well planned sightseeing, and to watch the Rams beat us again, but this time with no holiday drama’s.
