Sunday 22 February 2015

In the beginning

Posted by Tony Hutton        Website designed by Sam Hutton




A packed crowd at the Clock End, Highbury to watch Arsenal in 1933. Large crowds were again to be seen when football resumed after the war.

A few months after the war ended in 1945 Moscow Dynamo visited England for an unprecedented brief tour of England which aroused tremendous interest and huge crowds attended matches at Stamford Bridge, White Hart Lane and Ninian Park, Cardiff. I read about them in the press and my first magazine cuttings featured the remarkable goalkeeper - 'Tiger' Khomich.



The first football match I remember was the 1946 F.A. cup final between Derby County and Charlton Athletic at Wembley. I saw the newsreel coverage, in black and white, at the local Saturday morning cinema show for children. Derby won 4-1 and most of the publicity surrounded the fact that the ball burst and Charlton's Bert Turner scored for both sides. Many years later I obtained a programme for this match.


                                     Derby County 1946


The Derby County players in the picture above are back row:- Jim Bullions, Jack Nicholas (capt), Vic Woodley, Leon Leuty, Jack Howe and Chick Musson.
Front row:- Reg Harrison, Raich Carter, Jack Stamps, Peter Doherty and Dally Duncan

I was hooked on football from the age of nine, when my maternal grandfather, James Matthew Cowan, took me to Elland Road, as the first season of league football after World War Two got underway. Leeds United were playing Sheffield United on the 7th September 1946. A few days later I persuaded my mother to buy me the Sunday Chronicle Football Annual for 1946-47 from a stall in Leeds Market. I still have it today, minus the covers, and I think it probably cost about a shilling. My mother, still struggling with post-war austerity and shortages seemed to think this was the height of extravagance. I still remember her words, 'are you sure you really want this?'.


I read and re-read the small print of this excellent publication, taking in the milestones of soccer history, the lists of league champions and cup winners over the years. The catalogue of international players for the four home countries, the match details of the previous season's F.A. Cup, the only time it was played on a two legged basis and of course the fixtures for the coming season. It started me off on a collection of sports annuals and books which continues to grow almost seventy years later

        Charlton got their revenge and won the cup in 1947, Chris Duffy scoring the only goal of the game.



However, although Leeds was the city of my birth, I did not stick with them throughout my thirty odd years of obsession with the game, although I was to return in the mid-seventies, towards the end of the Revie era, which was the most successful period in their history.

Soon after seeing that first match my father moved the family to Huddersfield and for the next three years I became a regular at Huddersfield Town, then a struggling First Division team. My father, a local government officer, then took a rather drastic step as far as I was concerned, of moving to a job in Birmingham. Although I had not built up any strong affection for Huddersfield Town, any more than I had for Leeds United, it was a considerable culture shock to move to a rugby union playing school in Walsall, where they spoke a very different Black Country language.

I was immediately christened 'utton from 'uddersfield and it took me some time to become assimilated as my Yorkshire accent gradually changed to the local dialect. The only plus point of this upheaval was the number of soccer teams in the Birmingham area. For the next 18 years I did the rounds of Aston Villa, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion, Wolves and Walsall, building an affection for them all at different periods, without becoming a lifetime supporter of any of them.

This Midlands period was also eventful for several visits to Wembley. I was fortunate enough to get a ticket for the 1955 Cup Final, as the amateur club for which I was playing got two tickets and a draw was made, one for current players and one for former players. Luckily my name came out. I was even more fortunate to get a ticket for the World Cup Final in 1966 and the European Cup Final of 1968. These big games will be covered later in the match accounts I wrote at the time.

Whereas my previous moves could be blamed on my father, the next twist in the tale was down to my own desire to return to my native Yorkshire, mainly due to my other sporting obsession - Yorkshire county cricket club. I got a transfer by my employer to Bradford which didn't work out and ended up working in Sheffield, but living in Derbyshire. Here I became involved with two clubs who were both about to enter the greatest periods in their history, Derby County, then a Second Division team, and non-league Matlock Town.

Eventually I moved again into Sheffield and unusually watched both United and Wednesday, although this was encouraged by winning a father and son competition in the Sheffield Star newspaper for two free season tickets at Bramall Lane. This meant that however badly they played, we still turned up at every game as it was free! Although my son, Peter, was only seven at the time of this first change of allegiance for him, he has remained faithful to his original club Derby County to this day.

The final move of my business career came in 1975 when I went back to square one in Leeds, where it all started and father and son became season ticket holders at Elland Road for three seasons as Revie's great team came to the end of the road. By this time my son was a teenager and keen to join his pals on the Kop before progressing to the press box and the commentary box in due course.

So finally a combination of factors left me a rather disillusioned forty odd year old who got fed up of going to games, although I still watched on television. The excitement, enjoyment, the anticipation of each week's game had gone. The first sign of old age I suppose, but the game wasn't as good, crowd behaviour was considerably worse, the whole atmosphere had changed. What was once good natured banter between home and away fans became tribal warfare with many people just going to show hatred and contempt for the opposition. The wall of silence which now greets any goal for the visiting side, whether it is the goal of the season or the goal of the century, was not for me.

Rugby League took the place of soccer for the next twenty years until Rupert Murdoch changed it into a summer sport, which then clashed with my greater love of cricket. So in the winter months, I am now a couch potato, but with great memories, which have not dimmed with the years. I hope to bring back some of them over the next few months. This will be a story of eleven teams, with which I had brief affairs and more importantly to record the names of so many forgotten heroes who once lit up those winter Saturday afternoons, long before every move was analysed over and over again by panels of so called 'experts'. You used to have one glimpse of those magical, skilfull and sometimes humorous moments, which stick in the mind forever.

I hope you will enjoy joining me on my journey.

2 comments:

  1. Really enjoyed it. Look forward to reading more on your various football outings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm going to be a follower and will recommend it to others who follow football

    ReplyDelete