I spent the day as a football mascot

My visit to Huddersfield Town gave me a newfound appreciation for anyone who wears one of these fluffy oversized suits

On Saturday 29 November, I visited Huddersfield Town to write a piece with a difference: a day as the club mascot Tilly the Terrier.

This was either the assignment I was born to do, a madcap idea that snowballed thanks to Huddersfield’s help or both – I’ll let you decide that. It contained things that I’ll never do again but thoroughly enjoyed.

The following is a list of everything I learned on a day that I’d foreseen as funny and silly (and it was both) but ended up being entirely heartwarming…

1) For a fair while, there has only been one Huddersfield Town mascot: Terry the Terrier. When supporters asked where Tilly had gone, Terry would mime sleep (which somehow raises more questions than it answers, given the time lapse).

That produced an interesting reaction when Tilly returned for one match on Saturday. There was a lot of “Where have you been?” and me miming sleeping. And let me tell you: that is a much less persuasive answer when the question is being asked by an adult.

2) It’s a long old day. I arrived at the ground at 12pm for a full debrief, largely by Terry. We were costumed up by 12.45pm and outside the ground to start welcoming supporters. We then met the mascots and posed for photographs with them in the home dressing room and in the home dugout.

After more welcoming outside the ground, we then had two separate pitchside presentations to groups of children. After more welcoming in the rain, we did one and a half laps of the pitch to wave to supporters and pose for more photos with kids who had rushed to the front of the stand. At half-time, we did the same.

3) The first rule of mascot club: we are never seen in public in costume without the head on. There was one moment when, pitchside, I knelt down to pose for a photo, leant to the side by mistake and my head wobbled badly. That would have been a top 10 worst moment of my life; luckily I had a massive paw to save the situation.

4) All day, I asked myself a question (internally): do young children think that mascots are real?

Do they think that they are massive versions of animals – which, let’s face it, is enough to scare adults? Do they process it rationally and understand that there is a person inside the costume? Or do they exist in a hinterland of blissful ignorance where they don’t even ponder it for a second, merely bask in the glorious innocence of it all.

It’s that last one, isn’t it? I am now jealous of all kids and their stupid non-overthinking.