[Football] Memories of yesteryear from going to football

[PILTDOWN MAN]

1 Smell of Condor pipe tobacco
2 North stand urinals
3 Little couple in south stand refreshments
4 Goalkeepers teeing up the ball to kick it
5 ABCD etc around the ground to relate to halftime scores
6 Lottery board
7 BBC Sussex shed
8 Wooden benches at the back of the South Stand
9 Misty Mid-week games seeing the floodlights from the top of Dyke Road
10 The atmosphere WOW of evening games

 

[wolfie]

The smell of the linament on the players legs (circa 1963) when I stood at the front of the chicken run. John Dillon, Roy Jennings, Granny Goodchild and George Waites spring to mind.

 

[wolfie]

and the man in a white coat who painted the half time scores next to the letters with whitewash.

 

[bobby baxter]

The Salvation Army band playing Sussex by the Sea as the players ran out.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

The lights being turned off in the stands before the game until ten minutes before the end ( great indicator to the crowd to encourage the team)

 

[AmexRuislip]

1 Smell of Condor pipe tobacco
2 North stand urinals
3 Little couple in south stand refreshments
4 Goalkeepers teeing up the ball to kick it
5 ABCD etc around the ground to relate to halftime scores
6 Lottery board
7 BBC Sussex shed
8 Wooden benches at the back of the South Stand
9 Misty Mid-week games seeing the floodlights from the top of Dyke Road
10 The atmosphere WOW of evening games

11 British Rail sloppy tea
12 Fans with transistor radios for scores
85 The odour of fans rushing out early...

 

[Icy Gull]

The East Stand Tea Hut. Sat on the roof to watch us play Spurs

Fans climbing and watching from the Floodlight pylons against Ipswich in the Cup

Parking right outside the Gordon Road stand at Gillingham. Jamaican patties from the Chippy down the road

The smell of some sort of smelting going on as you walked under the bridge towards the South Stand ( obligatory chant of “Seagulls” whilst in the tunnel)

 

[Bob!]

Wagon Wheels being sold by a bloke walking round the pitch.

Kit Napier scoring from corners

 

[BN9 BHA]

Having a lid on my bottle of water.

 

[Bodian]

The excitement of going along the Old Shoreham Road and seeing the scaffolding going up on the Chicken Run - and knowing we'd be on TV at the weekend.

 

[wolfie]

All the special buses lined up outside Hove Rec. after the match. My old man was the conductor on one of them in 1959 and sent me in with the driver to watch my first ever game (we lost !)

 

[Weststander]

1. Every bloke in the Chicken Run, and then NS, smelling of liquor. Including my Dad.
2. I liked those tinned, boiled burgers.
3. The scaffold TV tower with broadcasting vans behind it ... we seemed to be on TV a lot in the 70’s.
4. The old programmes/club badges hut north of the main stand.
5. Light blue disabled persons cars parked up at the pitch side.
6. Huge floodlight pylons, lit up from miles away, for an evening game.
7. Being able as nosey to kids to wander around grounds from the inside ... eventually ended by trouble.
8. Old rattles and kids bringing in milk crates or homemade platforms.
9. A phalanx of loo rolls as we scored (long before Argentina 78 ticker-tape).
10. Thousands walking through the Fonthill Road tunnel, sometimes mass charges from Albion fans post match.

11. Best of all, packed terraces, the swaying crowds, the surges of many thousand down the NS as we scored. My son will never experience that. Sharing Goldstone memories with a taxi driver last week (lifelong Albion and same age group, first in the stadium in the 70’s) .... he loved that too.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

The excitement of going along the Old Shoreham Road and seeing the scaffolding going up on the Chicken Run - and knowing we'd be on TV at the weekend.

Oh yes were we on Match of the Day or the Big Match?

 

[wolfie]

On a non-Albion note, seeing Kenneth Wolstenholme just after he had descended a ladder from the commentary box at White Hart Lane to the shelf, where I had been packed in to see Jimmy Greaves score a wonder goal v Man Utd in a 5-1 win.

 

[Ooh it’s a corner]

3 Little couple in south stand refreshment kiosk

Who did you have the little couple with though?

 

[Ooh it’s a corner]

Being able to walk round the ground so you could be behind the goal we were attacking for the whole game

 

[Ooh it’s a corner]

That moment in the North Stand after we scored - particularly in the golden years of Peter Ward and co. and seeing how far down the stand the surge had taken you!

 

[PTC Gull]

Standing on an old Fremlins beer crate so I could see the game.

 

[Simgull]

That mixture of the feeling of anticipation, the taste of cold air and the sight of the floodlights blazing when approaching a ground on a dark, cold and crisp November evening.

 

[Bry Nylon]

Sand in the goalmouths and centre circle
The rutted orange cinder track round the edge of the pitch
The blue disability vehicles in the SW corner
The noise from the tannoy as you approached the ground
Police dogs
A decent variety of songs and chants
Getting back to my dads car just in time for the jaunty music of Sports Report

Happy, happy days.