Up the football, long before all-seaters & VAR, most people stood – On The Terraces – Back then, there were Early-Arrivers and Pushers-In.
Pushers-In were the folk who arrived a bit late – every week, usually from the pub – entering the scrum and wriggling and shoving (other folk shuffling along, moaning in comedic fashion, in response) until they were standing in their place. It might have been next to a particular post or a certain rail, or a specific number of feet away from one of those, under an exit sign, or by a tunnel wall – But always with the same people, who were also standing in their favourite spot.
“Are you in, Harry? Alright?” then a moment later, “Which way we kicking? What’s the score?”
Dad and Me were Early-Arrivers – so early it often felt like we got there the day before the game – standing outside before they opened the doors, queuing on our own. We’d go stand in our place and wait for people we knew to arrive, so we could say eh-up and ow-at. You didn’t need a watch, you knew how long to kick off by the people who turned up. So, if I’d gone for a wander around our little paddock, I’d know to be back when Derek the Train-Driver or Frank the Postman arrived – Back in my place, ready for the teams to come out and the match to start.
Who’s Scored?
My place isn’t like anyone else’s. My place is up in the air. I never shuffle along – Not for anybody – my place is fixed. Well, when I say fixed … I’m sitting on a four inch wide, ten inch long wooden plank that Dad made, with a groove thing underneath that goes either side of my rail – My rail is right next to the wall of the tunnel, where the players come out – With Dad stood behind me, hanging on to my seat. And he has to hang on – my seat’s not clamped to the rail – So I only stay in place if he does. Four feet up in the air, as tall as everyone else – nothing to hold on to except the top of the tunnel wall – nowhere to go but down.
We’ve scored. I know this because I’m now I’m picking myself up from the concrete steps, two foot shorter than everyone else, unable to see a thing.
“Who’s scored?” I’d shout up – But no one would hear me, all too busy jumping about and shouting – So it would be a little while before I found out.
Eventually, when it all calmed down, someone would tell me the scorer, as me and the seat were placed back on the rail. I had no idea what a goal-celebration was until Hugh Johns put the football on the telly on a Sunday afternoon (Match Of The Day was on far too late).
Craters
Milk’s brilliant, int it? The very best thing about it is that it comes in crates.
The rail-seat never made it out of the prototype stage, I like to think because Mum got fed up of tending to the bruises on my knees. And anyway, once Little-Bro started coming with us, Dad couldn’t hang on to us both. So we each took a crate to stand on.
Now the football was much safer … at least, for us … but those crates did hurt a bit, when they smacked someone else on the shin!