What was it like going to matches when you were a kid?

[Tamworthowl]

First game was last match of 68/69 season. Nil nil. Went with a mate and his dad. Stood right behind the wall behind the goal on LL. My head would be about player knee height. Don't remember much about the match other than that I shouted a lot.

 

Started going regular in 70s with a bunch of mates, one or two in particular. 57 from Stocksbridge. Legged it a full-time to get the special back from Catch Bar Lane.

 

Early memories of Tommy Craig thunderbolts and a Jackie Sinclair overhead kick winner late in one match: first time I thought was going to die at the football crushed against a barrier. The surge on the kop when we scored was normally a brilliant experience. 

 

Overriding memory is of our decline. Standing on the kop with fewer and fewer die-hards (my early experience of going to the matches alone) and watching us fail to win, fail to score, fail to entertain on a cold winter afternoon/evening. For some reason I loved it.

[vulva]

One thing I miss is teams running out at the start, at different times. All this hand shaking stuff is pathetic.

Another thing that annoys me is that every throw these days is a foul throw, and it very rarely gets picked up by refs.

Furthermore, this sheperding the ball out by defenders for a goal kick. It's obstruction.

And another thing. Teams taking the ball to the corner flag to waste time. I swear this only came in when Sky Sports started.

[geriatricowl]

Went to my first game in the 50s with my older cousin when I was 9, then started going with the New Inn supporters club in Wath with my mates we used to go on a coach that was owned by a guy called Ken Ward I think it was about 1s 3d fare for us young uns and just 1 shilling (5p) on the Kop.

 

Happy Days 

 

Still smitten will be there tomorrow.

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

I'm 20 so not much to get excited about really. First game I remember properly was 2-2 v Wolves at home in 2002. Shefki Kuqi missed a pen.
My mate is an Arsenal fan and text me moaning about how bad they are. I text back and told him he was lucky as the only big moments I've seen of Wednesday has been two 3rd division promtions 

[OhForAnotherShez]

Vulva.... it is obstruction only when the ball is not within playing distance.

[Utah Owl]

Started going to Hillsborough regularly in early 70's. Loved every minute of it even if the football was utter gash (most of the time). Used to stand in the top section of the NWC before moving to the Kop in '74. Saw some great crowds for big cup games but also in mid 70's plenty of crowds less than 10,000.

 

The camaraderie was awesome.

[scram]

Another thing that annoys me is that every throw these days is a foul throw, and it very rarely gets picked up by refs.

 

One of our goals yesterday was from a clear foul throw

 

But as you say - they very very rarely get penalised now

Edited April 20, 2014 by scram

[viva hate]

Used to love going to school the day after and talking about big Premier League games having just watched the best players in the country.

[Utah Owl]

Used to love going to school the day after and talking about big Premier League games having just watched the best players in the country.

When I was a kid we were talking about some of the biggest donkeys in the country!

[Key]

It was a lot cheaper, the games were bigger, and the players were real heroes!!!

 

 

 

Maybe I just got older

[darra]

Traveling away in the 70's and especially 80's was like a military operation - plotting where it might be safe to stop on the motorway - or which tube lines/stations to try to avoid etc

 

The sheer volume of violence going to/from matches - and at the grounds - was incredible

 

You really had to have your wits about you

you certainly did. Remember going to Selhurst Park. Red hot day then it peed it down so got wet through IIRC we lost 4-1. After the match me and my mate got on a train back to London centre. It was one of the old fashioned compartment trains with no corridors. Just as it was setting off 4 Place fans got in. Never wished that somebody wouldn't say anything to us so much. Pulled into the next station and got off quick and started breathing again

[The Dukeries Owl]

Me and my dad used to catch the no 2 bus from Darnall in the 1960's and stand with the same people on the kop every week. The biggest treat was him bringing the flask of Oxo and the slices of bread for half time.

 

We all watched in awe as the guy in front of the cantilever changed the other match scores on the wall.

[Guest Maxine]

I unfortunately never went as a kid.

[Guest sotonowl]

I unfortunately never went as a kid.

I unfortunately never went as a kid.

Whys was that maxine

[Guest Maxine]

Whys was that maxine

Knowone took me.

[The Dukeries Owl]

Without in any way appearing sexist, it wasn't till the early eighties that the proportion of the fairer sex in the ground started to increase.

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

I was three or four before I started taking notice. My Dad Albert Wright, former A Team player, used to go alternatively to Hillsborough and the Lane with his Footy mate Walt Glaves. I was four before I began pestering to be taken to the match. Though I Knew they went alternatively to Owls an Blades I also knew instinctively that I was a Wednesdayite.

 

As an aside Mum & Dad used to attend Walkley WMC on Saturday Evenings, I would get stood on the snooker table that used to occupy the lounge and my pockets would quickly fill with loose change as I would shout "Up the Owls and Down The Blades".

 

My ardour only increased as my dad fed me tales from Hillsborough, he would harp back to the thirties when he too was a third and second stringer before having spells with Birmingham and Crystal Palace. His most famous story was of the England victory over Scotland by 5-4 which was his greatest ever match witnessed until that day we saw of Manchester United by the same score. It still sits in my mind as the best ever so I suppose there we have it the best ever match at Hillsborough,

Sheffield Wednesday 5-4 Manchester United 31st August 1968 Whitham (4) Ritchie (1) though Nobby Styles was credited with an own goal so Whitham 3. 

 

I was appeased to some extent by a game invented by Dad. If it wasn't raining I would sit in the yard at Thrush Street and work out the number of goals Wednesday had by the cheers going up and being carried up the Valley. It proved difficult as some of the roars of near misses were bigger than the roars from goals.

 

Anyway 1957 saw me make my debut a day time reserve fixture against Bolton or Preston, I forget which but we drew 1-1, ours was a pen. My introduction was gradual, the down side of this was that I missed the big crowds and even bigger games. I missed the Fulham game in the 58/9 season though I was there to see our last game of the promotion  season, a 5-0 hammering of Barnsley in which Red Froggatt and Roy Shinner got on the score sheet.

 

It wasn't until the North stand was completed that I got a taste of any other part of the ground other than my regular place on the railings at the front of the South Terrace by the Leppings lane end. I believe it was half-a-crown for my dad and I was a freebe lifted over the turnstyle as all primary school kids were. The boys gate had a 6d sign on the Leppings lane entrance 2/- for men...So,  10 men for a quid 40 kids for a quid.

 

Pies were 9d and oxo's 4d.... 26 pies for a £1 and believe me they smelt and were great as was the Oxo some things never change though the tea and coffee was poor. The smell of tobacco smoke drifting around was quite comforting, perhaps that is why I became addicted at an early age (14 I think). The Christmas matches were always a treat and they came thick and fast on occasion 3 games in 4 days and they produced some wiered results.

 

The festive games were different for their different smells, hip flasks a plenty and the smell of Rum, Whiskey with black current blended; this as the usual *** smoke was replaced by the more affluent Cigar smoke.

 

I was also fascinated by the night matches and sometimes my thoughts would be taken away from the match transfixed momentarily watching drizzle fall through the beam of the floodlights or the blue haze of smoke rising through those same well defined beams of light.

 

Also my mates and I were fascinated with team colours, I was about 10 at the time and we all hated it when Bolton, Preston, Fulham or Spurs came to town. Obviously with the English teams we all knew in advance what colours were coming to town, All the footy kids bar none new every cup winner from the wanderers to Spurs 1961, every league champion, every team manager of every club and all their colours. We all loved Hartlepools because they played in our colours and were so crap we believed we school kids could beat them...Well they tried hard to convince us this was the case, up for re-election every year and seldom managing to keep their goals against column to under 110. So, when we were in Europe our main concern was the wonderment of what colours would be bought to Hillsborough. Remember no instant gratification of the internet where you could get push button answers.

 

Olympique Lyonaise, Roma and then the Biggie Barcelona...After we went out 4-3 to Barcelona the demand at Suggs for Barcelona Subuteo teams could not be met.

 

Anyway, I hope that gives you a flavour of what it was like being a pre pubescent football fan in the 50's and 60's.         

[shandypants]

The first time I became aware of going to the match was in the mid-Seventies. I would have been around 5 or 6 years old and was sat on the North Stand (or "Cant" as it was called then) with my Dad. Unfortunately, it was a different time back then and racism was rife. I remember the match because the team we were playing had a black player and, sadly, people in the stand were making monkey noises at him. When I returned home, I told my mum how I heard the monkey noises but somehow, with my naive vocabulary, I managed to convince my mum that it was my Dad was doing the monkey noise. Poor Dad - he hadn't made the noise and I didn't mean to say that he had but my mum tore strips off him for doing so - even though he hadn't.

My dad and I have often had a chuckle about what happened but the fact is that the poor bugger got blamed for something that he never did.

[Guest Maxine]

My dad I think would have taken a boy but he had two girls.

My son asked me to take him a few years ago and I said yes but didn't really want too, I couldn't believe How I felt when I arrived, I walked up the steps to the kop looked down at the pitch and got a right buzz we have barely missed a game since. I can't imagine life without it now.

[thailand owl]

One thing I miss is teams running out at the start, at different times. All this hand shaking stuff is pathetic.

Another thing that annoys me is that every throw these days is a foul throw, and it very rarely gets picked up by refs.

Furthermore, this sheperding the ball out by defenders for a goal kick. It's obstruction.

And another thing. Teams taking the ball to the corner flag to waste time. I swear this only came in when Sky Sports started.

 

 

Big Jack used to drill that into the players when he was manager.