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PART IV - BOBCAT FEVER IN ATHENS, OHIO! |
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Fri 22 Oct
West Virginia Baby! The fall is a beautiful time of year here. All the colours changing and all that crap! |
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Some mountain you won't have heard of in West Virginia - we hadn't either! |
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The sun sets over Ohio as we enter the Buckeye State late on Friday night. But we're not here for Buckeye football at Ohio State - instead we're heading for the college town of Athens, home of Ohio University and the Bobcats! We arrive late Friday, to find it's homecoming weekend and every hotel appears full. But by some miracle we find a dingy little motel on the outskirts of town with 1 room left. Perfect! |
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Sat 23 Oct
Another icy cold morning! We got into the town, just as the parade had finished. But no worries we head into the main University store to stock up on our Bobcats gear. Amazingly the lady at the register recognises our Claymores shirts. Turns out her husband was best man at Jim Ballard's wedding! |
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Cheddars complete with "Go Bobcats" stickers plastered on our cold cheeks! This is division 1-A football (The Mid-American Conference) just in case you had any doubts. |
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The tailgating was pretty good as expected, with bands and beer lining out on the field opposite the stadium. We found our tailgating friends right at the end of the parking lot with an unbelievable hearty welcome to our cold souls, with the usual food and beer. But there was also some much needed whiskey, all from the stockpile of the near legendary "Badger Steve" (far right). The man seemed to have bottomless bottles and hip flasks of the stuff and it provided much needed fuel to get us through the day! We donned our Cheddars and made our way to the stadium. It seemed that every student reporter from the Athens Messenger wanted to talk to us, all of them hoping to get a scoop on "Why the hell did you choose this game?" Goodness knows what they wrote up the next day. |
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The Triple Option Offense as run by the Bobcats. None of this passing shite! (They did complete 3 passes on the day but we don't have pictures to prove it). Despite losing their star freshman QB Dontrell Jackson early on, the back-up Dan Jordan (#7) came in and ran things pretty smoothly staking the Bobcats to a 17-0 lead over the Bowling Green Falcons. However they had to withstand a late rally, before running out 17-14 winners to improve to 3-5 overall and 3-2 in the MAC! |
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Nothing like a home victory, followed by the Ohio Marching Band! We didn't want to leave, especially when Badger Steve was offering us "pints of Whiskey" back at the ranch. But leave we had to, and with heavy hearts we drove back onto the Appalachian Highway and headed for Cincinnati. We miss you already Athens! |
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Outside of Cingery Field in Cincinnati. We almost didn't make it here. After getting lost just outside the downtown of the city we stopped the car to look at the map. Doh! Within seconds we had several dudes surrounding the car, and in panic mode we started the engine and drove as fast as hell outta there! |
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Why stand outside when you sneak inside - Welcome to the Jungle! |
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After leaving Cincinnati we continued the drive out West into Indiana, stopping for the night 1 hour outside Indianapolis - Sunday's destination. |
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