Britain’s most committed football fan has travelled the equivalent of five times round the world to support a tiny club in the Scottish Third Division.
Superfan Barry Archer, 50, regularly makes a 750-mile round trip from his home to watch Berwick Rangers matches.
For 10 years he has endured 17-hour journeys every fortnight to support the team of the town of Berwick Upon Tweed on the English/Scottish border.
He has attended 160 games since 1997 - which works out as travelling a staggering 120,000 miles to watch football matches.
Despite being diagnosed with osteoporosis three years ago and leukaemia last May, Barry still goes to as many games as he can.
Even courses of chemotherapy treatment have not stopped him.
The retired train driver, from Chatham, travels up to Berwick with close friend Les French, 56, from Gillingham.
The football-mad duo leave their homes at 5am on Saturday mornings to drive to Stevenage in Hertfordshire, where they board trains to Berwick.
By the time they have watched the match at Berwick Rangers’ Shielfield Park ground and get the train back they arrive home at 12.30am on Sunday morning.
If they take coaches up to Glasgow, Dundee or Aberdeen to watch away games, Barry and Les leave their homes on Friday evening, travel overnight, watch the match, then travel back overnight getting home on Sunday morning - a staggering 42-hour journey.
Barry, a bachelor, has no links to Berwick and chose to support the town’s team after being intrigued by them.
He went to watch a speedway event in Berwick in 1979 and during the races it was announced over the tannoy system that Rangers had won promotion from the bottom Scottish league for the first time in the club’s 98-year history.
After learning Berwick Rangers only get at most 500 supporters at home games and sometimes just 200, Barry started following their results in the Sunday papers.He said: “I grew up in Epsom in Surrey and they would get more supporters to their non-league games.
“I was amazed a club like Berwick Rangers could get only 200 supporters at games, be on the football pools and keep running.
“It started off with me and Les being intrigued by them, but after 15 year following their results in the papers we decided to go and watch a match in 1994.
“We then went to another game a couple of years later and have been hooked ever since.”
By the 1999-2000 season Barry was watching more than 20 games a season.
He said: “I enjoy supporting Berwick and seeing them win and it’s probably become a bit of an addiction now.
“I also know a lot of the people there and I enjoy the banter. Only 500 to 600 supporters come to games so it is like a family and I have been really accepted.
“I have even got to know the chairman, the directors and some of the players, who appreciate the efforts I go to but probably think I am mad.”
Berwick Rangers manager John Coughlin said: “It’s stories like Barry’s that make me even more determined to bring success to the club.”
POSTED: 16/01/2007 11:00:19
Bookmark with:
Email to a friend: