England's Racing Club: On the rails with Racing Club Warwick

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

It was muggy, the kind of August Midlands day where the sun is warmed up in a duvet of clouds, ready to be whipped off and singe.

They’d packed up up for the Summer at the racecourse, “come back in September” read a sign as the groundsmen tended the national hunt fences and dog walkers walked the perimeter sighing “isn’t it hot Marjory”, while their pooches panted.

Over at the castle the town’s famous for, the ice cream van queue snaked like a spurt of Mr Whippy, while old men’s knees were knight’s chainmail creaky.

“Oh my days” int it hot”.

The weather gets this close at Racing Club de Avellaneda in January but the Argentinian giants are know as El Primer Grande or “the first greats”, so it’s worth it.

The English Racing Club at Warwick are some way off that, being named after the horse racing rather than the motorsport origins of their namesakes in Avellaneda.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Racing Club Warwick. On film.

A three mile chase round Warwick is like a football season, on the bridle, off the bridle, a slog of endurance where winning betting slips can turn into rubbish bin fodder with each clipped fence.

Local trainer Dan Skelton goes to the Cheltenham Festival each year after trialling his runners at Warwick but can come back with nothing as often as he takes a Queen Mother Champion Chase.

The barra brava of Racing Club de Avellaneda were given the nickname of “La Guarda Imperial” after Napoleon’s Imperial Guard and while the ultra scene at Racing Club Warwick seems to be one man with a flag, they say as long as you have one fan to fight for the club you’ll have a club to fight for.

He carefully attaches the fabric to the home end at Townsend Meadow and a poignant story emerges as it can so often do with football fan culture.

“This one was made by my friend and his son, the son died so I always put it up for him” he says, tying the pretty black banner with the hand stitched letters to the metal beam of the tin shed stand.

How many matches has that flag seen and how many family moments does it wrap around?

It’s enough to deposit a big fat dollop of a tear into your two pound pint of local ale but this is a happy club gearing up for an FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round tie with everything to play for and a Grand National route to the final.

There’s a little shrine in the bar to star alumnus Ben Foster, the England stopper who played for the Racers at the turn of the millennium.

In front sits a tea urn but its too warm for a brew so a fan orders a great value cup of vodka and Red Bull and there’s banter with jovial bar-staff about Blue WKD, Mad Dog 20-20 and other 90’s favourites.

The window to the burger hatch is kept open with a yellow and black Racing Club scarf because why the hell not.

You know it’s going to be a tough test for the Chasers by the number of Hednesford FC fans dotted around. If there’s a non-League club up for the cup it’s “Hensford” who reached Round 4 proper in 1996-97, only going down 3-2 at a prime Middlesbrough who were replete with Emerson and Ravanelli.

The non-League side had played nine matches by then, such is the long-distance FA Cup test, that the big clubs only join on the run-in.

Hednesford are called the Pitmen after the Staffordshire coal mines from where the club sits. There’s a supporter who wears a coal miner’s helmet with the words “THE PITMEN” written in pen.

An ex-Navy man, he’ll tell you about the luck of ending up on the Royal Yacht Britannia when he could have descended on a submarine.

You need a bit of good fortune in the FA Cup but it turned out that Hednesford had too much for the Racers, with players of the pedigree of ex Plymouth Argyle player Jake Jervis opening the scoring.

Callum Carsley, son of England u-21 boss Lee, comes on for Racing Club but can’t change the outcome. They say his father, tipped to succeed Gareth Southgate as England manager, sometimes pops over to watch and rubs his bald pate with the rest of them but there’s no sign of him today.

As the fourth Hednesford goal goes in, there’s no temptation for the Warwick fan in his bucket hat to take down the flags.

He’s been joined by his mates in a good crowd of 474 and no-one is in a rush to leave this modern but welcoming ground. A man leans on the pitch barrier with his Hemmingway-esque summer hat, bidding a farewell to arms and to the FA Cup for another season.

You can imagine a racehorse blustering up the rails behind the pitch but it’s too warm for that, the runners have been put away till September but the Racing Club Warwick fans will be keeping hold of their betting slips.