'Life in the Freezer'

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, after all most of the country had spent the first days of 1979 blanketed in snow. Heavy snowfalls, blizzard conditions and near-Arctic temperatures had brought freezing fog and hazardous conditions to East Anglia and I was beginning to regret the decision, taken just a few years earlier, to leave the ‘warmth’ of London in search of work.

The winter of 1978/9 was to go down as the coldest since the ‘great freeze’ of 1962/3 and therefore significant for more than simply the only occasion that Aldershot have featured in the draw for the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

Yes, living in ‘exile’ has never been easy……

I pulled back my curtains to be surprised by the new vista. The haunting beauty of Geldeston Marsh replaced by a film set for David Attenborough’s ‘Life in the Freezer’. The mysterious Bittern sensibly long gone, to be replaced by a battalion of Adelie Penguins, getting ready for the long march to the welcoming North Sea.

And it didn’t take me long to calculate the proportion of the working population who lacked drive; commitment; ‘I must get to work…’; pack the car with soup, blanket, water, whistle, spade……

The streets were eerily empty as I strode out to check the state of the ‘highways network’, and the probability of getting to Norwich safely.

I paused briefly outside of the Council Depot. The ranks of vans and refuse vehicles stood forlorn, the comforting blanket of bureaucracy replaced by the all consuming power of nature.

I followed a couple of tyre tracks that had formed an abyssal furrow in the pristine snowfield. And then the deep throb of a massive diesel engine shattered the monastic silence.

I turned the corner into Market Street and there it was, the Council’s first line of Arctic defence.

A big yellow beast just bursting to get going……

The impressive snow plough had certainly done a good job. The road around the Market Cross was clear, and the tarmac glistened in the weak early morning sun. My progress through the powder snow quickened as I considered the obvious quality of the driver's work, so evident in a circle of no more than 100m. ‘Perhaps Norwich will be accessible’, and my thoughts turned to the working day ahead.

The windows of the cabin were steamed up like the door of an overworked sauna. I banged on the side of the stationary vehicle…..I banged a bit harder. The only response, a muffled drone from the radio. I hit the door of the cabin with my fist, and in a somewhat reluctant response the window lowered just a couple of inches. ‘Yes….what do you want?’, the anonymous driver shouted back above the noise of Tony Blackburn and Radio One. ‘Is the road to Norwich open?', I enquired with the optimism of youth.

‘No, it’s blocked with snow……’

‘But will you be……’

The window started to close. I turned around and started to walk home. I was ready to join the ranks of committed workers who just didn’t have any soup….spade….

And as we suffer another shutdown of road and rail services along with the closure of schools together with the failure of Local Authorities to respond effectively to the sudden Arctic-blast, why do we consider our plight as ‘News’? Is the situation any different to the surprise that Napoleon had when he found Moscow to be a somewhat cold and unforgiving place in the winter of 1812?

The French invasion of Russia was certainly a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. The campaign reduced the French and allied invasion forces to a tiny fraction of the initial strength.

At the time of the invasion Napoleon was at the height of his power with virtually all of continental Europe under his direct control or controlled by treaties favourable to France.

Yes, Napoleon was riding a ‘massive surf’ with the arrogance of a man fuelled by a history of success.

But then with Moscow burned to the ground the army had few food stores to sustain 100,000 men and hunger compounded by the bitter cold accounted for countless deaths. And the severe weather was given the nickname of ‘General Winter’ – the Czar’s deadliest soldier.

Success, victory and winning are indeed powerful drugs. They support the belief that everything and anything is possible. And the odd set back can be dismissed with the confidence of a Government Minister’s statement.

The British economy experienced nearly sixteen years of growth since the last recession ended in the autumn of 1992. And from 1996 the level of real national output grew in excess of two per cent for many of the years - leading to a large rise in total real GDP and an increase in average living standards.

Then from about 2000 the real GDP grew by about 3% each year, largely the result of a high level of consumer spending and also as a consequence of a rise in capital investment demand, alongside which the economy of the United States experienced a massive boom.

But then Gordon Brown understood all of this when with 10 years of Treasury experience wrapped up in his dress suit, and aired annually at the Mansion House he comforted us with his belief that Investment Bankers could be trusted with our money. He knew that they would always put our interests ahead of their Polo Ponies….that the yacht in the 'Med' was no more than an essential office overhead.

‘Your dynamism allied to the City's openness has led London to innovate: the most modern instruments of finance, an ability to compete that depends upon an open competition policy which rewards and is a stimulus to innovation and which does not restrict new entry and so helps new companies, new products and new services to come into the marketplace.’ - Gordon Brown, 21st June 2006.

And now he reassures us that we can extract ourselves from the current ‘global mess’ with plans to build 100,000 Council Houses, massive injections of ‘our’ money into the abyss of the Banking System, a cut in the rate of VAT………….…….

A few of Napoleon’s troops probably survived the retreat from Moscow and the snowfields of East Anglia did clear without the ‘big yellow beast’s’ pathetic intervention. And our economy will recover too…..but it will be through the power of ‘nature’ and not as a result of the lame interventions of politicians.

For Aldershot Town, 2008 was indeed their annus mirabilis and as we entered the New Year a victory over Notts County on January 3rd 2009 would have taken the Shots into the play off positions.

But the late postponement of the game, the result of a frozen pitch, not only upset this long distance supporter but it proved to be the start of a sequence of poor performances that the ‘management team’ clearly didn’t see coming.

With the games against Gillingham and Chesterfield also lost to the weather, January’s return of two home draws and three defeats delivered an icy antonym for Gary Waddock (Aldershot Town, Manager).

Undoubtedly it is easy to play well when the team is winning. And it’s even easier to manage well when the ‘company’ is trading in an expanding market – just ask Gordon. But the real trick is to be ready with a new plan, an alternative approach, and a new direction before the arctic blast hits home.

Suffolk County Council was not prepared in 1979, Napoleon was too arrogant in 1812, Gordon Brown was found wanting in 2008 and America did finally grasp that it is ‘banking bombs’ that go boom.

Gary Waddock still has time to restore to Aldershot a ‘year of wonder’ consigning the mensis horribilis to a mere footnote in the history of our club.