Hendo My uncle always goes on about a game in 93-94 season, Swansea away, coach broke down in the Bristol area, arrived to the game late and walked into the stadium just as Hartenberger equalised.
I was on that coach. They heard of long delays on the Severn Bridge (turned out to be about half an hour, according to some who went that way anyway) and we instead went up towards Gloucester and around. It took ages. We arrived with half an hour to go, and still got charged full price to get in. We saw both goals though.
There was a game at Barnsley in 87/88 (a night game) where the coach got stuck in traffic, and arrived about 15 minutes late, to find Reading were winning 2-1. Final score, 5-2 to Barnsley.
Our game at Fulham in 93/94 suffered from total gridlock around Hammersmith, and some fans were still coming in well into the 2nd half. Fulham had actually agreed to give us part of the home end as well as the whole away end that day, but far fewer made it than expected, and our section at the other end only had a few hundred in it.
There was a game at Crewe in 1989 where the coaches got delayed in traffic. One voted to turn round, and the other ploughed on, but didn't arrive until the last 15 minutes or so.
My personal "favourite" though was a game at Welling, the 1st replay of a cup tie that needed three replays. It was a night game, and I rushed off after work, getting to London Bridge station at what I thought was a reasonable time.
Unfortunately they were having staffing issues (I think there was a really bad flu bug going around), which meant the information boards were all blank and there were hardly any staff about, so I had no idea which platform I needed. It took a long time to find the right platform, and it took a long time for a train to turn up because one or two got cancelled.
The upshot was that I got to the ground just as the teams were coming out for the second half, but the turnstiles were shut. I banged on the doors and eventually a steward opened up and said I had to go to the away turnstiles. Welling's ground doesn't actually have away turnstiles, but they'd opened up a gap in the fence at that end to let fans in. The problem was that to get there, you had to go through a park, and the park gates were about half a mile down the road.
A ran to the park gates, only to find they were padlocked shut. I ran back, and after a bit of grumbling, the steward agreed I could jump over the turnstiles and make my way through the crowd to the away end.
During the time I was running to/from the locked park gates, two goals were scored, one for each team. Ours was a twice taken penalty, which meant I heard "away appeal and cheer", another away cheer, then a home cheer (for it being struck off), then another away cheer as we scored. Very confusing when you are outside a ground. I then heard a big home cheer, and knew they'd scored.
Naturally, they were the only two goals of the game.
I also missed 65 minutes of the 2006 UEFA Cup Final after being nicked for having a slash behind a bush across the road from PSV Eindhoven's ground. I was kept in a cell at the police station (luckily only just down the road from the ground) for about three hours, before being fined €100 and released. I saw three of the four goals though, but I was sat in a section of very miserable Middlesbrough supporters.
saw another 9 scored
