Jubilant to have discovered a supplier of Fry’s Raspberry Creams, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray discuss early foreign players in the British game from Tewfik Abdullah to Zoltan Varga via a Boothferry Park sausage cart, Arthur Lightening’s booze theft and a professional dart blower. Plus, Joe Frail’s spotted hanky, double Garry Thomson hat-tricks and a chat about all things Sunderland with Gavin Henderson from the Roker Report podcast and website. And Record Breakers takes us to Vienna, Paris and Ashington.
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Stories
The striker, who died this week, caught Hull’s attention after his goals against them in the 1980-81 FA Cup and he went on to be a ray of light in a rotten team
It might not have excited Manish Bhasin, but for David Stubbs this scoreless draw at Brighton’s corporate new ground proved to be an historic occasion
The first professional football match I ever attended was just over 40 years ago in September 1971. A treat for my ninth birthday, en route back from a late summer holiday at the Golden Sands Chalet Park in Withernsea. It was at Hull City, as it happens, at the old Boothferry Park. In later years, with Kwik Save and Iceland stores embedded into its queasy, dirty yellow structure, it cut a grim spectacle indeed (it was home to Hull until 2002) but back then, to my young eyes, it was a veritable Humberside Xanadu, wreathed in the alluring odour of fried onions, a mass plumage of hats and scarves, the floodlights towering with Wellesian awe like gigantic alien overlords at all four corners of the stadium.
Chris Daniel has discovered that non-League clubs are making good use of previously owned turnstiles, scoreboards, seats and even bus shelters
It was a midweek trip to Northern League side Ryton that sparked my curiosity. With rain threatening in the Tyne Valley, I looked for cover – and the nearest provided made my night. Ryton’s ground contains seven former bus shelters, not quite the same height, complete with different route numbers still stuck on each. In non-League, strict ground-grading rules tend to require more seats and covered standing areas than average attendances. So recycling offers a cheaper way to satisfy the formidable ground grading committees.
Whether it is due to liquidation or upgrading, old stadiums offer rich pickings. One of the saddest sights of recent years has been that of Scarborough FC’s Seamer Road Athletic Ground (known as the McCain Stadium until the company removed every trace of their name the day the club folded). Demolition is finally being mooted for the “Theatre of Chips” after four years of neglect left it open to fires, squatting, vandalism and the activities of scrap metal entrepreneurs and bottle diggers.
Some parts of the stadium now furnish other non-League grounds. Wearside Leaguers Jarrow FC took the goalposts and nets. Ironically, Scarborough Town hit these nine times in two visits in 2009-10 as one of Scarborough’s two new clubs won the championship. Fans of the town’s other team, Scarborough Athletic, were also quickly reunited with a part of their old stadium as fellow Northern Counties East League (NCEL) side Nostell Miners Welfare offered a new lease of life to some turnstiles and 150 seats. Fellow NCEL side, the brilliantly named Askern Villa, and the North West Counties’ Runcorn Town also took 100 seats a piece.
On the first day of the season 15 years ago, those seats saw Boro defeat Cambridge United 1-0 in front of over 2,000. This season, the combined attendance at those three grounds probably won’t reach half that. This recycling is nothing new for Scarborians however. In 1969 they donated their floodlights to Tamworth when about to erect new ones. The latter’s Lamb Ground still boasts them today. Furthermore, those floodlights were already recycled – Boro had purchased the set from Hull City’s Boothferry Park.
The football hand-me-down chain saw Roker Park seats head north to Berwick Rangers and south to Doncaster Rovers. Then, when Doncaster’s Belle Vue closed, Blyth Spartans saved the turnstiles, Sheffield FC took the floodlights and Retford United found themselves with two (not so) new dugouts, and some of the ex-Roker Park seats made a second move with them. Leicester City’s former home Filbert Street provided Alfreton Town with more seats, as it did with 700 more for Peterborough United – who also took 300 from Millwall’s Den, while Godalming Town acquired the turnstiles.
Bangor City in the League of Wales added 1,000 seats from Ninian Park to their Farrar Road ground just 12 months ago, a move which allowed them to meet licensing criteria. They even got a mention and appeal through the BBC website for volunteers to help load seating onto transport from Cardiff to North Wales. With Bangor due to move in 2012-13, those seats may see a third new home in less than five years.
Devon village side Bickleigh’s ground is as picturesque as it comes – set among rolling hills with a changing rooms/pavilion complete with clock and a thatched-roof pub behind one of the goals. The club have recently installed their first seats – from Somerset CCC. Finally, there is Farnborough FC. The turnstiles previously saw service at Stamford Bridge, 1,100 seats are from Wembley conference centre (with a further 700 from Ascot Racecourse), the scoreboard used to keep count at the Britannia Stadium and, to cap it off, the floodlights are ex-Highfield Road of Coventry. Oh, and the club agreed to buy a 3,000-seat stand from Darlington’s old Feethams ground and now just needs to move it the 225 miles down the country before reassembling it.
At the moment it is said that the used car market is booming while the new car one is slowing. The same can be said in non-League. Hand me downs are the way forward – add in some local voluntary labour and you’ve got yourself a bargain.
From WSC 296 October 2011
Sheffield Wednesday were promoted along with Champions Oldham Athletic and West Ham United. Saul Pope reports that Big Ron also added another trophy to the cabinet as well as their promotion
The long-term significance
The first full season following the Taylor Report saw the beginning of a change in attitude towards football fans. A landmark Home Affairs Committee report published in 1991 called for fans to be treated with more respect by the authorities, for lower-profile policing and for limited desegregation of rival fans. In response to Football League proposals for a joint board to control the game, the FA produced its blueprint for a new Premier League of 22 clubs. Of course, we all knew such folly wouldn’t come to anything…