I woke up this morning to the news that Impington Village College was on fire. I’d only walked past it yesterday afternoon. Nothing to do with me; my bunsen burner “incident” came up the B1049 at Cottenham.
This will mean nothing to you, as if you know this bit of Cambridge at all you’ll know it as Histon.
You remember Histon, that John Beck-inspired lot that beat Leeds in the FA Cup on the telly once.
But they actually play in Impington, which has a corker of a village sign showing Duncan (on the left of the tree) reading the GBG when she should be focused on the sheep.
Impington has the well-regarded and combustible secondary school, the Holiday Inn with leisure centre you pay £25 a month to use and never visit, the Business Park on the site of the old Chivers jam factory, and some brutalist plants amongst the bucolic pastures.
The guided busway has brought tourists pubmen cyclists flooding back, 40 years after the railway line closed to passengers. It was pleasing to see how quickly railway graffiti has reclaimed the arches.
And next to the bridge, your bona fide giantkillers, now sharing their ground with City and the Cambs FA.
Today’s ancient programme comes from the summer of 2002, when Draught Burton Ale was made in Burton (don’t start) and your pre-match reading cost less than the pre-match pint.
A dull programme, enlivened by the unique “unreadable” font used for the United pen pics. Reading FC fans will remember the ginger beanpole with affection, Bristol City fans will recall Armand One with horror.
Only one advert for a pub, and it’s the one across the B1049 that Leeds fans will have invaded back in 2008.
They’d have found the Railway Vue (top) newly Guide listed, run by an enthusiastic Stoke fan, selling Pedigree and lesser beers.
It didn’t last forever, nothing does. But walking past yesterday the Landlord (I guess) was doing a nice interior redecoration on a pub selling London Pride and a Milton beer when it had to close. I’d take that now.
NB The Vue may be technically Impington’s only pub(?), but Histon rather makes up for that.
retiredmartin 
Yes, I remember Armand One at Ashton Gate, dammit. He went on to make 3 appearances for the Mighty Wrexham before heading north of the border for the glamour and bright lights of the Scottish Third Division.
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The glorious thing about those two One goals was they came after a Wurzels-fuelled premature Bristol City celebration of their trip to the final, it being practically top v bottom and 0-0 after first leg.
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Yes, served BCFC right in that respect. Recall being uneasy about it at the time. We got there the following year though.
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Yes, we’ll gloss over that hammering.
Maltmeister (another Martin, pub ticker from Newmarket) is a Robins fanatic.
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I did laugh out loud at this one: “Impington has the well-regarded and combustible secondary school” — please tell me no one got hurt in the fire, so that I can stop feeling guilty about having laughed at that. 😉
And I must say I wouldn’t put quotation marks around the word “unreadable” in relation to that font: It is fully illegible, which in my view violates what ought to be the Hypocratic Oath of lettering.
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No-one hurt, laugh away. Hope the 18th century pub guides in their library were saved.
Pretty hard for me to read that font but I expect you see a lot more exciting fonts than I do 😉
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