Football Programmes Centre

beaudog · Joined: 06 Nov 2011 Posts: 300 Location: st11 9rh

I went to Manchester on a grey January morning in 1957 to do a few hours trainspotting, with a school classmate. I wanted to see the Red Devils as at the time they were high up on the list of favourite teams and even though I had followed Stoke City for a couple of years I always paid attention to what was happening at Old Trafford and was in awe of the talents, the likes of Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor and the others in the star filled cast and today looked like the day a dream would be realised. I was 13 so 4 hours with a notebook round the Manchester stations was a good start to the day but when I reminded my friend that I was off to see a game in the afternoon , he was not best pleased. Even suggesting a couple of hours on Central station did little to pacify his wailings and afterwards,, foolishly, I relented and stayed at his side, catching the last train to Hanley station to arrive 90 minutes later on a windswept platform. A short walk to Crown Bank, where I was able to pick the Manchester Green un and read all about the match I should have gone to. The headlines spoke of a wonderful display and a six goal mauling of Newcastle United by a rampant home team. What had I missed? Recently the programme for the match arrived at my Newcastle under Lyme stall and the situation came flooding back. Regrets, wrong decisions, perhaps you have one to share.

nozer · Joined: 24 Mar 2011 Posts: 1109 Location: Liverpool

Regrets, i would guess not going to more of the World Cup games in 1966, i was a 16 year- old at the time and had just discovered girls for the first time . i had a lovely girl-friend at the time and my attentions were otherwise engaged ?.

I only went to the one game at Goodison Park Brazil v Portugal and i was not going to go to that one but i recall my elder brother saying to me that i should go because there may never be another World Cup torney in my life time in this country. Never gave it a second thought at the time but how prefound those words have turned out to be.
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"Some people say Wolves best days are gone i prefer to think the best are yet to come" Derek Dougan on joining Wolves from Leicester City 1967.

Sir Moses Hill · Joined: 13 Oct 2014 Posts: 132 Location: New York

In September 2006 I was living and working in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. I'd only been out of Belfast four years at that time and still traveled home regularly for club and country. I was a block booker at Windsor Park for international games. On Wednesday 6th September we were at home to Spain in a Euro 2008 qualifier. I had my usual ticket and an afternoon flight from Birmingham-Belfast booked. That morning, swamped by work, I decided to pull out and spend the rest of the day in the office. I now have zero recollection of what I was working on; but I remember very well pacing my living room and listening to the commentary as David Healy scored a hat trick and NI won 3-2 in one of the most special victories at Windsor Park in a generation. And what a hat trick it was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR77Pr_7vts

Still, I'll always have 7th September 2005...

thegers · Joined: 05 Jul 2014 Posts: 137

Don`t know if this counts but i would have liked to have been at the 1973 Scottish cup Final but was too young, me auld Maw wouldn`t let me go, ah well.

Pete’s Picture Palace · Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:51 pm Post subject:

Saturday 19th April 1969. Older brother gets married on the last day of the season. I was an "usher" so I handed hymn books out. I was 13.

Saturday 19th April 1969. Palace beat Fulham 3-2 and got promoted to the 1st Division for the first time in our history. I missed it.

Brother was divorced in 1978. Served him right.

manchesterunitedman1 · Joined: 17 Jan 2010 Posts: 3352 Location: United Kingdom

Pete’s Picture Palace wrote:

Saturday 19th April 1969. Older brother gets married on the last day of the season. I was an "usher" so I handed hymn books out. I was 13.

Saturday 19th April 1969. Palace beat Fulham 3-2 and got promoted to the 1st Division for the first time in our history. I missed it.

Brother was divorced in 1978. Served him right.

bit harsh Pete Laughing

Karb · Joined: 21 Jan 2015 Posts: 462

Sunderland v Liverpool, April 1997. I was living in London at the time and, due to work and family commitments, I knew I couldn't make the last couple of home games that season, so this was going to be my last chance to say goodbye to Roker.

Unfortunately I was taken ill and couldn't make the journey up. The next time I saw Roker, it was being bulldozed.

Pete’s Picture Palace · Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 10:00 pm Post subject:

manchesterunitedman1 wrote:

Pete’s Picture Palace wrote:

Saturday 19th April 1969. Older brother gets married on the last day of the season. I was an "usher" so I handed hymn books out. I was 13.

Saturday 19th April 1969. Palace beat Fulham 3-2 and got promoted to the 1st Division for the first time in our history. I missed it.

Brother was divorced in 1978. Served him right.

bit harsh Pete Laughing

And if that wasn't bad enough...........

2003/4

December, Palace languishing in 19th place, appoint Iain Dowie. We receive an invitation on our doormat to a wedding (son of my partner's friend - I'd never met the bloke) on Saturday 29th May. It's the last day of the season - Play-off Saturday. But that's OK - the Championship's play off Final is on the Bank Holiday Monday. Anyway, what the heck - Palace are 19th.

Jan - March 2004 My partner has a mastectomy and chemo and radiotherapy. She fights like a trooper and gets through it. At some point in that traumatic time the play off dates are switched round due to Euro 2004, so that the Championship final will be on Sat 29th May. But what the heck, Palace are still about 10th although Andy Johnson is banging them in every week.

April - May 2004. Partner's improvement continues and she announces that despite having no hair and only one boob she wants to go to the wedding. Fantastic, I said, you are a brave little soldier. Love

Palace continue their inexorable rise up the table so that the play off positions are reached with Johnson getting a hat-trick at Crewe. We finish 6th, and will face Sunderland home & away.

May 2004 - we beat Sunderland at home 3-2 and then lost 1-2 away and in the most thrilling of climaxes, won the penalty shoot out. We'd made it to the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, to play West Ham.

29th May 2004. We won 1-0 thanks to a Shipperley screamer from 2 feet. I was at the wedding of a bloke I'd never met and haven't seen since, but they did play Glad All Over for me and a few other Palace fans at the reception. And I'm delighted to say their marriage continues, apparently.

garyspain · Joined: 24 Mar 2010 Posts: 900

Sir Moses Hill wrote:

In September 2006 I was living and working in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. I'd only been out of Belfast four years at that time and still traveled home regularly for club and country. I was a block booker at Windsor Park for international games. On Wednesday 6th September we were at home to Spain in a Euro 2008 qualifier. I had my usual ticket and an afternoon flight from Birmingham-Belfast booked. That morning, swamped by work, I decided to pull out and spend the rest of the day in the office. I now have zero recollection of what I was working on; but I remember very well pacing my living room and listening to the commentary as David Healy scored a hat trick and NI won 3-2 in one of the most special victories at Windsor Park in a generation. And what a hat trick it was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR77Pr_7vts

Still, I'll always have 7th September 2005...

I was at the Spain game. No game for the Republic that night so I went up for the day. Fantastic performance and atmosphere. I was hoping to see a lot more Northern Ireland games with UEFA's week of football but unfortunately we play on the same night.

goonerboy · Joined: 24 Aug 2009 Posts: 1047

Not a footie game but London 2012 Olympics. Late availability tickets were being sold a few days in advance and I am on the laptop and get onto the ticketing site and there are a some tickets for the saturday. I ask my son to check what events on the saturday evening.....some guy called Farah in the 10k but I suspect he will just be beaten by some ethiopian, then Jess Hill finishing her heptathlon but as its multi-event and complicated scoring then probably not very exciting , and then there is long jump...yawn, yawn. So given the tickets are pricey I say to my family that its not going to be that exciting lets try to get tickets for another day. That evening turned out to be Super Saturday...the best UK athletics ever. Farah, Hill and Rutherford grab golds and the atmosphere is so electric and loud that the photo finish camera wobbles with the sound.

garyspain · Joined: 24 Mar 2010 Posts: 900

My biggest regrets are games just before my time. I was 4 in 1971 and attended 2 or 3 Limerick games at the end of the 70/71 season. I recall crying to go to the Cup Final but my parents left me with my grandmother. I've no memory though of us winning the cup (after a replay) for the first time ever.

My first Republic of Ireland game was v Switzerland in May 1975 but I just missed a fantastic 3-0 win over the USSR a few months earlier.

In August 1982 my father met a good friend who ran a local travel agency in Limerick. "I've had a bad summer as I had trips to the World Cup Final and couldn't sell them. I rang loads of people trying to sell them at a step discount but no joy" My Dad said he wished he'd called him as we both would have gone.

My biggest sporting regret though is actually a rugby one. In October 1978 Munster played New Zealand in Thomond Park Limerick. My grandfather and uncles were all going and they had a spare terrace ticket. They debated bringing me and I never piped up to say I really wanted to go. They decided the crowd would be too great. Munster won 12-0 and it is still being talked about. I have a fully autographed programme and ticket stub but really wish I'd been there.

DonQuixote · Joined: 26 May 2011 Posts: 227

March 12 1966 - nothing special to others but still hurts...

Southend GS v Harold Hill GS

I was picked to play in goal for the visitors despite being a year younger than the rest of the side - shows promise of being a good keeper - according to my school report.

Of course there was a small matter of family wedding which clashed on the same Saturday to which missing out going to wasn't an option.

Had to give up my gloves and my replacement kept them that year and the next.

Had trials for Romford at the end of that season but missing out on that game always affected me mentally and I played like a Frank Haffey and ended up playing park football for the rest of my short (injury-ridden) career... Sad

PS
They are still married....

grantham · Joined: 20 Mar 2009 Posts: 1072

Mate offered me a ticket for Liverpool v AC Milan 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul, not a Liverpool fan in anyway. But bought alot of copies of the programme (as I did around that time), following the final whistle and penalties they were selling quicker than I could list and get hold of them. Great days following that game, wouldn't have madey had Milan won or if I had gone

Regret not going - yes
Thankful I didn't go and cleared ALOT of programmes - hell yeah
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oldbolt · Joined: 06 Jun 2009 Posts: 434

January 1993 - Sitting on a coach back from a 1-3 defeat at West Brom in the 3rd Division and making the decision not to waste a night watching us lose at Liverpool in the FA Cup 3rd Round replay during the week .
I started listening to the replay on the radio until Bolton went 1-0 up very early on and knew i wouldn't be able to take the pressure of radio commentary so went for a long walk.I arrived home after full time without hearing anything of how the match was going on and was more than amazed to find out we'd beaten the Cup holders 2-0

James · Joined: 22 Nov 2008 Posts: 485

Football:
I was offered tickets in the club level for Spurs v Man Utd at White Hart Lane a fair few years back, at half time I was kicking myself and throwing my toys out of the pram for not taking them, as Spurs were 3-0, unfortunately for Spurs we got blown apart in the second half and lost 3-5 so I didn't feel too bad missing us fall apart like that, I'm not sure I would have been allowed back in the stadium for the abuse I would have been directing at the players.

Ice Hockey:
I was just about to leave home to drive to Basingstoke for an ice hockey game against Peterborough, hadn't seen Potty that season and they had got an import netminder and a new forward who was scoring for fun, plus the Potty fans are usually good for a few funny songs when they go to away games, I got to the car ready to start the 186 mile round trip to Basingstoke only to answer my phone to work "The network you want set-up and have been whinging about for the past 4 months, well if you can spare two hours we can get it done today" so went to the site we were going to set the network up. Five hours later soaked right through due to constant torrential downpour, caked in mud after one of the muppet's got their vans stuck in the field and we achieved bugger all network was still 95% incomplete. Got home logged on and found that the ice hockey game I was about to leave for when they called finished 6-5 with some cracking goals and there was also a mass brawl.

I was tempted to start an opposite thread called "Game you went to and completely regretted" then I realised that I might just break the forum with some of the crap I've seen over the years

andy1966 · Joined: 06 Jul 2009 Posts: 619

17 years old, experienced Goodison Park for the Semi-Final against Bayern Munich, won 3-1 and we are off to Rotterdam.

My mate and I book our coach travel and wait for tickets to be allocated. As a season ticket holder I had a ticket in my grasp.

My mate decided to pull out and my intent was to still travel on my own with the "Everton family".

My own family (parents) put pressure on me not to travel on my own, I laugh now, only now do I realise what a young 17 year old I was. I backed down and didn't travel and watched it on the television (Brian Clough co-commentating).

Not to worry we were in a glorious period for Everton, surely we are going to experience other nights.....

Here we are 30 years on, still waiting. Oh the regrets..

nozer · Joined: 24 Mar 2011 Posts: 1109 Location: Liverpool

Andy ,that B/M game at Goodison was by far the best game of football i have ever been to, i regulary attended games at GP early 60s some time on my own when i was no more than a 12 year-old ,makes you think dose it not.
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"Some people say Wolves best days are gone i prefer to think the best are yet to come" Derek Dougan on joining Wolves from Leicester City 1967.

andy1966 · Joined: 06 Jul 2009 Posts: 619

nozer wrote:

Andy ,that B/M game at Goodison was by far the best game of football i have ever been to, i regulary attended games at GP early 60s some time on my own when i was no more than a 12 year-old ,makes you think dose it not.

You are making me feel worse now !!

Yes great night