Memories of the Pink Final

[ColinBellsjockstrap]

Little newsagents on Hyde Road, near the corner with Cambert lane, Gorton in the mid 1960's, eagerly avaiting it's arrival.

Always amazed they could have the City match report in print and delivered to the newsagents just over an hour after the game had finished.

Pre internet age of course.

 

[the goats backside]

Going back to the pub after the game, getting stuck into beer(not that fizzy shit people drink now), then the pink would arrive and we would sit reading, all silent apart from when a fresh pint was needed and then the usual words from our loving group would be spoken, " Eh sweaty bollocks get em in" or "Fat fucker your round" now what was i called again!!!!!!!

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Re: Re: Memories of the Pink Final

I remember one report where it said

Colin Bell fired a long hard shit into the top corner of the net.

I remember it being something like "Colin Bell hit the bar with a rocket of a shit from 30 yards"

Also remember a rag player breaking their leg and the match report read " xxxx was carried off with a suspected broken Jimmy Nichol"

 

[Clevers]

Re: Re: Memories of the Pink Final

I remember one report where it said

Colin Bell fired a long hard shit into the top corner of the net.

I remember it being something like "Colin Bell hit the bar with a rocket of a shit from 30 yards"

Also remember a rag player breaking their leg and the match report read " xxxx was carried off with a suspected broken Jimmy Nichol"

Could be. Perhaps both.

I remember they also had a series in the 70s on pre-war boxing called "The Blood Tub Days".

 

[Des]

Anyone remember the free fixture card you got with the pink on the opening Saturday of the season, a pink card folded around 8 times with all the north west sides fixtures for the season, spent hours studying that lol.

 

[LongsightM13]

Anyone remember the free fixture card you got with the pink on the opening Saturday of the season, a pink card folded around 8 times with all the north west sides fixtures for the season, spent hours studying that lol.

Oh yes, you'd sit there for ages working out which games City would win, lose or draw. Optimist that I was, Ialways thought we'd be 20 points clear at the top at Christmas!
One thing about the Pink was you would generally read it cover to cover and so for me certainly, I knew a lot more about the likes of Bury, Bolton, Oldham, Stockport, Rochdale etc, their players and their progress than is the case nowadays

 

[stonerblue]

Interested to hear all the memories of the Pink - I used to leg it round to the paper shop to get one for my dad when I was a kid.
And weddings - someone would sneak out of the reception and buy ten or 20, and then sell them on to the blokes.

My first day at the MEN was a Saturday, in 1998, working as a sub-editor on the Pink. I thought it would be a mental day, but we ended up in the City Arms for a three-hour session in the afternoon, and then back for 4pm for the craziest hour of sub-editing you can imagine, with match reports, results and other stuff flying in from all angles. Then back to the boozer, obviously.I interviewed John Hollins when he became Rochdale manager a few years back, and when he found out I was from the MEN he mentioned how the Chelsea boys, when they played at City or United, used to travel by train, and would all buy a Pink at Piccadilly as they waited for their train home.
I had a vision of Chopper Harris, Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson and the rest all sitting on the train, devouring the Pinks.

PS the reason it was Pink, and other sports papers were green, was because it was printed on recycled newspapers, I believe. Because of newsprint, the paper would be a nasty grey, so they solved the problem by chucking in some coloured dye.

'If Tetleys did first day in new jobs....'

It must have been like Le Mans in the loading bay at the MEN on a Saturday afternoon. The Pink seemed to reach every corner of Manchester about an hour after full-time. How did you get it out so quickly (i presume computers weren't used then)

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

My first day at the MEN was a Saturday, in 1998, working as a sub-editor on the Pink. I thought it would be a mental day, but we ended up in the City Arms for a three-hour session in the afternoon, and then back for 4pm for the craziest hour of sub-editing you can imagine, with match reports, results and other stuff flying in from all angles. Then back to the boozer, obviously.

LOL! No wonder there were so many misprints.

 

[stuart brennan]

How did you get it out so quickly (i presume computers weren't used then)

We were on computers, but very basic stuff.
It's not a lot easier for reporters now at night matches and Sunday afternoon games, I have to file a 1,000-word match report within ten mins of the final whistle.
So next time you say "Brennan saw a different match to me", you'll be right, cos I will have had my head buried in a laptop for the second half!

On the Pink, reporters would file most of the copy at half time, then another couple of batches in the second half, and if anything happened late on, he would phone the sub and tell him what happened, so the sub could write it in, usually just a paragraph marked "Late Scorer".
That led to a classic when Utd won 8-1 at Forest and Solskjaer score four late goals after coming on as a sub.
That was clearly the highlight of the match, but the sub couldn't be bothered re-writing the front page, so the lead story began something like "DWIGHT Yorke and Andy Cole grabbed two apiece as United blitzed Forest at the City Ground today ..."
The very last paragraph then read "Solskjaer added further goals in the 80th, 88th, 90th and 92nd minutes."

 

[raininspain]

I used to leg it back (when I still had the stamina!) from Maine Road to Piccadilly to catch the first train back to 'that London' (I was working and living down there) and it was always touch and go whether you'd get a copy of the PINK before diving on to the train at the last minute.

I always used to dive off the train at Stoke Station to grab a copy of their Evening Sentinel Football Paper, and read all about Stoke and Port Vale.

Those were the days!