Stretford Ender

I know people with the scars to prove you did.

Watched 'A Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji' which is superb. Not really an action film at all until the last 10 minutes when all hell breaks loose. This weekend I've got Yojimbo and Sanjuro lined up for my Toshiro Mifune fix. Tried to get the other half interested in jidageki films but after watching the first Lone Wolf and Cub, she decided against watching any more.

I remember them being popular in the 70s too. A fellow student used to work part-time for Murphy and he used to go everywhere in his donkey jacket with the company name in stencil on the back. Don't know if anyone remembers their infamous green transits that used to tear round London back then. On Friday, every pub in Kilburn had two or three parked outside. Denim dungarees looked weird on blokes but some girls could carry them off well. The disco merchants would wear them but not so much down the Kings Road except for maybe the squaddies on a weekend. Oxford bags were popular with tank-tops and penny round collars too.

Went to my first home game as a lad in 1963. First full season of home games was 64/65 and that included an away game with my dad at Ewood Park. Started going away with mates 1968/69 season. Funny, because we had a couple of black lads that came with us and never saw much antagonism towards them except from the coppers. One stopped going because he signed on as a schoolboy with Oldham and he played every Saturday.

Packed on like sardines too. Always a fun day out though the coach could be fun as well. Never paid to get a window seat in case somebody lobbed a half brick at you, which happened to me at Forest. I used to avoid the train going to Birmingham though as there were always packs of them waiting at New Street for the special to pull in. Blackpool away was always a good time and half of them missed the train going back because they were legless and passed out on the beach.

It's nice to read about the humble beginnings of big clubs. It really was the working man's game but there was also the Corinthian spirit that proponents of the oval ball game said would never transcend the class barrier - and there are those even today who hold that view.

Then too. When we signed Ian Storey-Moore from Forest, there was a big to-do with Cloughie and Derby who claimed he was a Derby player and they paraded him on the pitch at the Baseball Ground. Anyway, we went there in the league and Storey-Moore was barracked by the home fans. He score and stuck two fingers up at them and, as I recall, got into trouble with the league for incitement. Osgood was always good for a laugh. We were singing something about Chelsea one time and he stood there conducting the Stretford End like an orchestra.

Don't know if this has been posted but here's the highlights from the game at Maine Road in October, 1966. Chelsea won 4-1 but watch Osgood's reaction to the barracking he got from the Kippax Street (or it may have been to Malcolm Allison).

Looks very military. Football training combined with commando selection.

Might conceivably get turned over by another baldie when ZZ rocks up. I have a feeling Real will be going through.

Egotistical is right. It's all about them. They are treated like celebrities even going so far as to have them act as historians. Didn't they have a modern referee watch the 1970 cup final replay to give us his pearls of wisdom? Football is run as one gigantic marketing operation; especially the PM. It's not a game any more, it's a lifestyle.

I honestly don't know who he supports. I know he's a pretty mediocre referee like most of them. Chelsea fans were saying something similar after he was in charge of one of our games back in February.

He's from Wythenshawe which is a very red part of town, He's got a bit of a history with Chelsea too. Like many PL referees, he wants to be the star of the show instead of being, as a good ref should be, virtually invisible. Too many games are being ruined for the supporters by shoddy refereeing and, for the most part, they get away with it. It's just another reason to dislike modern football.

It is far better than the awful 'Pearl Harbor' which asks the viewer to suspend disbelief (USAAC pilots flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain).

As a last line of defence, you'd want Vidic, but for breaking up attacks outside the box and playing the ball out, Rio excelled.