60 years ago this month...

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

 

[ancientblade]

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fantastic can remember as a 9 year old and couldnt believe that scoreline sat at home can remember going to a game at the lane that promotion season when ilkley moor bah tat was echoing round the lane it was spine chilling brilliant memories

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

fantastic can remember as a 9 year old and couldnt believe that scoreline sat at home can remember going to a game at the lane that promotion season when ilkley moor bah tat was echoing round the lane it was spine chilling brilliant memories

Had you got a tv to be watching the announcements on Grandstand? My dad didn’t know whether to believe the score, because the presenter was reluctant to believe what he was being told.

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

fantastic can remember as a 9 year old and couldnt believe that scoreline sat at home can remember going to a game at the lane that promotion season when ilkley moor bah tat was echoing round the lane it was spine chilling brilliant memories

An occasion never to be forgotten by the 18,000 or so Blades fans reported to have been there that day .

My old man was in very poor health but plucked up the strength to go and I never saw him look as happy as he did when we were leaving the ground .

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

An occasion never to be forgotten by the 18,000 or so Blades fans reported to have been there that day .

My old man was in very poor health but plucked up the strength to go and I never saw him look as happy as he did when we were leaving the ground .

Have you any more memories of the day? I was just of an age to be totally knocked out by that experience, so am probably looking at it it through rose-tinted glasses. You are, I believe (cough, cough) a little more mature than me; did it come across to you at the time as the best of days?
I failed to find any video of the game. Surely some must exist somewhere.

 

[bornablade]

Great memories for you.

I like the bit where Grandstand had to check the half time scores because it seemed unbelievable. Imagine Jeff Stelling doing that today.

BBC could have said 'we're going to have to check this score because unbelievably Doc Pace isn't on the scoresheet'.

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

Scattered memories Hodgy . One of them was buying 2 pints of draught Bass for me and dad on his recommendation and realising they were totally flat by the time I got them back to the table in the pub . He explained that that was how it should be served and that it was a lovely drink . He was right !

We were on the terrace towards the end where our goals were scored , so I had a great view of all them - deep joy!
As ancient said , hearing Ilkley Moor Baht ‘at ringing round the ground was a spine tingling and very moving experience and the atmosphere on the football special going back home was incredible .

 

[ancientblade]

Scattered memories Hodgy . One of them was buying 2 pints of draught Bass for me and dad on his recommendation and realising they were totally flat by the time I got them back to the table in the pub . He explained that that was how it should be served and that it was a lovely drink . He was right !

We were on the terrace towards the end where our goals were scored , so I had a great view of all them - deep joy!
As ancient said , hearing Ilkley Moor Baht ‘at ringing round the ground was a spine tingling and very moving experience and the atmosphere on the football special going back home was incredible .

yes got the score on grandstand and couldnt believe it can remember coming home from school and listening to the latter stages of the first replay at the city ground and hearing ilkley moor being sung we really should have made it to the final against tottenham that year

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

March 7, 1961: Utd 1-3 Ipswich
Attendance: 35047

I have often justified my love of football, and of United in particular, by the belief that it is good for the character, and educational in the the broadest sense of the word. That was certainly true of the first few days of March 1961. The trip to Newcastle played a big part in confirming my interest and pride in dialects and local culture - Blaydon Races v Ilkla Moor defined for me the best of football, with local pride and passion creating an atmosphere that was totally absorbing. I have always taken pride in my Sheffield accent, especially when working in environments where the accents of northern cities were looked down on. 3 days later, and the lesson for life was that perfection does not last long: into the Cup semi-final for the first time in my life on the Saturday, knocked off the top of the league table on the Tuesday. I learnt a new expression that Tuesday evening: ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’. I don’t think I knew what a Lord Mayor’s show was at the time, but I seemed to hear and read that expression so often that its meaning was clear: you go to an event convinced by recent events that success is guaranteed, the largest league crowd of the entire league season at the Lane is fired up for a meeting of the top 2 teams in the League, creating that special atmosphere under the floodlights, and everything goes wrong. We never got going, went 2 goals down, and when we did score, Ipswich soon restored the 2 goal cushion. It seemed after the match as if 35000 people left muttering ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’.
Fortunately, there were silver-linings. We had a semi-final to look forward to, though we didn’t yet know whether it was against Barnsley or Leicester. United’s team was resilient, and had come back from previous setbacks that season. The programme notes were full of praise for the Blades fans who travelled to Newcastle. And best of all, as the unique scoreboard pictured below shows, there was just one other game that evening, where Wednesday lost their replay at Burnley. They had knocked us out in the 6th round the previous year, but this time it was to be United in the semifinals representing Sheffield.
And a final short note in the programme turned out to be significant. United had sold Willie Hamilton to Middlesbrough for £12500; little did we know that the money was to be spent on 2 right-wingers. We had had no right-winger all season, but we were about to sign 2, and one of them was going to play a crucial role in the promotion race...

 

[ancientblade]

March 7, 1961: Utd 1-3 Ipswich
Attendance: 35047

I have often justified my love of football, and of United in particular, by the belief that it is good for the character, and educational in the the broadest sense of the word. That was certainly true of the first few days of March 1961. The trip to Newcastle played a big part in confirming my interest and pride in dialects and local culture - Blaydon Races v Ilkla Moor defined for me the best of football, with local pride and passion creating an atmosphere that was totally absorbing. I have always taken pride in my Sheffield accent, especially when working in environments where the accents of northern cities were looked down on. 3 days later, and the lesson for life was that perfection does not last long: into the Cup semi-final for the first time in my life on the Saturday, knocked off the top of the league table on the Tuesday. I learnt a new expression that Tuesday evening: ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’. I don’t think I knew what a Lord Mayor’s show was at the time, but I seemed to hear and read that expression so often that its meaning was clear: you go to an event convinced by recent events that success is guaranteed, the largest league crowd of the entire league season at the Lane is fired up for a meeting of the top 2 teams in the League, creating that special atmosphere under the floodlights, and everything goes wrong. We never got going, went 2 goals down, and when we did score, Ipswich soon restored the 2 goal cushion. It seemed after the match as if 35000 people left muttering ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’.
Fortunately, there were silver-linings. We had a semi-final to look forward to, though we didn’t yet know whether it was against Barnsley or Leicester. United’s team was resilient, and had come back from previous setbacks that season. The programme notes were full of praise for the Blades fans who travelled to Newcastle. And best of all, as the unique scoreboard pictured below shows, there was just one other game that evening, where Wednesday lost their replay at Burnley. They had knocked us out in the 6th round the previous year, but this time it was to be United in the semifinals representing Sheffield.
And a final short note in the programme turned out to be significant. United had sold Willie Hamilton to Middlesbrough for £12500; little did we know that the money was to be spent on 2 right-wingers. We had had no right-winger all season, but we were about to sign 2, and one of them was going to play a crucial role in the promotion race...
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was waiting for this one my first experience of the shoreham kop as ive said before got crushed on the wall up shoreham st as a 9 year old boy it was a frightening experience and it took us about 45 mins to get in dissapointing result but ipswich were a very good side and deserved the win what i saw of it lol

 

[Darnall Siam Blade]

Yes, HBT, Blades' 3-1 win at Newcastle was a match I remember well. Billy Russell's hat-track was unbelievable. I remember it as in the first 18 minutes. Nobody could believe it. At the time I was playing in an F.A. Amateur Cup Quarter final against Hitchin Town- we lost. I didn't help much by only moving up and down the wing no further than than the commentary coming from a spectator's radio( or wireless in those days). I think Scanlon ( the Newcastle left winger) was Albert Scanlon) one of the Munich disaster survivors. Funnily enough we had played Bishop Auckland in a friendly ,a few days before the Blades game , and they got to talking about Scanlon. it turned out that 3 of the Bishops team had been recruited by Man United in 1958, to help out their depleted squad. Bishops were a very successful "Amateur" team and had appeared in 18 Cup finals at Wembley and had won it 3 times in the fifties. I remember a Bob Hardisty being one of the 3 as he was the England Amateur team captain for many years. He said that none of the 3 loanees played for Man United's first team.
Just as an aside,unless my memory is playing tricks, I think Man U. beat Wedxxxxxx 3-0 in their first game after Munich. May be wrong on that one.

 

[bornablade]

Ipswich Town's number 4 - Baxter.

I think he'll be appearing in Silent's next installment of his 50 years ago today.

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

Ipswich Town's number 4 - Baxter.

I think he'll be appearing in Silent's next installment of his 50 years ago today.

That is a very good spot; I confess the connection had passed me by. The name Baxter does not seem to be associated with happy memories for Unitedites for several different reasons over the years!

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

Yes, HBT, Blades' 3-1 win at Newcastle was a match I remember well. Billy Russell's hat-track was unbelievable. I remember it as in the first 18 minutes. Nobody could believe it. At the time I was playing in an F.A. Amateur Cup Quarter final against Hitchin Town- we lost. I didn't help much by only moving up and down the wing no further than than the commentary coming from a spectator's radio( or wireless in those days). I think Scanlon ( the Newcastle left winger) was Albert Scanlon) one of the Munich disaster survivors. Funnily enough we had played Bishop Auckland in a friendly ,a few days before the Blades game , and they got to talking about Scanlon. it turned out that 3 of the Bishops team had been recruited by Man United in 1958, to help out their depleted squad. Bishops were a very successful "Amateur" team and had appeared in 18 Cup finals at Wembley and had won it 3 times in the fifties. I remember a Bob Hardisty being one of the 3 as he was the England Amateur team captain for many years. He said that none of the 3 loanees played for Man United's first team.
Just as an aside,unless my memory is playing tricks, I think Man U. beat Wedxxxxxx 3-0 in their first game after Munich. May be wrong on that one.

You obviously played a higher level of football than most of us could aspire to. I have attached pics of 2 programmes which might interest you, as they connect in all sorts of ways to players you mention. You are right about the post-Munich match; the programme refers to Scanlon still being in Munich recovering. 3 Bishop Auckland players did sign for ManU - Hardisty, Lewin and Bradley. Derek Lewin had trained with ManU in 1956, preparing for the Olympics. He knew several people at Old Trafford, and offered to sign with 2 teammates to help them out after the disaster. Hardisty did some coaching with Busby later. I attach pictures of the 3 of them from an Amateur Cup Final, and to add to all the coincidences, one of the Bishop Auckland players was a W. Russell, who you will recognise! Apparently, there is still good feeling between Bishop Auckland and ManU.

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

was waiting for this one my first experience of the shoreham kop as ive said before got crushed on the wall up shoreham st as a 9 year old boy it was a frightening experience and it took us about 45 mins to get in dissapointing result but ipswich were a very good side and deserved the win what i saw of it lol

When I said that I regard football as educational, I wasn’t thinking about the experience you describe. It was certainly not a good experience, but I think that over many years most youngsters had to deal with huge crowds from time to time, and finding a spot which allowed you to see the game without getting crushed when the crowd swayed forward taught us very young what is now called ‘spatial awareness’, I think - in other words, how to look after ourselves. And even at games with smaller crowds, do you remember the half-time charity collections? Several blokes carrying a large blanket round for people to throw money in. When coins were raining down from the back of the Kop, you had a job to survive at the front. I reckon I could have survived in a war zone after that training

 

[ancientblade]

When I said that I regard football as educational, I wasn’t thinking about the experience you describe. It was certainly not a good experience, but I think that over many years most youngsters had to deal with huge crowds from time to time, and finding a spot which allowed you to see the game without getting crushed when the crowd swayed forward taught us very young what is now called ‘spatial awareness’, I think - in other words, how to look after ourselves. And even at games with smaller crowds, do you remember the half-time charity collections? Several blokes carrying a large blanket round for people to throw money in. When coins were raining down from the back of the Kop, you had a job to survive at the front. I reckon I could have survived in a war zone after that training

oh got used to swaying years later behind the shoreham goal if united scored you ended up 10 yards down the terracing or even on the floor but even so loved those days that experience in 61 against ipswich really had me panicking being trapped against the shoreham st wall at only 9 years old mind me old dad took a little fold up chair that night for me to stand on otherwise i wouldnt have seen a thing

 

[Darnall Siam Blade]

Thanks, HBT, for the above old programme photos. Looking at the faces, in The Bishops 1957 Amateur Cup winning team, and seeing the names,I reckon 7 or 8 played in the 1961 friendly I mentioned. I distinctly remembered Bob Hardisty though, because , was spindly legged and looked about 40. What a player though. Luckily, for me , he was on the other side of the pitch. Players tended to stick more to a designated position in those days. A further connection is that Billy Russell studied at Loughborough before he signed for the Blades. We overlapped by one year at Loughborough. I think it was Joe Mercer who signed him.

 

[bornablade]

Thanks, HBT, for the above old programme photos. Looking at the faces, in The Bishops 1957 Amateur Cup winning team, and seeing the names,I reckon 7 or 8 played in the 1961 friendly I mentioned. I distinctly remembered Bob Hardisty though, because , was spindly legged and looked about 40. What a player though. Luckily, for me , he was on the other side of the pitch. Players tended to stick more to a designated position in those days. A further connection is that Billy Russell studied at Loughborough before he signed for the Blades. We overlapped by one year at Loughborough. I think it was Joe Mercer who signed him.

I think Barry Hines (wrote Kes) went to Loughborough - maybe not the same years as yourself.

 

[Darnall Siam Blade]

Yes, he did, bornablade. Barry Hines was at Loughborough and was in the year above me. He attended Ecclesfield Grammar school so I knew him before Loughborough days where he attracted the attention of such as Burnley and Aston Villa. We clashed on the football field twice a season for about 5 years in our respective school days and once a year in Athletics where we both ran the 100 yards, as it was in those days. Well he ran and I trailed in behind him. As you know he went on to become a very successfull author with "Kes" being his masterpiece. He suffered very badly with Alzheimers in his last years and died in 2016

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

Yes, he did, bornablade. Barry Hines was at Loughborough and was in the year above me. He attended Ecclesfield Grammar school so I knew him before Loughborough days where he attracted the attention of such as Burnley and Aston Villa. We clashed on the football field twice a season for about 5 years in our respective school days and once a year in Athletics where we both ran the 100 yards, as it was in those days. Well he ran and I trailed in behind him. As you know he went on to become a very successfull author with "Kes" being his masterpiece. He suffered very badly with Alzheimers in his last years and died in 2016

I first met Barry in the late ‘60’s and continued seeing him on and off until a few years before his death .

One remarkable thing I didn’t know until I watched a programme called ‘ Looking for Kes’ a couple of years ago is that until he went to Loughborough and borrowed some of his roommates books , he had never read a single novel !

His entire personal reading experience had been with comics which had written stories such as Hotspur , Wizard and Adventure , a fact which he revealed in an an old interview shown on the programme .

As I posted some time ago , whilst being a Barnsley supporter at heart , he fell in love with Blades team of the early ‘70’s . He once told me that his favourite player of all time was Dennis Law but that TC came a very close second .

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

Thanks, HBT, for the above old programme photos. Looking at the faces, in The Bishops 1957 Amateur Cup winning team, and seeing the names,I reckon 7 or 8 played in the 1961 friendly I mentioned. I distinctly remembered Bob Hardisty though, because , was spindly legged and looked about 40. What a player though. Luckily, for me , he was on the other side of the pitch. Players tended to stick more to a designated position in those days. A further connection is that Billy Russell studied at Loughborough before he signed for the Blades. We overlapped by one year at Loughborough. I think it was Joe Mercer who signed him.

You should have claimed it was you that recommended him to United - I would have believed you!

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

March 11, 1961: Brighton 0-0 United
Attendance: 18059

I have been living in fear of this game for some time. It was the first 0-0 draw of the season, and the only league game that season to finish goalless; though strangely, the next 2 matches also finished 0-0. I didn’t go to this game, and I do not even have a copy of the programme. My scrapbook has no material about the game. And the programme for the next home match merely laments the dropping of a point at Brighton. Hodgy does not mention the game in his autobiography, and an article on a Brighton website going over the matches between the 2 clubs (and there have not been that many) does no more than record the score. The one thing I knew about the game was that before it we signed a young Scottish right-winger from Brentford, John Docherty, so that at long last we had a player for that position, and he made his debut at Brighton; the fact that we failed to score a goal that day, and almost immediately signed another right-winger who replaced him suggested that he cannot have had the best of debuts, but that was not based on solid evidence.
In desperation, I consulted the British Newspaper Archive, knowing that our local papers have not been digitised from the 1960s, and the Surrey Street Library is not open, but to my surprise found a report (brief) in the Daily Herald from the following Monday. I reproduce it below, but I’m afraid the quality of the image was not sharp. It has 3 points of interest:
1. Utd’s defence, built around Joe Shaw, is outstanding.
2. Docherty was the only forward who played well that day.
3. And, best of all, manager of struggling Brighton, Billy Lane, came up with an excuse for not winning that I don’t think I have ever heard before or since - the crossbar at one end of the Brighton ground has bent, and is 2 inches below regulation height, despite Heath-Robinson attempts to straighten it up by having a prop underneath it all week. Brighton hit the bar twice, and he claims they would have won 2-0 had the bar been straight! They also hit the post, but he does not say if that was bent as well.
I suspect few Blades fans will have gone to Brighton that day, as tickets for the semi-final at Leeds will have gone on sale early Sunday morning. We will have had just over 20000 tickets, and no doubt could have sold many more. Some of you will remember the queues - they opened perhaps 15 turnstiles all around the ground, and you tried to work out which queues were best to join; like supermarket checkouts, you always felt that the other queues were moving quicker. I don’t remember whether any vouchers had been given out to people attending league games that year, but I came away excited to have my ticket for my first ever semi-final. Report to follow next week.

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

March 11, 1961: Brighton 0-0 United
Attendance: 18059

I have been living in fear of this game for some time. It was the first 0-0 draw of the season, and the only league game that season to finish goalless; though strangely, the next 2 matches also finished 0-0. I didn’t go to this game, and I do not even have a copy of the programme. My scrapbook has no material about the game. And the programme for the next home match merely laments the dropping of a point at Brighton. Hodgy does not mention the game in his autobiography, and an article on a Brighton website going over the matches between the 2 clubs (and there have not been that many) does no more than record the score. The one thing I knew about the game was that before it we signed a young Scottish right-winger from Brentford, John Docherty, so that at long last we had a player for that position, and he made his debut at Brighton; the fact that we failed to score a goal that day, and almost immediately signed another right-winger who replaced him suggested that he cannot have had the best of debuts, but that was not based on solid evidence.
In desperation, I consulted the British Newspaper Archive, knowing that our local papers have not been digitised from the 1960s, and the Surrey Street Library is not open, but to my surprise found a report (brief) in the Daily Herald from the following Monday. I reproduce it below, but I’m afraid the quality of the image was not sharp. It has 3 points of interest:
1. Utd’s defence, built around Joe Shaw, is outstanding.
2. Docherty was the only forward who played well that day.
3. And, best of all, manager of struggling Brighton, Billy Lane, came up with an excuse for not winning that I don’t think I have ever heard before or since - the crossbar at one end of the Brighton ground has bent, and is 2 inches below regulation height, despite Heath-Robinson attempts to straighten it up by having a prop underneath it all week. Brighton hit the bar twice, and he claims they would have won 2-0 had the bar been straight! They also hit the post, but he does not say if that was bent as well.
I suspect few Blades fans will have gone to Brighton that day, as tickets for the semi-final at Leeds will have gone on sale early Sunday morning. We will have had just over 20000 tickets, and no doubt could have sold many more. Some of you will remember the queues - they opened perhaps 15 turnstiles all around the ground, and you tried to work out which queues were best to join; like supermarket checkouts, you always felt that the other queues were moving quicker. I don’t remember whether any vouchers had been given out to people attending league games that year, but I came away excited to have my ticket for my first ever semi-final. Report to follow next week.
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Great bit of research Hodgy and I love the bent crossbar story .

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

Great bit of research Hodgy and I love the bent crossbar story .

Can’t make up my mind whether it was an emotional response to bad luck, or a subtle message to the Chairman saying ‘don’t sack me if we go down - it is the lack of financial backing I have been given.’ Not a good thought on today of all days.

 

[Blade-on-Tyne]

March 7, 1961: Utd 1-3 Ipswich
Attendance: 35047

I have often justified my love of football, and of United in particular, by the belief that it is good for the character, and educational in the the broadest sense of the word. That was certainly true of the first few days of March 1961. The trip to Newcastle played a big part in confirming my interest and pride in dialects and local culture - Blaydon Races v Ilkla Moor defined for me the best of football, with local pride and passion creating an atmosphere that was totally absorbing. I have always taken pride in my Sheffield accent, especially when working in environments where the accents of northern cities were looked down on. 3 days later, and the lesson for life was that perfection does not last long: into the Cup semi-final for the first time in my life on the Saturday, knocked off the top of the league table on the Tuesday. I learnt a new expression that Tuesday evening: ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’. I don’t think I knew what a Lord Mayor’s show was at the time, but I seemed to hear and read that expression so often that its meaning was clear: you go to an event convinced by recent events that success is guaranteed, the largest league crowd of the entire league season at the Lane is fired up for a meeting of the top 2 teams in the League, creating that special atmosphere under the floodlights, and everything goes wrong. We never got going, went 2 goals down, and when we did score, Ipswich soon restored the 2 goal cushion. It seemed after the match as if 35000 people left muttering ‘After the Lord Mayor’s show’.
Fortunately, there were silver-linings. We had a semi-final to look forward to, though we didn’t yet know whether it was against Barnsley or Leicester. United’s team was resilient, and had come back from previous setbacks that season. The programme notes were full of praise for the Blades fans who travelled to Newcastle. And best of all, as the unique scoreboard pictured below shows, there was just one other game that evening, where Wednesday lost their replay at Burnley. They had knocked us out in the 6th round the previous year, but this time it was to be United in the semifinals representing Sheffield.
And a final short note in the programme turned out to be significant. United had sold Willie Hamilton to Middlesbrough for £12500; little did we know that the money was to be spent on 2 right-wingers. We had had no right-winger all season, but we were about to sign 2, and one of them was going to play a crucial role in the promotion race...
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I remember the Ipswich game very well but never realised the crowd was as big as that.
I’d been going to the Lane for a couple of years and had always put down defeats to dirty/lucky opponents or refs requiring ophthalmologic treatment (I still wore r&w blinkers in those days.)
Ipswich were the first team I saw who were better than United. Our defence couldn’t cope with their twin strikers Philips and Crawford - both big lads. I also remember Leadbitter their left winger whose style of play was identical to our Ronnie Simpson - kick the ball past the full back then run round him as quickly as possible.
Happy memories. Thanks

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

I remember the Ipswich game very well but never realised the crowd was as big as that.
I’d been going to the Lane for a couple of years and had always put down defeats to dirty/lucky opponents or refs requiring ophthalmologic treatment (I still wore r&w blinkers in those days.)
Ipswich were the first team I saw who were better than United. Our defence couldn’t cope with their twin strikers Philips and Crawford - both big lads. I also remember Leadbitter their left winger whose style of play was identical to our Ronnie Simpson - kick the ball past the full back then run round him as quickly as possible.
Happy memories. Thanks

Thanks for that. My post on the away match ends with some thoughts on those 3 players (post 285) - it is interesting that they impressed you in the return match. One last thought relevant to today’s news on Wilder: Alf Ramsey took over managing Ipswich in Division 3 South, took 2 years to get them up to League 2, and then 4 years to get them to the top division. Of course, he then won the Championship with them in their first season up; given the huge changes in the game, Wilder’s achievement in finishing 9th in the Premier League was not far off equal to what Ramsay did, and Wilder brought United up much more quickly from the 3rd tier. Makes you think (well, it makes me think, anyway...)

 

[Blade-on-Tyne]

Thanks for that. My post on the away match ends with some thoughts on those 3 players (post 285) - it is interesting that they impressed you in the return match. One last thought relevant to today’s news on Wilder: Alf Ramsey took over managing Ipswich in Division 3 South, took 2 years to get them up to League 2, and then 4 years to get them to the top division. Of course, he then won the Championship with them in their first season up; given the huge changes in the game, Wilder’s achievement in finishing 9th in the Premier League was not far off equal to what Ramsay did, and Wilder brought United up much more quickly from the 3rd tier. Makes you think (well, it makes me think, anyway...)

Are you hinting that Wilder may be in line for the England job ?

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

FA Cup Semi Final
March 18, 1961. Elland Road, Leeds
Leicester 0-0 United
Attendance: 52095. Receipts: £16200

Two days early, as a taster, I attach below a link to grainy video highlights of the game; unfortunately, the main incident, towards the end of the game, the Pace disallowed goal, is not shown. Many of us will continue to believe that ‘we was robbed’, but this film provides no evidence one way or the other. I will post much more about the game in a couple of days. Thanks are due to Silent Blade , who was kind enough to send me the link; if it does not work, the fault is all his, sorry, I mean all mine...Follow the link to YouTube to play, if necessary.

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

FA Cup Semi Final
March 18, 1961. Elland Road, Leeds
Leicester 0-0 United
Attendance: 52095. Receipts: £16200

Two days early, as a taster, I attach below a link to grainy video highlights of the game; unfortunately, the main incident, towards the end of the game, the Pace disallowed goal, is not shown. Many of us will continue to believe that ‘we was robbed’, but this film provides no evidence one way or the other. I will post much more about the game in a couple of days. Thanks are due to Silent Blade , who was kind enough to send me the link; if it does not work, the fault is all his, sorry, I mean all mine...Follow the link to YouTube to play, if necessary.

If we’re doing pre match build up , here are some of my memories .

Me and my old man were picked up by his friend in a brand new V8 Rover which was by far the most luxurious car I had ever been in at the time . I was looking forward to travelling on the relatively new section of the M1 which I had never been on and was hugely disappointed when Dad’s pal said he would be going the way he had always gone to Leeds , which was via Huddersfield . What a good decision that turned out to be .

We arrived at the ground in well under an hour and were allowed to into the car park behind the main stand and then into the Leeds United Supporters Club bar !

After a couple of pints of very acceptable proper Tetley’s Best , we casually strolled the 50 yards or so and took our seats about 15 mins. before kick off . Unbeknown to us at the time , while we were enjoying this experience thousands of Blades fans who had travelled via the M1 were stuck in horrendous traffic with many not getting to the ground until almost half time .

Lucky Days .

 

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If we’re doing pre match build up , here are some of my memories .

Me and my old man were picked up by his friend in a brand new V8 Rover which was by far the most luxurious car I had ever been in at the time . I was looking forward to travelling on the relatively new section of the M1 which I had never been on and was hugely disappointed when Dad’s pal said he would be going the way he had always gone to Leeds , which was via Huddersfield . What a good decision that turned out to be .

We arrived at the ground in well under an hour and were allowed to into the car park behind the main stand and then into the Leeds United Supporters Club bar !

After a couple of pints of very acceptable proper Tetley’s Best , we casually strolled the 50 yards or so and took our seats about 15 mins. before kick off . Unbeknown to us at the time , while we were enjoying this experience thousands of Blades fans who had travelled via the M1 were stuck in horrendous traffic with many not getting to the ground until almost half time .

Lucky Days .

Ta for those memories. Does that explain where all those people had come from during half-time to stand in front of the terracing? I had forgotten that totally. I always went on the football specials, and in 8 or 9 years of Cheap Day returns, we never missed the start of a game. Trains were reliable, but distinctly no frills.
Unbelievable what the pitch was like. From a first-half with the ball bouncing up off bumps (how did anyone control or pass the ball?) to a bog after the half-time downpour. Graham Shaw looked to be in good form on the near side in the first half.