STANDING ORDER FOR GOALDEN LOTTERY
This was a post on Port Chat by "Redrobe Fan" who has agreed to let me use it on here, a super read!
I dont know
how old you are, but 'Older Fans' (and I am not that old!) have a memory
which goes back to supporting the club in a quite different era. I suspect that
I judge success in different way. That is my problem. I still feel pain from the
ejection (not relegation, please) from the Football League. That horror came
rapidly and after a period of success when the club had literally risen from the
ashes to what we now know as Division One. I suppose that I, and many others,
carry that 'albatross' whenever I think about our club and reflect upon
successes and expectations. That pain will only be expunged when we get
promotion into the Football League (passing Wigan on their way down!).
So last year's success was great (well actually it was great when it was over,
but nervous, nailbiting stuff before that) and all credit to Liam and Charlie
and the players, but, in the 'older fans' mentality, it only got us back to
where we were in Brian Kettle's days. We want get back to the Billy Bingham and
Jimmy Meadow's days - before we peg it!
Of course in my head I know that such expectations may not be realistic,
but, if I am honest, in my heart nothing less will do.
The magic of football lies in such memories and dreams.
Consider the late fifties, when the world was in black and white. A young lad in
short pants is taken to his first match. I didnt know what to expect. We got a
bus marked 'Football Special' - I couldnt believe it, there were actually
special buses! - and everyone on that bus was 'going to the match'!
As we stopped at Chapel Street Station the opposing fans were gathering -
hundreds of them - in colours, with rattles and horns and they marched , or so
it seemed - four abreast up Scarisbrick New Road as if to battle. Our bus passed
them as they waved and shouted and sang. As we got nearer Haig Avenue there were
more and more people everywhere. There were vendors selling rosettes, and, wait
for it, queues at the turnstiles 50 yards long! Yellow everywhere (old gold
actually!). And everyone was 'going to the match'.
In the ground there were thousands and thousands of people (with hindsight,
probably only three or four!) and I had never seen so many people in my life.
Remember that there were no televisions, so nothing for me to compare it with. I
was absolutely AMAZED! The chants, the roars, the atmosphere! I could not
believe it. This was going on every week in my town and I had not known about
it. I was hooked!
Then came the ups and downs, and the realisation that although I was hooked on
this, some of my relatives thought that it was laughable, pretty small beer, and
I should support a bigger club. I went to Goodison and to North End, and to
Rovers, but only once. It wasnt the same. It wasnt the Port.
We played some good attacking football in those days under Lem Newcomb but it
was always a struggle, and my relatives' and my teachers' taunts hurt, ...but
then we showed them! We got promoted, twice! and we beat Ipswich and Cardiff
(very big clubs then) and 'Everton only beat us 1-0'. But eventually it was 1978
and the pain.
So you see, last year's success was phenomenal, but we older fans want it to
keep on coming like that and to 'get back where we belong'. Only then will the
pain be eased