Grandad is staying with us at the moment, I left him alone for half an hour, and he has had a go on the computer. I really didn’t think he knew what it was, the kids told him it was a new kind of “etch a sketch” and that he wouldn’t like it. He has written this, and when he wakes up he will want to show it to me, so, to humour him, I will leave it on until he goes home at the weekend or passes away peacefully, whichever comes first.
She’s left this computer on and she doesn’t think I know what I’m doing, just because I’m old. I've got medals in silver surfing, learnt to type and drive a lorry in the army, If she didn’t hide the knives and screwdrivers I could have this machine in bits in seconds then we’d really make it fly!
Well here goes, football as we used to know it, played by men who ate steak before a game, shook hands after scoring a goal and wouldn’t know how to dive if it didn’t involve snorkel and flippers; learning their game with a can in the street, the training ground for a world cup winning side.
When I were a lad, football were different, we had no computers or TV, very few books, and sweets were a treat. We’d come home from school and someone would shout “Lets go kick a ball around and head it till it bursts” and we did, head, head head, kick kick kick till we’d popped the b……r, Couldn’t play enough of the game, pitch marked out with jumpers, every game was a cup final; Mathews, Mortenson and Finney - I was all three in most games. And the Cup final was the game to watch, no champions league then, the big game of the season was at Wembley, over 100,000 people all stood up, every man jack of em with a hat on and smoking their heads off, and a handful of police to keep them in line, stewards in yellow jackets hadn’t been thought of then. One year a keeper called Bert Trautman broke his neck in the final, didn’t stop him finishing the game. Nowadays if a bloke breaks wind the game stops for an inquiry.
The ball they used was nothing like the floaty thing you use today, it were made of leather. Not the soft leather you might make a coat from, but leather from a cow with a thick skin across his arse. It got wet and soaked up water and ended up twice as heavy. Heading it pushed your head down between your shoulders, and if you were lucky it popped back up again. Kicking a wet ball, gave you legs like tree trunks and calves of steel. We had big heavy leather boots, not the light plastic slippers of today, I used the same boots for flying up the wing as I did for chopping wood and killing a chicken, Aye blood on yer laces that’s what you need and good thick leather with sharp metal studs.
We never saw a game live, only on the news at the pictures but it was enough to wet your appetite. No replica kits but we would have had one if they were available; proper long shorts and shirts with cuffs, and their legs moved quicker.
Footballers had proper names like Clyde’s Harry Haddock, and Eddie Clamp from Wolves, nobody argued with the ref, and occasionally you would see the linesman with both a flag and a fag.
Every Christmas I’d get in me stocking an orange, a wooden spoon to hit a saucepan with and Charles Buchan’s soccer annual – a bible for the young footballer in my day. All the pictures showed smart young men with good family values, not like some of the spoilt kids you get playing the game nowadays.I once wenZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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