HERE are three more assorted football nostalgia tales from my 50-plus years of attending games...
ROMANTIC TRIP DISASTER
ADAPTING a famous old saying, sometimes the best-laid plans of mice and men…and football fans…often go awry.
Let me take you back to in March 2001. At the time, I was dating a young lady who I promised romantic overnight lodgings to coincide with my football groundhopping. I had targeted the North West Counties League Division Two fixture between Oldham Town and Warrington Town.
So I booked a five star hotel with a four poster bed plus three course meals, champagne and spa treatments. Idyllic!
We set off up the motorway on the Friday afternoon and I kept stressing to my girlfriend how nice the hotel was going to be. Things started to go wrong though when we were about 30 miles from our destination in Lancashire.
Then suddenly, all the lights went out on the dashboard of my car. The engine quickly lost power and I couldn’t start it up again.
The RAC came along and the guy said: “You’ve run out of oil. That’s caused the electrics to fail.”
Therefore I said: “Well can you repair it then?”
“No, you’ll need to get it serviced at a main dealership.”
“Oh, but we’re away from home for the weekend.”
“Well I can tow you to the nearest dealership garage. There’s a hotel right next door so you can stay there tonight and get your car repaired first thing in the morning.”
I didn’t have much choice in the matter. So the RAC man towed my car and dropped us off in the industrial estate where the garage was.
Then I looked at the adjacent hotel. And I quickly realised that it was nothing more than a basic budget hostel for lorry drivers.
We went in and it was only £20 for a double room. And all we got was a bed with no shower or TV.
They didn’t even provide breakfast there. We had to go across the road to a pub with the lorry drivers for a morning fry-up.
Funnily enough, my lady friend took it all in good spirits. And more importantly, I saw a 10 goal extravaganza where Warrington Town won the match 9-1.
THE SLOW HANDCLAP
MODERN day football fans like to have a whinge and a moan when things are not going quite right on the pitch. They even boo when there is an excessive gripe.
But when I was a kid in the 1970’s, supporters used to express their discontentment by joining together in a long and synchronised slow handclap routine.
It came to the fore when opposing away teams tried to disrupt attacking play by defending high up the pitch and utilising a blatant offside trap. This incurred the wrath of home fans.
A section of the crowd would start clapping very slowly together and everyone else would then loudly join in. The monotonous handclap would go on for several minutes and was quite a dramatic device for supporters to use.
It seems that the slow handclap originated in theatres during the early 1900’s. Back then, slow and synchronised clapping by displeased audience members was a form of heckling.
It showed an expression of mocking dislike or disapproval. The performer being slowly clapped interpreted this as an insult and it was a clear sign for them to leave the stage.
In his book entitled ‘Much Ado about Me’, comedian Fred Allen wrote that one prominent Vaudeville theatre house developed a rhythm (“clap, clap, clap, clap, clap”) where the maddening repetition could completely unnerve a person.
Fortunately, I haven’t heard the slow handclap at football for many years.
THE HAVE-A-GO HERO
THE strangest occurrence I have ever seen at a football match came during a half-time interval. You would never get odds nowadays on something similar happening in football betting within online betting!
It concerns the Queens Park Rangers versus Sheffield United fixture on Saturday 14th December 1974. During the half-time break on a freezing cold afternoon, spectators were treated to a display by The Royal Air Force Police Demonstration Team.
This form of entertainment was relatively new at English football grounds in the 1970’s. Therefore none of the 13,244 crowd knew quite what to expect.
It began with a make-believe battle on the pitch. So a plain clothes police officer dressed in a leather jacket sprinted out to the centre circle firing a very loud dummy gun in the air before pretending to shoot a dog-handler.
The idea was that one of the specially trained dogs would then over-power the assailant by taking the gun.
However, this was not quite what unfolded! Before the dog could pounce and make its pre-rehearsed move, a Rangers supporter leapt over the perimeter fence from the Paddock terracing and ran on to the pitch to confront the gun man.
Our have-a-go hero was totally unaware that the fight was fake and showed incredible courage in trying to tackle the situation.
Rangers went on to win this fixture 1-0 in the old First Division courtesy of a 71st minute goal by Don Rogers. As for the heroic R’s fan, he was rewarded by having his photo published in the next home matchday programme.
*Credit for the photo belongs to Tony Incenzo*
