Nostalgia - fond match memories?

The matchday programmes were always crap but I bought one every match until the age of about 14 because the smell of the pages was fantastic...part of the matchday experience.  

I went to the Doncaster match with a family friend who bought one and I was looking forward to having a sniff, thinking it would take me back, but it turns out they're now made from different smelling paper. That was the low point of my day.

Started going to Burnden at 8 years of age in 1963 and was utterly transfixed by the chants and songs of the fans. "Zigger Zagger, Zigger Zagger Oi Oi Oi" etc.
Some of the songs they sang I just didn't get. One that was chanted every week at Burnden I've never forgot and still baffles me today, don't know if anyone else remembers this:
To the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers:

"Lloyd George knows my father,
Father knows Lloyd George,
Lloyd George knows my father,
Father knows Lloyd George,
Lloyd George knows my father,
Father knows Lloyd George,
Lloyd George knows my father,
And father knows Lloyd George,

etc.etc.etc. ad infinitum.

No idea what that was all about.

Getting home from Burnden and waiting for the sound of the letterbox going at about six o'clock which meant that your copy of "The Buff" had just been posted through your letterbox. The Buff was a yellowy colour sports newspaper published by the Bolton Evening News which had a minute by minute match report of the match you'd just watched at Burnden along with all the other results from football all over the country. There weren't no internet in them days.

Don't know the song sorry...

Programmes on the other hand. Yes the smell of them, you freak! Same here. And whilst on smells there was always a smell of something that reminded me of the Great Lever End. I now think it was Jeyes Fluid. Loved it.

Buff sounds cool Hip...

Also, for me. We normally parked near Raikes Lane and walked to the ground from there. We either parked up a dead bumpy dirt road with no street lamps or over near the tip. The walk to and from the ground was half the fun - it's where the match atmosphere started.

I hope one day somebody can come up with a virtual reality way of revisiting Burnden that's really real feeling.

Going watching players train at Bromwich Street and getting their autographs on pictures in my scrap book during any school holidays when I was about 10/11. In 1966 Brazil trained there for about 3 weeks during World Cup, Pele, Garrincha et al.

Hip Priest wrote:Getting home from Burnden and waiting for the sound of the letterbox going at about six o'clock which meant that your copy of "The Buff" had just been posted through your letterbox. The Buff was a yellowy colour sports newspaper published by the Bolton Evening News which had a minute by minute match report of the match you'd just watched at Burnden along with all the other results from football all over the country. There weren't no internet in them days.

I lived on Daubhill then- and used to wait outside the newsagents ( or paper shop as it was then) for the Buff to be delivered. It seemed then, though, that we won every match. I can't remember losing any!!

Hip Priest wrote:Going watching players train at Bromwich Street  and getting their autographs on pictures in my scrap book during any school holidays when I was about 10/11. In 1966 Brazil trained there for about 3 weeks during World Cup, Pele, Garrincha et al.

Do you remember that lad getting knocked off the wall and being looked at by the Brazilian medics? He got given a load of stuff off them, souvenirs, etc.

Trying to play pool in Churchill's, whilst watching Football Focus on the 14" telly up in the corner.
It was the world's smallest Pool Room with a telly to match.

Proper season tickets with actual tickets in them, not a glorified Tesco Clubcard, like we've got now.

Watching "Kick Off" on a Friday tea-time, in the hope that there'd be something interesting about the Wanderers on it (like when they had Keith Branagan playing his guitar.)

The complete absence of 24 hour, rolling "news", which meant that if your club got a mention on the telly, it probably was "news".

The TV cameras showing up to televise a match at Burnden. That was a BIG deal back then.

Going to the Isle of Man for the pre-season tournament and kopping of with the local birds (ginger with 12 fingers), who all thought we were dead sophisticated because we lived on the main-land.

Watching Road-Runner videos of away games in that bar underneath Barclays on a Monday night.

And the best of all for me, not having ridiculously high expectation levels about what constituted success - If we won, we won. If we lost, we lost. I can't remember moaning as much as I do now, back then....

Early days it was being carried into the ground by my Dad - nearly always packed and my first experiences of a large bustling crowd. I was generally at fever pitch by the time the game started.

Throwing the ball to Eddie Hopkinson from the Lever End - it was the only time I saw him drop anything and it was a perfectly good throw - honest.

Going to Trinity St station to wait for the away fans trains to arrive and give them and the police escort stick all the way to the ground. Favourite was Luton at the time of Clockwork Orange when a load of them came dressed up a la Malcolm McDowell.

Lloyd George was a daft song, but "community singing" was very popular in the fifties/early sixties and for a long time before so I guess we'd sing anything. The fact that everyone was singing together was more important that the song. There is a theory that the song originated in the music halls but nobody knows for sure.

Biggie's televised away game thread reminded me of when some away matches were shown at Burnden park.  I went to the Man Utd one and we lost 3-0 if I remember correctly.  This would have been in the early 90s

Got to be the playoffs against Reading, I unashamedly cried. And then the days of the power cuts think I remember us losing to Everton in a cup game on a weekday afternoon? Blackpool away in the 1970s someone through a brick at a Police Motorcyclist and knocked him off his bike, funny at the time but how stupid was that? Getting on the coach 1970s again after Chelsea away in the cup, Chelsea fan walking around with a large sheet of Glass aloft. Chelsea away again 1980s? coaches were late and we missed our goal but the chelsea fans still were waiting for us, poor Ricky Brown came away sporting a large black eye.
I suppose the latter are far from fond memories but they stick with me for one reason or another.

One of my best memories of Burnden wasn't about a match but about a mate of mine who was a regular  in the Burnden paddock. He 'd called Dennis- I won't tell you his surname as he still turns up at the Reebok. He was a sound lad but got injured in a car crash and it made him a bit doo- lally. He took to the bottle and became a bit unpredictable.
Anyway-this was at the time when Jeremy Thorpe was leader of the Liberal party, was married ,but had been caught with his trousers down with a man called Norman Scott. It was huge headlines at the time.
Anyway- I turned up for a match and there was Dennis a few rows (standing!!) further back-with a WH Smith paper bag under his arm.
So I says to him- 'what have you got there- a book?' and he replied 'Yeah'.
So I says 'what is it' and he replies 'It's Jeremy Thorpe's autobiography' So I says 'what's it called?

And he replies 'Scott of the Arse-antics'

That's 40 years ago  and you might not think it's funny but I still wet myself laughing when I think about it.

rammywhite wrote:One of my best memories of Burnden wasn't about a match but about a mate of mine who was a regular  in the Burnden paddock. He 'd called Dennis- I won't tell you his surname as he still turns up at the Reebok. He was a sound lad but got injured in a car crash and it made him a bit doo- lally. He took to the bottle and became a bit unpredictable.
Anyway-this was at the time when Jeremy Thorpe was leader of the Liberal party, was married ,but had been caught with his trousers down with a man called Norman Scott. It was huge headlines at the time.
Anyway- I turned up for a match and there was Dennis a few rows (standing!!) further back-with a WH Smith paper bag under his arm.
So I says to him- 'what have you got there- a book?' and he replied 'Yeah'.
So I says 'what is it' and he replies 'It's Jeremy Thorpe's autobiography' So I says 'what's it called?

And he replies 'Scott of the Arse-antics'

That's 40 years ago  and you might not think it's funny but I still wet myself laughing when I think about it.

I remember it well Rammy. Thorpe was arrested for conspiring to have Scott bumped off before he could dish the dirt to the tabloids. Iirc Thorpe was found not guilty at court even though the evidence against him was quite strong.

as a kid i used to go on the club coaches to local away matches like Preston and their plastic pitch, Tranmere and Wigan when they played at their old ground with the sloped grass away end with the tin hut at the top.

I even used to go to some of the youth night games in the 60s.

Remember the Lever End back then wasn't segregated and both sets of fans would stand up to each other, we'd charge them, they would try and charge us, cant remember which game it was but when we charged them, I looked round and there was only myself and a lad called Frank stood there against the odds but they didn't take us on, think it was mostly bluff back then.

Once took a couple of mates, who weren't really interested in football, spent most of the game stopping them kicking the fuck out of each other.  

Happy days.

Orlando Bridge always used to think it was going to collapse before we got across 

My first memories as a small child when my dad took me was the smell of pipe tobacco in the Manny rd seats.Early 70's.I remember seeing the floodlights from St. Peter's way I loved the atmosphere when we were challenging for promotion late 70's to Division 1.So many I'd be here all night the glorious 90's play off semis v Wolves Leauge Cup v Swindon95.

First game my Dad took me to see,A league cup game against Hull City(Tigers my arse) which we won 5-1. Not a big crowd,but the 5th goal sticks in my mind. Freddy Hill was involved at some point,but when the ball reached Billy McAdams he seemed to feint and shimmy through the whole of the Hull defence before slipping it past the keeper. Think it was 1960,some of you may know better. Great memories for a lads first game.