use to walk to the ground with the ol' fella and grandpops, in the fiftys, and one time i asked why so many were in the queues, was told it was to see Stan Matthews. Trouble was he was injured and didn't play, dad reckoned he didn't fancy being put in the stands by Bill Leivers. When i started going on my own it was the halfway line in the Kippax, being amazed at the never-ending flares of matches and lighters in the main stand and the billowing smoke ( mind you 10 Park Drive cost about 9 p )
Until the 70's barely missed a game but seeing a youngster nearly blinded by a coin during a derby, dodging bricks, chased by chavs and our fans trashing trains on the way back from away games......stopped going for several years. Night matches were a pain, everyone seemed to be late, crushed at the back, loads of room at the front but the gangways were blocked... caused a few scuffles . Stewards gave up usually. The police-horses kicking sparks off their shoes as they jostled the snaking line of fans desperate to get in. Scousers running over the top of cars parked in the alleys, Chavs in the Platt lane taking the piss by waving fivers, Bert getting sent off.. Buzzer running across the pitch to big Mal and pointing at Rodney Marsh. Johnny Crossan yoshing up in the centre circle, TC utterly pissed on the open-top bus, Heslop's reverse donkey kick when the ref was chasing back up the pitch, the whole stadium standing to applaud Zola as he left the pitch. Lines of blokes pissing against the back wall, lines of piss running down terraces from those not bothered to use the wall, south american team(dont remember their name) who threw flowers to the fans and then kicked lumps out of the team. 1958 cup replay against Newcastle, Wednesday afternoon lost 5-4 but what a match and atmosphere, chosen as game of the season by Charles Buchan's Football Annual . The screams from the stands as City were time-wasting but needed a goal to stay up...... Glynn Pardoe making his debut when he was 15 . The good times and the sad, the glad times and the mad, gone forever....
