I’ve long won­dered what could pos­si­bly con­nect a 1970s dram series about a middle-​aged pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor with an eccen­tric father to Tran­mere Rovers.

The answer, it turns out, is that the song was first played at Friday matches, because the show aired at the same time as the kick-​off.

Black humour, I assume: a reminder to fans that they could be cosy at home in front of the telly instead of freez­ing their arses off watch­ing their team lose.

Thanks to Tim Roberts, Web­site and Pro­gramme Editor at Tran­mere for the information.

Iain Hume capped Tranmere’s win in a six-​goal thriller against 10-man Sheffield Wednes­day at Pren­ton Park.

Calvin Zola headed a Ryan Taylor cross home to put Rovers ahead and Mike Jack­son added a second soon after.

Steve MacLean pulled one back and though Taylor scored a penalty when Guy Branston brought down Hume, Guy­lain Ndumbu-​Nsungu made it 3-2 at the break.

Hume made it 4-2 with a deflected effort and Branston’s was dis­missed for an appar­ent elbow on Eugene Dadi.

Nice one!

Can anyone explain why the Rovers always do so much better in the second half, in terms of both matches and the season?

Pre­sum­ably the latter is down to the boost pro­vided by the semi-​traditional FA Cup run, but every time I see them play they skit­ter about like head­less chick­ens in the first half, then run out for the second like some sort of crack squad of tac­ti­cal ninjas. Or something.

Yes, I am post­ing about foot­ball. Please do not adjust your browser. Normal ser­vice will resume tomorrow.

More galling still, right up to the last sec­onds of the game, it looked like Tran­mere might claw back a goal.

But they didn’t, so that’s that.

I’m afraid I’m ill-​qualified to pro­vided a blow-​by-​blow match report. Suf­fice to say, both teams played lumpen foot­ball in the first half, with Tranmere’s defence and keeper doing well to pre­vent Mil­wall from scor­ing. As in every game I’ve seen Tran­mere play, they were a better side in the second half, and ought really to have scored; though John Achterberg’s bril­liant penalty save was met with the sort of cel­e­bra­tions usu­ally reserved for a last-​minute goal.

But who cares about the foot­ball? Not me, if I’m honest. It’s a stul­ti­fy­ingly dull game to watch on tele­vi­sion, and not much better in the flesh. No, I like being part of a crowd chant­ing (Super White Army!) and believ­ing, tem­porar­ily but truly, that the most impor­tant thing in the whole wide world is Tran­mere beat­ing the other side. And I don’t even mean that in terms of the two teams on the pitch, but with regard to the oppos­ing groups of fans – it was as much of a joy to see three stands of Mil­wall fall silent in the second half while Tran­mere roared at them (Super Are We!) as it was to find Achterburg’s save had granted the club a second chance to go fur­ther in the FA Cup than they ever have before.

I did, though, feel a little iffy in join­ing some chants – I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m Tran­mere ‘til I die! – since I prac­ti­cally define the fair-​weather fan. My alle­giance switched from Liv­er­pool (they were the default at Pri­mary School) to Tran­mere when they found some suc­cess in the late 80’s/early 90’s, and due to the real­i­sa­tion that one ought not to sup­port any team but one’s local side.

When I grasped that Tran­mere are more local than most, so to speak – there’s a suc­cess­ful youth train­ing scheme, heavy ticket dis­counts for school­child­ren, and a unique spon­sor­ship deal with Wirral Bor­ough Coun­cil – my sup­port for the club was, more than any­thing else, a polit­i­cal stance. Sure, I’ve always kept a vague eye on the club’s progress (or, let’s face it, lack thereof) and made a little tra­di­tion of going to Pren­ton Park once a year, if I could be arsed, for Boxing Day matches. But I couldn’t hon­estly describe myself as a fan, more an inter­ested observer who delib­er­ately chose to iden­tify with the team over the other two, rather more promi­nent, Mersey­side clubs.

Last night, I went to see Yo La Tengo and realised a pos­si­ble reason for my recent con­ver­sion to, if not true foot­ball fan status, then some­one who gen­uinely cares about his side. Now, Yo La Tengo didn’t, as you might imag­ine, sing a ballad about the shift­ing atti­tudes of a half-​hearted Tran­mere fan, but being at that gig, trying to get into a band I’ve never fol­lowed too closely, offered a little clue to my sup­port for the team step­ping up a gear over the last two years.

This was a gig attended by a keen fan­base – the sort of con­cert where the open­ing notes, let alone bars, of a song are greeted with a cheer – and one that I stood apart from, able to appre­ci­ate the band, but not really caring enough to applaud, since I’ve never been immersed in this par­tic­u­lar subset of inde­pen­dent music, one that a cer­tain gen­er­a­tion of Glaswe­gian fans hold dear. This is in marked con­trast to the way I used to approach the two night­clubs that had a hold on me for ten years: first the insuf­fer­ably naff Cream, in Liv­er­pool, then the insuf­fer­ably hip Optimo, in Glas­gow. Now, I don’t want to down­play the music at Optimo – thrilling stuff, week-​in week-​out – but the real strength of that night­club, as with Cream in its day, lies in its community.

All good night­clubs are, of course, based on strong ties between the people on the dance­floor, their common pur­pose to dance on drugs, and lots of them, but Optimo was (is, I’m sure, for other people) dif­fer­ent, with a pos­i­tively rabid gang of reg­u­lars, clus­tered in cor­ners at end­less after-​parties, and on a thriv­ing inter­net mes­sage board, living in each others’ pock­ets through the week, which revolved around the Sunday night pil­grim­age to the Sub Club.

So, what on earth does this have to do with Tranmere?

Well, stand­ing at the edges of the Yo La Tengo com­mu­nity in Glas­gow, it occured that I’m on the flip­side of the sup­posed cor­re­la­tion between the rise of MDMA and the fall of foot­ball hooli­gan­ism, best doc­u­mented by Kevin Samp­son in his fea­tures and short fic­tion for The Face. I don’t know if dan­ger­ous heads were really turned into loved-​up ravers after pop­ping a couple of Speck­led Doves, but it seems more than coin­ci­den­tal that, after finally decid­ing (thanks to this inci­dent) that ingest­ing Her­culean quan­ti­ties of nar­cotics and danc­ing my ass off every week­end wasn’t such a great idea after all, I’ve started to enjoy foot­ball matches more than ever.

It’s prac­ti­cally a truism to state that night­clubs and foot­ball matches oper­ate on the same level. The only dif­fer­ence, really, is that the sero­tonin floods come cour­tesy of near-​misses, goals and the occa­sional grace­ful move­ment on the pitch, rather than direct tam­per­ing with brain chem­istry and the skill of disc jock­eys manip­u­lat­ing the crowd through music; and the sense of com­mu­nity is as strong, if not far stronger. And, as this post demon­strates hor­ri­bly well, it’s impos­si­ble not to devote the space between expe­ri­ences – on the dance­floor or in the stand – to analy­sis, rem­i­nis­cence and anticipation.

My apolo­gies for wit­ter­ing on so long about this – I’m more than aware that this post reads like some unholy alliance between a Nick Hornby novel and the staple ‘Current Mood: Self-obsessed’ entry on Live­Jour­nal – it just struck me as a funny course to be on: from night­club to foot­ball ground, not the other way around.

Now, I just have to decide whether I can spare the time to travel to Pren­ton Park next Tues­day for the replay. I sus­pect I might, in writ­ing this, have per­suaded myself.