A Shot from Wales

Lost Football League Grounds - Plough Lane, Wimbledon

2012-01-26T00:16:00.009Z

I can’t say I have ever been too misty eyed over the return of Wimbledon to the Football League. In fact for much of my ‘football life’ The Dons have never been anything other than a very good amateur and, at times, semi-professional non-League side…..but I do respect the fact they created a team that dramatically reached the ‘First’ Division in 1986 after a mere nine seasons in the League.

The club goes back a long way, having been formed in 1889 taking its name from the Old Central School on Wimbledon Common where players had been pupils. The club continued to play on the Common until 1912 when the lease to Plough Lane was purchased. The disused swampland was subsequently fenced and the playing surface improved…..!

As the Club prospered during the 1920s crowds of between five and eight thousand regularly filled the ground and by the outbreak of the Second World War the capacity stood at 30,000.

Wimbledon were champions of the Isthmian League on eight occasions and won the FA Amateur Cup in 1963 beating Sutton United 4-2 at Wembley, with Eddie Reynolds scoring all four of his side’s goals with headers…..

In 1964 the club turned professional and entered the Southern League. After winning the League three years running from 1974-5 to 1976-7 they were elected to the Football League in place of Workington Town.

The first League season was simply average….the next resulted in promotion…then down……then up….then Chairman Ron Noades walked out on the club to take over at Crystal Palace, taking manager Dario Gradi with him to Selhurst Park.

Dave Basset was promoted to manager…..and the Club were relegated back to Division 4 in 1982.

Then the door at the back of the stand opened and a few rays of Lebanese sunshine cut through the smoke-filled boardroom and warmed the Directors' pockets. The heat intensified and the meteoric rise to Division One was achieved by 1986…..

Samir ‘Sam’ Hammam was born in Beirut and he made his fortune as a building contractor in the Middle East. Sam emigrated to the UK in 1975 moving to the Wimbledon area because he liked tennis. Hammam bought a majority share in his local football team in the early eighties probably thinking that the ‘Centre Court’ was included in the deal.

Sam purchased £40,000 worth of shares in Wimbledon over a two year period and became Chairman during the roller-coaster ride to the top of English football.

In the 1988 FA Cup Final Liverpool were run over at Wembley by the Bobby Gould managed ‘Crazy Gang’ which made Wimbledon only the second club to have won both the FA Cup and its amateur equivalent………(Old Carthusians won the FA Cup in 1881 and the Amateur Cup in 1894 and 1897).

Following the publication of the Taylor Report in 1990 the Wimbledon Board decided that Plough Lane could not be redeveloped to meet the new all-seater standards and a ‘temporary’ ground share with Crystal Palace was announced.

And no doubt the Crazy Gang live on in the memories of many…… the after dinner circuit kept amused by stories of the bizarre ‘rewards’ and initiation ceremonies for new Wimbledon players – even our own manager Dean Holdsworth was promised a camel should he score 20 goals in a season!

But after a while Sam got bored and when his proposal to relocate the club to Dublin or perhaps Cardiff and why not Milton Keynes was turned down by the footballing authorities he simply sold his stake in the ‘homeless’ club for a reported £30m....

And it was a decision that ultimately led to the franchising of Wimbledon and the move to Milton Keynes.

Wimbledon’s final first team match at Plough Lane was played on 4 May 1991, ironically against new landlords Crystal Palace…….

Sam Hammam sold the ground to Safeway but local residents' opposition and local authority objections to their plans consequently resulted in the demolition of the stadium and the sale to David Wilson Homes……..

Following lobbying by Wimbledon supporters the site was named ‘Reynolds Gate’, after Eddie Reynolds and his famous Wembley headers with the blocks of flats named Bassett House, Batsford House, Cork House, Lawrie House, Reed House and Stannard House……..

On Saturday Aldershot Town will visit AFC Wimbledon’s ‘new’ home in Kingston upon Thames……and as an incentive to arrest our terrible attacking form, ‘I’ll buy you a camel Dean, if we score just one goal at Kingsmeadow…..’

Monte Carlo or bust.....

2012-01-25T23:57:00.007Z

It’s hard to believe but I’ve been visiting friends in the south of France for nearly 40 years. And on my first journey south the yellow ochre MG certainly looked the part, even if my bank manager did question the 'financial sanity' of my trip in a very long phone call on my return to the UK.

The three week tour took in my friend Didier’s wedding in Montpelier and then a pretty crazy trip along the Côte d’Azur…..with Monaco planned as our final stop before returning home by way of the Route Napoleon.

On reflection I guess we probably did the trip the wrong way round, because by the time we stood on the steps of the Casino our clothes were somewhat tired and our pockets pretty empty. But with the optimism of youth and with the help of a bottle of wine we did manage to come up with a plan…..and somehow spent the night attempting to win enough Francs to get us back over the Alps.

Monaco has been the playground of the rich since the mid 19th century when the Monte Carlo Casino opened its doors for the first time. Wealthy families from across Europe and America were attracted by the mild winters, hot summers and freedom to have fun without questions being asked.

But as I grow older the once shining allure of the streets of Monte Carlo, bursting with a seething mass of beautiful people, has been replaced by the simple desire to be consumed by the Impressionist landscape of Provence…...

I broke open the ancient shutters and recoiled……..it was going to be oppressively hot.

As far as the eye could see, clouds of dust hung over the burning white farmers' tracks between the gardens of olive trees and well tended vines under a huge sun of a dullish silver which filled the whole sky.

Not a patch of shade, not a breath of wind. Nothing but the quivering hot air and the raucous cry of the cicadas, the crazy, deafening, urgent music whose loudness seemed the equivalent in sound of this immense quivering radiance……

So if I was going to open a bank account in France I reckon it would be in perhaps Arles or Avignon ....but certainly not Monaco.

Now I wonder what attracted Harry Redknapp, current manager of Tottenham Hotspur to open an account at HSBC Private Bank in Monaco when he was manager of Portsmouth……perhaps we are about to find out!

For all of my dislike of Monte Carlo I have to admit that on my infrequent visits I continue to be fascinated by the behaviour of the many players who choose to challenge the roulette wheel in the Casino. Such analysis and planning, confidence and concentration, investment and evaluation……….then the croupier spins the wheel in one direction and launches a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted circular track. The ball eventually loses momentum and falls on to the wheel and rests in one of 37 coloured and numbered pockets.

Gosh, how do I decide……should I choose inside bets - straight-up, split, street, corner (or square), six line (or double street), trio, basket (or the first four), top line or perhaps the outside bets will be better today - with smaller payouts but a better chance to win…..1 to 18, 19 to 36, red or black, even or odd, dozen bets, column bets or the Snake Bet (don’t ask!).

In truth it really doesn’t matter for despite any amount of planning the ‘house edge’ means that they win and you lose.

But the way people lose is so interesting……

In his first year with the Shots, Dean Holdsworth has probably signed nearly enough loan players to fill a roulette wheel.

Yet if I met him at a ‘table’ in Monaco would he prefer the inside or outside bets.....I wonder?

Images from Cheltenham

2012-01-25T21:04:00.008Z

Cheltenham Town 2 v 0 Aldershot Town (14/01/12) .......and Dean, I don't want to hear that it was another 'terrific performance'. We lost....we didn't score and we never looked like scoring.

League 2 Pub Watch - Cheltenham

2012-01-25T20:58:00.005Z

The Kemble Brewery Inn, 27 Fairview Street, Cheltenham, GL52 2JF.

Off the beaten track and hidden away in rows of Victorian terraced houses the Kemble Brewery Inn is quite simply, a delight.

The bar is small creating the feeling that you are in a house that has had the walls knocked out…..and to the rear is a secluded garden.

On-street parking in the area is still possible despite the spread of ‘residents only’ zones but the advice is to get there early, as the pub does get very busy on match days.

The Last Word

A wonderful pub and only a ten minute walk from Cheltenham’s ground.

The Kemble offers a really varied range of well kept beers and it also offers ‘free sandwiches’ to everyone Saturday lunchtime.

Probably the friendliest pub that you will visit during a League 2 season.

A life lived in reverse.....

2012-01-08T22:00:00.010Z

The earliest memories that I hold of my grandfather are ones of a powerfully built man who ‘hit the back of the net’ with every shot, even if the goalkeeper was only four years of age.

Grandad survived the horrors of life in the trenches during the First World War but he lost his brother in a flying accident just as the conflict came to an end.

Then after our ‘gran’ died in the mid 70s his life became pretty empty and the constant memory lapses grew into a state of more advanced confusion. He blew up his kitchen when his scones were not ready on time…..the gas had been turned on for best part of half an hour when his lighted match finally ignited the burner.

Eventually living on his own became just too difficult and he spent the last couple of years of his life in a nursing home.

In the end visiting grandad always left me feeling a bit sad, as we were only able to hold short conversations that were interesting and engaging but he really had no idea who I was or why we were speaking.

But the strangest part of grandad’s journey with dementia was that it took him on a reverse tour of his former life. He seemed to be reliving each day that had had the most emotional impact on him – in descending chronological order.

He even ‘escaped’ one night taking two buses and a short walk to prop up the bar in his old ‘local’, The Squirrel. ‘Mark’s been fine’, the barman confirmed when we finally found him. ‘Good as gold. He’s had a few, but he hasn’t bought a round all night!’

Some days the neurons that housed his emotions seemed to outnumber those that ordered his memories and with it any perception of reality was swept away in a tidal wave of confusion.

But as I watched grandad being dragged back through time by some invisible force, verbalising his experiences as he relived them, I was somehow comforted by the bizarre way that I was learning about his life – a life that was being played out in the present.

And it was just like that on Saturday………

Dean Holdsworth’s appointment as manager of Aldershot Town was announced shortly after a pathetically shambolic defeat by Oxford United, on January 8th 2011.

The final whistle…..a 2v1 defeat by the resurgent U’s and I said my goodbyes to friends and family, quickly making my way out of the North Stand to join a despondent crowd of Shots fans trudging helplessly out of the Recreation Ground.

An embarrassed row of policemen and stewards stood silently, offering protection to the changing rooms and Directors Lounge….. a sad and somewhat apologetic response to the growing calls for change……

I stopped briefly underneath the Directors Lounge and was quickly engulfed by perhaps a hundred ‘protesters’. The resigned and timid mutterings increasingly drew on an inner corporate strength and then with an explosion of Recreation Ground emotion…..

’Dillon Out’….’we want our football back’….the call from the fans desperate but somehow assertive. The police linked arms and gently reprised their Millbank student riot manoeuvres, moving the crowd down towards the High Street and out of our Directors’ sight.

I made my way back up Redan Road, threading a way through the joyous hoards of Oxford supporters and strutting policemen. I sat motionless in my car for perhaps a few seconds, just a moment of depressed contemplation……’I can’t keep doing this……our Club is being dismantled in front of my eyes’.

I fired up the engine and hit the CD button….I couldn’t risk hearing manager Kevin Dillon on BBC Radio Surrey and Robbie Savage on ‘606’ would inevitably add 3 points to my driving licence………

A Shot From Wales – The Inevitable Denouement 18th January 2011

I think I relived the experience on Saturday, as we were humiliated by a no more than competent Oxford United…..but if my emotional neurons can take control it won’t be long before Jack Howarth strides out from the changing rooms underneath the South Stand and I will get my football back………

Dean Holdsworth and Matthew Bishop took over at Aldershot Town on January 12th 2011....the end of year report isn't looking good Dean.

Liverpool FC.......the final word

2012-01-08T19:39:00.006Z

It feels like yesterday….but it is almost 15 years ago when I was greeted by the Emir’s representative at Kuwait International Airport at the start of a week-long series of lectures that I had been invited to give to their Ministry of Sport.

As we approached passport control the Emir’s ‘senior assistant’ took me by the arm and counselled that during my stay in Kuwait he was available to arrange just about anything for me ….car, driver, sporting events, visits to sites of interest, meetings with ministers……in fact everything that I could possibly want could be organised at a few minutes notice.

But then his grip tightened……’do you have any alcohol in your bags…..let me know now and I will get rid of it before it is too late. You get caught and even I can’t help you’.

Luis Suarez stepped off the plane in England and was met by representatives of Liverpool FC for the first time……"don’t worry about our cultural differences Luis….you just ‘bang them in son’ and we will be very happy with you, even if you do call some of your mates and opponents 'negro’".

Liverpool you only have yourselves to blame…..

'Intellectually incoherent'........

2012-01-08T19:36:00.001Z

Diane Abbott has been the Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, when she became the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons.

Now you would think that her upbringing in post-war London, education at Harrow County Grammar School for Girls followed by Newnham College, Cambridge, employment with the Home Office and then the National Council for Civil Liberties, a short stint at Thames Television then working for Ken Livingstone at the GLC….oh and a period as Head of Press and Public Relations at Lambeth Council…..would have taught her something.

Obviously not as she continues to make the headlines for reasons of, ‘I’m sorry for any offence caused’…….

On 4 January 2012, Abbott tweeted that, “white people love playing ‘divide and rule’. We should not play their game“…….a comment that drew widespread criticism including calls for her resignation.

But Diane has form…..in 1996 she commented that at her local hospital, ‘ blond, blue-eyed Finnish girls’ were unsuitable as nurses because they had ‘never met a black person before’.

But it was her put down of David Cameron and Nick Clegg that troubled me the most…….when she referred to them as ‘two posh white boys’.

Ok, so what if Nick did go to Westminster School and David, Eton College. And is it really such a bad thing to be accepted by Robinson College, Cambridge (Clegg) or Brasenose College, Oxford (Cameron). And the use of ‘boys’…..I’ll give her the ‘benefit of doubt’ on that use of language.

No, what has always concerned me with Diane Abbott is her lack of intellectual honesty. Her decision in 2003 to send her son to the private City of London School which she herself described as ‘indefensible’ and ‘intellectually incoherent’ caused considerable controversy and media criticism.

That said, I reckon her son’s analysis of the decision went something like this……’I want to go private Mum….I don’t want to go to school in Hackney’.

'It was just a pantomime..........'

2011-12-29T17:17:00.012Z

I probably didn’t recognise it at the time, but now as I look back over my working life I can see that the period from the late 70’s to the end of the 80’s was undoubtedly pretty hectic.

Moving home and work from Suffolk to Norfolk was soon to be followed by marriage and a son born in 1982. Then another career move to the East Midlands in 1986 was succeeded by the ‘big move’ back to London in 1988. Yes, it was certainly a period of intense activity with, fortunately, many compensatory rewards……

And somewhere in the middle of all this animation I found myself in the stalls of the Civic Theatre, Mansfield, watching Frank Carson in pantomime.

The Palace Theatre, Mansfield, began life as the Palace Electric Theatre, opening its doors for the first time on Tuesday 13th December, 1910. Just over 100 years ago it was described as 'the last word in electric theatre... refinement and novelty' - it was a 'palace fit for a king'.

Then shortly after the Second World War the cinema was closed and the stage was enlarged to accommodate live shows. As a variety house the Palace attracted many famous names including Larry Grayson, Steve Lawrence and Hilda Baker……

In 1953 (coincidently the year of my birth) Mansfield District Council bought the theatre at a cost of £11,500, restored it and in 1956 it re-opened as the 'Civic Hall' with the Chesterfield Repertory Company performing 'School for Spinsters' - the management of the Civic certainly knew how to pack them in…

The theatre underwent a major rebuilding programme in the 60’s and then in 1968 Mansfield District Council offered a five guinea prize for a new name for the building…… the winner was….. 'Civic Theatre' (the theatre changed its name again in the 1990’s, following another refurbishment)!

And so it came to pass that in the year of our famous play-off final win over Wolverhampton Wanderers (my son’s second Shots game), we found ourselves watching Frank Carson as Buttons in a pretty tawdry production of Cinderella.

Buttons is the servant of Cinderella's father, Baron Hardup, and is Cinderella's friend. He is in love with Cinderella and is constantly trying to express his feelings to her, only for her to remain unaware of his love ……or she simply replies that she loves him only as the brother she never had.

Buttons is a strong comedy role with many jokes to keep the audience ‘amused’ and to cheer up the mistreated Cinderella. Often these jokes are insults directed at Cinderella's two ugly sisters, either to their faces or behind their backs …….

Even after all these years I can remember my five year old son’s comments quite vividly, as he watched the curtain come down on Buttons for the last time……’that was rubbish Dad…..I wish we had travelled down to the Rec - now that would have been fun….’

Frank Carson is now 85 and was pretty popular during the 70’s and 80’s.

His nephew Trevor Carson (23) is a highly rated young goalkeeper currently with Bury, on loan from Premiership side Sunderland.

In 2011 he was loaned to Lincoln City where he made 16 appearances including the 2v2 draw at the Recreation Ground, Aldershot, on February 15th 2011.

I don't get to see many Boxing Day games. It’s not the distance....whether we are at home in Devon or Wales matters little to this long distance supporter. No, my absence is for the simple reason that, ‘for one night only’, I acquiesce to my wife’s plaintive cry ……’surely you’re not going to the game today when we have visitors’.

But this year was different. I was ‘instructed’ to collect my step-daughter’s boyfriend from London on the 27th , early in the morning. And therefore quite reasonably I had to travel up to ‘town’ the day before, giving me the opportunity to meet up with my family at the Rec for the fixture with Southend United.

Looking back I suppose the portents weren’t great. The very late entrance of ‘Shrimpers’ to La Fontaine confirmed that the M25 had been up to its old tricks……with the shockwaves from the early morning accident near Heathrow washing up on the beach at Leatherhead until after lunch.

And I can’t say I noticed the lack of illumination as we entered the ground at 2.40pm. The magnetic attraction of the ‘burger bar’ and the much awaited tiny portion of chips (20 chips for £2…..it’s the charge for service I guess) was too strong.

For most of the first (only) half Southend were pretty robust……..quicker to the ball, stronger in the tackle and so much better at falling over when tackled than an Aldershot side who gave the appearance of a returning late night drunken reveller……stumbling, slow and mentally absent.

By the time Darren Jones was sent off for a pretty poor attempt at ‘knocking Dickinson’s block off’ the floodlight failure was all too obvious.

So it certainly wasn’t a surprise when the announcement to call the game off for safety reasons came just as Southend returned to the pitch after their half-time cup of tea. But what did surprise us was the immediate reply from our pitch-side announcer, ‘Tayley’, that ‘oh no it isn’t off’. We all sat down again……’the game has been called off for safety reasons’, came the instant and cold reply. But before we could get to our feet, ‘no it hasn’t’, Tayley stridently confirmed……….are you sure Tayley I mused, as 50% of our floodlights continued with their strike.

‘The game has been cancelled’….. even ‘Tayley’ had to admit defeat.

Now for the few ‘Shrimpers’ reading this can I just point out that your extended journey time was not ‘our fault’. And furthermore we quite like the Recreation Ground……the setting is splendid and the atmosphere when the stadium is full is as good as you will find anywhere.

Mind you, saving a bit of money by using ‘leftover’ Shrewsbury Town tickets possibly did give you a jaundiced opinion of our club and I suppose we could have let people know, as they were stuck in the traffic jam on the M25, that the floodlights were playing up…..or you could have been warned when entering the ground. But I’m sure such knowledge would have made little difference to the migratory habits of the attending fans as we all entered the Rec on Monday with the required blind and immovable optimism.

And so as I walked back up Redan Road to my car after the truncated game and looked down on the semi-illuminated football ground, my thoughts returned to Cinderella…..and Buttons…..

Yes son you were right……the Recreation Ground on Boxing Day ‘was fun’.

Season's greetings to all supporters of League 2 Football Clubs.....

2011-12-21T00:37:00.006Z

I'm sorry Marvin but I could only remember the second bit......

2011-12-12T22:06:00.010Z

''Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.''

John F. Kennedy
35th President of US 1961-1963 (1917 - 1963)

Throughout his Aldershot Town career Marvin Morgan consistently displayed a wonderfully reassuring quality…..

‘’Like to thank the fans who booed me off the pitch. Where’s that going to get you! I hope you all die.’’

Aldershot 1 Hereford United 2 and fans called for manager Kevin Dillon to be sacked during and after another dismal loss to the bottom-placed United.

At this same event, the supporters also jeered Marvin Morgan, stirring him to make offensive comments in return, on the social networking site, Twitter. As a consequence, Morgan was fined two weeks wages and ordered to stay away from the Club. He was also placed on the transfer list and, shortly after, joined League 1 side Dagenham and Redbridge on loan until the end of the season……

January 2011

(Marvin joined Shrewsbury Town at the start of the 2011/12 season)

It can be so frustrating when players representing League Two clubs put in a great performance one week, ripping the opposition apart, and then just a few days later struggle to pass the ball to anyone other than a forlorn ‘ball boy’ next to the corner flag, hands in pockets and with his head lost somewhere underneath the obligatory ‘hoodie’.

But Marvin was different; he invariably lived up to my expectations.

At 1.96m he is undoubtedly very tall….but regrettably this gift has never been exploited as he continues to be hopeless when the ball is ‘played in the air to him’.

Marvin is certainly very fast, when he finally mobilises his long legs and overcomes the apparent inertia.....but with the ball at his feet, the crowd invariably scream in frustration, ‘where is he going!’

Yes, I guess ‘Marvellous Marvin’ would never betray my expectations.

So it was, that on Saturday I committed myself to giving Marvin a warm welcome…..a heated booing as he lined up and reprised when substituted. Remarkably a first for me in all 51 years of following the Shots, but maybe not the last …..I quite enjoyed it!

Perhaps the antonym of a rapturous applause has its merits ……

Then during the game I could only bring myself to boo Marvin on three occasions….those three rare moments when he got near to the ball.

And if my third boo was a tad staccato it was because Marvin fell…..

I’m sorry but I must admit I did struggle to act with the same professional integrity as MMM displayed week-in-week-out but unfortunately I found it just too difficult to hold back my merriment.

Images from Sheffield

2011-12-12T21:40:00.013Z

FA Cup 2nd Round
Sheffield Wednesday 1 v 0 Aldershot Town

Hillsborough is an ageing relic that has found it impossible to hide the history of Administration and financial struggles.

The Fat Cat, Alma Street, Sheffield.....one of the finest pubs in the UK. But get there early as it is always very busy!

Kelham Island Museum is next door to The Fat Cat......park, visit the museum, pub, tram (500m) - two stops......Hillsborough.

From Maidenhead to Hillsborough...with a stop over at Villa Park

2011-12-01T22:29:00.006Z

Jack Palethorpe was born in Leicester in 1909 and trained as a shoemaker before concentrating on football. In only 177 League and Cup appearances, before the outbreak of the Second World War, Jack netted 106 goals.

His goal scoring ability was first spotted during the 1929-30 season when he scored 65 goals in 39 appearances for Maidenhead United in the Spartan League.

Jack signed professional terms for our great rivals Reading in 1930, for whom he scored 54 goals in 59 appearances…..and then he moved to Stoke. His stay was pretty short and after a brief sojourn at Preston North End he moved to Sheffield Wednesday for a fee of £3100 in 1934.

Palethorpe went straight into the first team replacing the popular Neil Dewar and he made his debut on 15 Dec 1934 against Everton and then on Boxing Day he scored his first goals, a hat-trick against Birmingham City.

But his greatest impact was in the FA Cup of that season scoring goals in the third and fourth rounds as well as one in the semi-final win over Burnley at Villa Park. However his most important goal came in the 4-2 final triumph against West Bromwich Albion when he put Wednesday a goal up inside two minutes……..

Jack Palethorpe joined Aston Villa in 1935 before moving back to non-League football in 1938 playing for Chelmsford, Shorts Sports and Colchester United. He retired from the game in 1939, although he turned out a few times for Colchester in the Wartime League and later he did some coaching at his first club Maidenhead……

Chris Palethorpe was born in Maidenhead in 1942 and sadly died on May 21st 2010 at the age of 67 after a long illness.

Chris joined Aldershot FC in July 1963 from neighbours Reading (for whom he made 55 appearances).

He made his debut for Aldershot in a 4-1 Football League Division Four victory versus Hartlepools United in August 1963 but his most important goal in an Aldershot shirt was scored on January 8th 1964.

Seven-time cup winners Aston Villa were surprisingly held to a goalless draw at home by Fourth Division Aldershot in the third round tie, but remained optimistic for the replay the following Wednesday.

The game failed to deliver a goal until 20 mins from the end when a free kick from near the right touch line was crossed by Aldershot inside-left Jim Towers. Villa keeper Nigel Sims dived to intercept the ball only to see it sail over his hands and straight into the unguarded net.

The second goal was even worse for the unfortunate Sims, a corner from the left taken by Chris Palethorpe curling in direct.

Tony Hateley’s last minute goal for Villa was not enough, and they were out………

FA Cup Round 2 - Saturday 3rd December Sheffield Wednesday v Aldershot Town…….

League 2 Pub Watch - Swindon

2011-12-01T22:22:00.003Z

John Betjeman published his poem about Slough in 1937 in the collected works Continual Dew.

Slough was becoming increasingly industrial and some of the housing conditions were very cramped. In willing the destruction of Slough, Betjeman urges the bombs to pick out the vulgar profiteers but to spare the bald young clerks. I’m sure Slough is much improved nowadays ……………...

Clearly John Betjeman never visited Swindon.

Finding a pub near to the County Ground is not easy and the ‘best’ is undoubtedly 'The Merlin' on Drove Road, not far from the ‘magic roundabout’. Away fans are welcome and the pub has wall-to-wall television screens showing Sky Sports.

The beer was awful.

Greene King is a wonderful ale but when served in plastic drinking vessels any last vestige of taste is bound to be destroyed.

The food was served in polystyrene boxes…..what would my Mum have said.

The Last Word

The worst food of the season to date washed down by the worst beer……I just hope Swindon get promoted this term.

Such sad news......

2011-11-27T15:29:00.002Z

I have just heard that Wales football manager Gary Speed has died at the age of 42.

Gary was a very talented footballer who served his country with great distinction. And if the recent run of good form continues then he will be remembered as the man who restored pride to Welsh football.....after many years in the wilderness.

But above everything else Gary was a charming man....

Aldershot Town 1 v 2 Gillingham

2011-11-21T21:34:00.008Z

Don't let the sunshine fool you Dean (manager Aldershot Town), I could feel the leading edge of an 'arctic blast' last Saturday. Gillingham were combative all over the pitch....the Shots lethargic and tame. It is your responsibility, Dean and 'Bish' (first team coach), to have the team fired up and ready to go from the first minute....not the 46th.

FA Cup Pub Watch - Maidenhead

2011-11-15T08:50:00.006Z

I was looking forward to the trip to Maidenhead for our FA Cup encounter. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead….now that did sound nice and posh.

Oh dear, I’m sorry but sometimes one needs a little bit more than loads of money to create style.

The town centre appeared lifeless, perhaps not helped by the fact that the River Thames runs half a mile to the east and it is the York Stream, which runs through the heart of the commercial sector.

The Vine, Market Street, Maidenhead is a traditional looking pub that first opened its doors in 1820.

On Saturday The Vine offered Brakspear's real ale….. beautifully kept……and
an excellent lunchtime food menu, which was very good value (served 12-3pm).

The Last Word

The Vine is a welcome sanctuary from the tired Maidenhead town centre. Excellent food and beer topped off with a warm welcome…..what more could you want.

FA Cup First Round Maidenhead United 1 v 1 Aldershot Town

2011-11-14T23:34:00.016Z

Maidenhead United certainly have a lot of history. In fact senior football was first played in the town in 1870 and just a year later the club played their first game at York Road, when Marlow were the visitors.

Although when Maidenhead entered the very first FA Cup in 1871 the townsfolk of Aldershot were probably more concerned with the adoption of the Martini-Henry Rifle by the British Army and the realignment of the axis of power in Europe than the 'romance of the cup'.

Under Bismarck, the new Germany successfully defeated France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 leaving the British to look towards Germany, rather than France, as their greatest threat.

But on Saturday, after 140 years, making York Road the oldest continually used football ground in the world (by the same club), Maidenhead finally welcomed a League Club to their historic home.

Somewhat rickety but certainly atmospheric, York Road is a quaint old ground. Terracing on three sides of the pitch and a few seats under a tin roof was ample accommodation for the crowd of 2283……

Maidenhead offered very little going forward but did score an excellent goal after only 7 minutes. Aldershot were lazy and careless in the first half…..more urgent and direct in the second, which resulted in a 77th minute equaliser.

The draw was a fair result and we look forward to welcoming The Magpies to the Rec on November 22nd.

We must remember them......

2011-11-11T00:07:00.014Z

It all started with a polite request by the Football Association to put the poppy on the shirt for this Saturday’s friendly international. And it was followed by Fifa’s polite refusal to allow it.

Prime Minister, David Cameron, dismissed Fifa’s initial ban as ‘outrageous’ and ‘absurd’.

Fifa insisted that England could not wear poppies against Spain at Wembley – in case they one day met Germany around the time of Remembrance Sunday.

Even Prince William felt it necessary to clamber on board the media driven bandwagon and with Fifa in a delicate position, unwilling to surrender a reasonable belief that the shirts should remain plain, some bright spark came up with a compromise…….poppies on black armbands.

The Cenotaph in Whitehall was first opened as a temporary war memorial on Peace Day, 19 July 1919 when celebrations to mark the end of the First World War were held throughout the UK and Ireland. It was designed and built in plaster and wood by Edwin Lutyens at the request of the then Prime Minister Lloyd George.

The Times referred to Peace Day as "the greatest ritual day in our history"; the object of this state event was to represent society as a harmonious whole, united in remembrance, and to paper over the social tensions of the period.

And for the past nine decades the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London has played host to the Remembrance Service, forming such an enduring part of our commemoration of those who lost their lives in past conflicts.

At its unveiling, the base of the monument was spontaneously covered in wreaths to the dead and ‘missing’ from The Great War. Such was the extent of public enthusiasm for the construction, it was decided that The Cenotaph should become a permanent and lasting memorial.

The Cenotaph, made from Portland stone, was unveiled in 1920.

The inscription reads simply "The Glorious Dead".

A Shot from Wales - November 11 2010

Sepp Blatter, born in 1936, is the current President of Fifa (Fédération Internationale de Football Association). He was elected on 8 June 1998, succeeding João Havelange and re-elected as President in 2002, 2007, and 2011. Despite winning four terms as President, Blatter has often been dogged by controversy and allegations of corruption.

Indeed in 2004 Sepp said women should have skimpier kit to increase the popularity of the game. "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball".

"They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so……….’’

And so ‘playing towards the East Bank in the first half’ we had a team led by Blatter, a man born in Visp, Canton Valais , Switzerland where the last, and almost bloodless, conflict was the Sonderbund War. It happened in November of 1847 and ultimately led to the new Swiss constitution of 1848.

Facing up to the world football chiefs, and ‘kicking towards the High Street end’ we had our own favourites led by the Prime Minister and the Duke of Cambridge, desperate for the nation to be consumed by the corporate emotion that is now required of us all on Armistice Day.

Does It Matter

Does it matter? - losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? - losing your sight?
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? - those dreams from the pit?
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad,
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.

Siegfried Sassoon

The German bombers appeared in the skies over Gernika (Guernica : Spanish pronunciation) in the late afternoon of April 26, 1937 and immediately set about transforming the sleepy Spanish market town into an everlasting symbol of the atrocity of war.

And of course the residents of Gernika had no idea that they had been identified by their attackers to become guinea pigs in an experiment designed to determine just what it would take to bomb a city into oblivion.

Spain was embroiled in a sickening civil war that had begun in July 1936 when the right-wing Nationalists led by General Franco sought to overthrow Spain's left-wing Republican government. It did not take long before this bloody internal Spanish quarrel attracted the participation of forces beyond its borders - creating a line up of opponents that foreshadowed the partnerships that would battle each other in World War II.

Fascist Germany and Italy supported Franco while the Soviet Union backed the Republicans. A number of volunteers made their way to Spain, including many miners from the South Wales valleys to fight and die under the Republican banner.

Hitler's support of Franco consisted of the Condor Legion, an adjunct of the Luftwaffe. The Condor Legion provided the Luftwaffe the opportunity to develop and perfect tactics of aerial warfare that would fuel Germany's blitzkrieg across Europe during 1939 and 1940.

As German air chief Hermann Goering testified at his trial after World War II: "The Spanish Civil War gave me an opportunity to put my young air force to the test, and a means for my men to gain experience."

Some of these experimental tactics were tested on that bright spring day with devastating results - the town of Gernika, pop 5000, was entirely destroyed with a loss of life estimated at 1,650.

We were still a good ten miles away when I saw the reflection of Guernica's flames in the sky. As we drew nearer, on both sides of the road, men, women and children were sitting, dazed. I saw a priest in one group. I stopped the car and went up to him. 'What happened, Father?' I asked. His face was blackened, his clothes in tatters. He couldn't talk. He just pointed to the flames, still about four miles away, then whispered: 'Aviones. . . bombas'. . . mucho, mucho.'

Noel Monks - London Daily Express

A few years ago my wife and I visited the Gernika Peace Museum - formerly known as the Gernika Museum. The museum is housed in just one of the many hundred reconstructed buildings in what is a pretty featureless town in the north of Spain.

But then nothing could prepare me for the twenty minutes that we experienced in ‘the family home’ so tragically devastated on April 26 1937….

The door to what appeared to be no more than a waiting room closed silently behind us. The bright fluorescent lights dimmed and the room was filled with an eerie silence. I could hear children playing in the street outside, then the sound of a football banging against the back door.....mum calling the youngsters in for lunch.....screams of laughter interrupted by the distant sound of aircraft......

When the lighting was restored I found my wife in a heap on the floor, crushed by falling masonry. Her emotions shattered by the virtual devastation that had been played out around her head and body.

How apposite it would have been on Saturday if England and Spain had been left alone to remember……

The bombing prompted Picasso to begin painting his greatest masterpiece... Guernica. The painting became a timely and prophetic vision of the Second World War and is now recognised as an international icon for peace…….

Size 12....I don't think so

2011-11-06T18:27:00.005Z

According to Chelsea FC, John Terry is 1.87m tall and weighs just over 14st…. I guess that makes him pretty big.

And his boot size?

No idea…..let’s guess…..size 12.

So why am I so troubled when I hear everyone banging on about JT being ‘too big for his boots’.

Well it’s because in my judgment he is a bit smaller than a ‘twelve’….perhaps a size 4 or maybe 5.

Just get rid of him Fabio.

''But then not one England defender, since those heady days of the late 60’s and early 70’s, has ever got close to the imperious presence of Bobby. As each new intake is presented to me, viewed and then assessed I simply ‘bring forward’ my memories of Moore….polish them up a bit and determine that not one will ever match ‘The Legend’.''

It seems such a long time ago.....

2011-11-06T17:57:00.009Z

Margaret Thatcher was busy changing the landscape of Wales…..closing most of the mines….. before taking an interest in the rest of the world and doing business with Mikhail Gorbachev, the new leader of the Soviet Union.

Video recorders were regarded as fairly new, Angie didn’t have time for ‘Strictly’ as she was still happily married to Den in Albert Square and football was played on Saturdays.

Football was so very different in 1986 and there wasn't much glamour about Alex Ferguson's first match in charge of Manchester United, which took place on November 8 1986, two days after the Scot was appointed as United's replacement for Ron Atkinson.

United suffered a 2-0 defeat against Oxford in the First Division fixture, watched by 13,545 at the old Manor Ground (for younger readers the Premier League began in 1992 and before that time life was oh so simple….League 1, 2, 3 and 4).

And it took (Sir) Alex just a few days less than 25 years to achieve his lifetime ambition of leading a team out at the Recreation Ground, Aldershot.

It wasn’t a great game. United were far too good for an Aldershot side that spent most of the game trying not to tackle or bruise the Premiership stars.

And just like Grandma’s Christmas present, expectancy was the winner despite the knitted socks being wrapped in such wonderful paper.

My brother says it’s an age thing when I muse that losing to Best, Law and Charlton in 1970 was memorable but that somehow Berbatov, Park, Owen and the rest will never connect with my emotions.

It’s great to get back to League action………

League 2 Pub Watch - Dagenham

2011-11-06T17:49:00.005Z

Following the Shots for so many years has been rewarding…..from Salisbury to Shrewsbury, Hereford to Hartlepool, Cambridge to Carlisle.

Stunning cities and interesting towns.

Vibrant commercial centres and towering mountains.

Superb hotels and fine wines interspersed with real ale and excellent pub grub.

And then came Dagenham….sadly it would be all too easy to be rude.

Finding a pub close to Dagenham’s ground was pretty simple…..there is only one. The beer was ok and the food was substantial!

The Last Word

The Football Ground Guide probably says it all……

’If it is a pub that you prefer, then going further along Rainham Road and going past Golds Gym is the Eastbrook pub. Otherwise, to be honest, there is not much of interest in the area, so there is not much point in wandering off too far’.

Images from Dagenham

2011-11-06T17:44:00.007Z

Sir Matt Busby......

2011-10-23T16:56:00.006+01:00

Goalkeeper, Ted Gaskell was considered a ‘legend’ by many at our London rivals Brentford. Up until he died a couple of years ago…..at the age of 92, he was the oldest surviving player.

You can read about his career in the excellent volume 2 of Dave Lane's Cult Bees and Legends book but for now just a brief extract…

‘I take it you joined the Forces (Ted) when the hostilities started?’

‘Yes I was stationed down at Aldershot and trained to be an Army Physical Training Instructor……..Frank Swift, the great Manchester City goalkeeper was in there too, we were great friends, as well as stars like Dennis Compton, Bill Shankly and Matt Busby, whose bunk was opposite mine. Matt Busby and myself were both Catholics and we used to go to church together on Sundays……….’

And who should Ted consider to be the greatest player in Brentford’s history?

‘I would say Jim Towers. He really set the place alight……’

He was ok when he was a Shot too!

Manchester United manager Matt Busby between Johnny Berry (left) and Duncan Edwards (right), in the dressing-room at Bournemouth after United had won through to the FA Cup semi final in March 1957. United reached the final that year, but lost 2-1 to Aston Villa.

The United Connection - the 'little one' that got away

2011-10-17T23:57:00.012+01:00

News that the plane carrying the Manchester United team and journalists back to the UK after a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade had crashed, made little impression on me, as I busily pushed my new red wheelbarrow around our living room just one day after my fifth birthday.

On 6 February 1958, the flight back to Manchester made a refuelling stop at Munich-Riem Airport in poor weather. Two take-off attempts were abandoned due to engine problems, with the weather continuing to deteriorate. On the third attempt, slush on the runway prevented the aircraft from reaching the required speed for take-off.

The British European Airways (BEA) plane, with 38 passengers and 6 crew on board, ploughed through a fence past the end of the runway, before the port wing hit a nearby house and was torn off.….23 people died as a result of the crash.

Johnny Berry was the smallest, the oldest and the vice-captain of the great ‘Busby Babes’ team of the 1950’s.

Born on June 1st 1926 in Aldershot he showed early promise playing for St Joseph's School, Aldershot Boys and the YMCA.

He interested the Shots but when the time came to make a ‘decision’ he was considered as being ‘too small’ to make a career in football.

On leaving school he worked as a trainee projectionist at a local cinema.

But it was during his National Service with the Royal Artillery in India that he was brought to Birmingham City's attention, and he signed as a professional at St Andrews after being demobbed.

Johnny had a fairly productive time at St. Andrews but spent just 4 years there. His journey to Old Trafford came after he had destroyed United in a First Division league game in Birmingham, a performance that Matt Busby never forgot.

With Jimmy Delaney having left a few months earlier for Aberdeen, United needed a fast, direct winger who had experience to help with their push to achieve their first championship win since 1911.

In August 1951, United paid Birmingham £25,000 for the diminutive little winger. He had an immediate impact and United duly achieved their aim, being crowned Champions at the end of the 1951-52 season, for the first time in 41 years.

Johnny Berry played 276 games in all competitions for Manchester United scoring 45 goals and he made 4 appearances for England.

It was amazing that Johnny survived the crash. His injuries were horrific; fractured skull and broken jaw, broken elbow and leg, broken pelvis and he was in a coma for almost two months after the tragedy.

Sadly when he returned home to Manchester many months later, he still had no clear idea of what had happened and he initially thought that he had been in a car crash.

He was admitted into a Manchester hospital upon arrival and even then had to undergo the removal of all his teeth to help with the jaw injuries.

His first knowledge of what had happened came when he picked up a local newspaper reporting a 'United' game on the back page. Johnny was confused by the team line-up; in fact he couldn’t believe it. He badgered the nurse, forcing her to call a doctor. But when he arrived the spoken words were from another world. A world that Johnny simply could not understand. The tragedy began to unfold and Johnny asked about his team mates...the doctor went through the ‘team sheet’ name by name…….....'Bent'...'I'm so sorry he died'....'Byrne'...'I'm sorry he died'.....Colman, Edwards, Jones, Pegg, Taylor, Whelan.....all dead.

Berry’s injuries meant that he was never able to play football again and he took a job with Massey Ferguson in Trafford Park.

Then in 1960, 'United' asked Johnny to vacate his club house in Davyhulme to accommodate the signing of Maurice Setters.

The family moved back home to Aldershot and Johnny, along with his brother Peter who had played for Crystal Palace and Ipswich, opened a sports shop in Cove.

In 1963 I was selected to represent Aldershot and Farnborough Schools and remember nagging my Dad to buy me a new pair of football boots to replace the ones I had been using, courtesy of the ‘lost property box’ at the school where he was Head Teacher.

We called in to Berry’s sports shop in Victoria Road, which my somewhat distorted memory tells me was just by Queensmead. The shop was full of wonderful boots. They were set out so invitingly on shelves that stretched up to the ceiling…..and they all had ‘my name on them’.

And I remember so vividly the gentle intensity that Johnny displayed in his effort to sell a pair to my Dad.

We left the shop with my head full of Johnny’s stories from Old Trafford securely wrapped up with my Dad’s wise words ….’you’ll get a few more games out of your old boots son…..I’ll look out a new tin of dubbin’.

I think the sports business carried on for 20 years and Johnny spent the last few years of his working life as a store man in a television retail chain warehouse.

Sadly, Reginald John ‘Johnny’ Berry didn’t enjoy a long retirement, passing away in March 1994 aged just 67 years.

Barnet 2 v 1 Aldershot Town

2011-10-17T00:17:00.009+01:00

A 27th minute strike by Danny Hylton was followed by a sustained period of control that suggested another win 'on the road'.

But then after the interval Barnet decided to play, run around very fast, hit quick balls forward to a couple of motivated players and a home win became inevitable.

Aldershot's second half performance was lamentable......

The Rugby World Cup......

2011-10-17T00:09:00.005+01:00

I was told the other day that the Rugby World Cup is nearly over……funny that, as I wasn’t too sure that it had started. What confused me was the newspaper article that said the England team liked to drink beer and by all accounts they are very good at it. In fact so good that they were beaten by a French team, that Stephen Jones described in The Sunday Times today as ‘dreadful’.

Anyway as a result of this bit of enlightenment I have done some research into this far flung tournament and discovered that England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales all sent teams to New Zealand and they all lost. Apparently Wales were really unlucky because the referee for their game with France spoke fluent French and had a French father…..he sent the Welsh captain off and all was lost……….

‘‘And not only the semi-final was ruined. The tournament climax is dynamited. This dreadful French team have no technical right to be in the final of the World Cup. Their joyless, dullard style, hiding behind a reasonable defensive line and never emerging to attack, also puts their moral right to the final into question. As for their chances of beating New Zealand, - if the All Blacks come through against Australia today, they should present the trophy there and then.’’ – Stephen Jones from Eden Park, for The Sunday Times.

In summary….Wales lost because they missed a conversion and some penalties, New Zealand beat Australia and, if you are reading this in Avignon Martine and Jean-Jacques, I have just a little feeling that your ‘dreadful’ team will bring a bit of colour to the final……

League 2 Pub Watch - Barnet

2011-10-16T23:03:00.007+01:00

High Barnet Underground Station is probably the best place to park when visiting Underhill…..from the car park (£1.50 on Saturdays) it’s just a short walk across the busy Barnet Hill road and down to the ground. There is a pub on the way to the ground that welcomes away fans and serves reasonable beer and food.

But to make the trip to north London truly memorable leave the tube station car park and take a five minute walk up the hill and into Chipping Barnet where you will come across Ye Olde Mitre Inne.

The pub is the oldest Coaching Inn to remain in Barnet and records show that an alcohol licence was issued for an establishment on the Mitre site in 1553 and the building probably pre-dates even this. The oak beams used to construct the building can still be seen in the side bar, in the horses passageway and in the Stable Lounge (currently used as the TV/Football room) – they are possibly from the 13th or 14th Century.

The Mitre has seen its fair share of odd events. In 1869, the landlord, William Cobley, was refused his licence renewal because he had built a rat pit in the ballroom. Allegedly, police found two dogs and 21 dead rats; the potman was in the pit where there was a great quantity of blood and eight live rats were found in a cage!

Today The Mitre offers sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the busy high street. The ‘house beers’ are well kept Adnams and Timothy Taylor…..to which they promise to add up to four guest beers at any one time.

The Last Word

I’ll be very surprised if The Mitre fails to get into my end of season top five pubs.

And it’s not just the atmospheric building and superb beer that makes this pub a ‘must visit’ feeding ground for any away fan…… the simple menu, where a range of specialist, quality sausages are the highlight, complement the wonderful Adnams bitter perfectly.

Images from Accrington

2011-10-04T21:41:00.005+01:00

Lost Football League Grounds - Peel Park, Accrington

2011-10-02T23:59:00.008+01:00

Peel Park was acquired for Accrington Stanley in 1919 just a couple of years before they became founder members of the Football League Division 3 (north).

The club’s history can only be described as ‘modest’ until a series of off-pitch calamities culminated in their resignation from the Football League in 1962.

History was never going to be on their side. Stanley were not the first team from the town to drop out of the League because of financial difficulties. Accrington FC, one of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888, resigned because of crippling losses just five years later and before the start of the 1893-94 season.

Football at Peel Park was never particularly memorable…..although they were one of the first teams in England to use floodlights which attracted big crowds for friendlies, usually against Scottish First Division teams. The ground record of 17,634 was set on November 15, 1954 for the visit of Blackburn Rovers for a floodlit friendly. The record for a league match occurred against York City on April 11, 1955 when 15,425 packed into Peel Park.

In the 1950’s ambitious plans for a new two-tier stand along the Burnley Road side, including a suite of offices and a ballroom, were drawn up, then put away in a drawer.

Who would want a modern stand when one could purchase a second-hand 4,000 all-seater stand from the Aldershot Military Tattoo?

Clearly not the Stanley, as they travelled south and secured the deal. Unfortunately not only did it cost ten times the purchase price of £2,000…. when dismantling, transport and re-erection costs were added, but it was impossible to see the pitch from most of the seats.

It was the beginning of the end for Stanley…….

In December 1961 the Reds were banned from buying any new players because of their outstanding debts to other clubs (£3000) and they dropped to the bottom of Division 4 following a 4-0 defeat by Colchester.

Goals were hard to come by and Stanley went five games without finding the back of the net…..but then a trip to the Recreation Ground, Aldershot produced a 2v2 goal fest.

A local Alderman launched a ‘Save Stanley’ fund, hoping to raise £20,000, but the appeal netted only £450. Gates fell to 1500, well below the break-even point.

Stanley played their last League game on March 2 1962….a 4v0 hammering by Crewe and on the 5th a creditors meeting was told that the club had debts of £60,000……..

The game was never played.....

Peel Park was demolished after the club’s collapse although part of the site remains in use as a school playing field......and Accrington were reformed, securing League status in 2006.

League 2 Pub Watch - Accrington

2011-10-02T22:07:00.004+01:00

The Peel Park Hotel stands guard over the distant memories of Accrington Stanley. Look out from the gardens of the pub, across the open green space that was once home to the Stanley, and it’s hard not to think back to the events of 1962…… the financial crisis that destroyed the Lancashire club.

The pub is comfortable with an excellent range of real ales but the crowning glory has to be the superb meat pies topped off with peas…..

After a lunch, leave your car at the pub….please ask first, and then take a 10-15 min walk to the ‘new’ ground….

Peel Park Hotel, Turkey Street, Accrington, BB5 6EW.

The Last Word

One of the best in League 2.

Liddle watch....

2011-10-02T21:14:00.006+01:00

The Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle was back this morning with his weekly dose of acerbic opinion that is capable of destroying most reason and fact.

His first target was Titus Bramble…..given the serious allegations under review one could argue that he was indeed, fair game….but truthfully I would rather the authorities determined his future than leaving it to the blind judgement of Liddle.

Rod’s analysis of Titus included, ''I said talented but in truth I cannot remember watching Titus Bramble play a game of football and not wondering if I’d tuned in by mistake to the Paralympics. I have never seen a top division defender make so many wrong decisions so often……….''

Rod I guess your digital scanning error referred to Beijing 2008 where Ukraine beat Russia in the men’s 7-a-side tournament and Brazil overcame China to win the gold medal in the men’s 5-a-side competition.

And I’m surprised your researchers didn’t advise you that the 7-a-side event was for athletes with a C5 through to C8 classification….difficulties when running and walking. A shift in the central equilibrium of these athletes invariably leads to…..a wrong decision…oops, I’ve passed the ball to the Ukraine by mistake…….or a loss of balance?

But then perhaps you were referring to the 5-a-side competition which was classified as a B1 event….for blind athletes…..

Now my experience of visually impaired athletes is that their decision making is always spot on……Rod, try walking to your ‘local’ blindfolded. And please let me know how you get on.

And I couldn’t let you go without pointing out that it isn’t quite true to say that ''in the past 40 years they (Sunderland) have become one of those agreeable yo-yo clubs, migrating between the top two tiers with cheerful abandon.''

Of course it would have been true to say, ‘for most of the past 40 years…..’.

How could you forget the one season in 120 years when they were forced to play with the trapdoor to the basement just 46 games away. And what a great fixture list they had that year..... Mansfield, York, Walsall, Grimsby and not forgetting their first visit to the Recreation Ground, Aldershot.

Sunderland were far too good for Division 3 (L1) in 1987/8, winning the title at a canter. In fact they only lost five times ‘on the road’……….

Aldershot 3v2 Sunderland, 27th February 1988.

It's going to be Manchester United in the Carling Cup

2011-09-30T09:29:00.005+01:00

''Number one Aldershot Town will play number twelve….Manchester United.''

You could hear the cheer breaking out from the Crawley Town team bus 10 miles away.

After the superb win over Rochdale in the third round, a home draw against the biggest club in the world was of course fantastic......unfortunately with kick off no more than two hours away Dean Holdsworth had insufficient time to restore factory settings and get the Shots focussed on the Crawley challenge.

And Crawley Town didn’t disappoint…they were organised, strong and thoroughly annoying. Steve Evans was fat and at the end of a turgid affair, very happy with his team’s deserved 1v0 victory…..

I just hope we can forget the upcoming ‘big night’ when we take on Accrington this Saturday…..

September 20th - a memorable night

2011-09-21T22:36:00.009+01:00

Aldershot Town are League Two’s only remaining representative in the Carling Cup. Last night they came from behind to beat League 1 opponents, Rochdale, 2v1 at the Recreation Ground.

The win saw the Shots through to the last 16 of the competition (Football League Cup) for the first time since the competition was launched in 1960.

I’m sure the 500 or so Shots fans still struggling to get into the Recreation Ground as the Carling Cup 3rd round encounter with Rochdale kicked off last night were tempted to turn around and walk back across the High Street to the comfortable surroundings of The Crimea for a pint.

Opened in 1856, as the Crimea War was coming to a close, the pub lasted for about seventy-five years before it was rebuilt in the 1930s and its recent makeover was undoubtedly much needed!

The Crimea War started as a squabble between French Catholics and the Russian Orthodox churches in Turkey. Czar Nicholas I tried to dominate Turkey to gain access to the Mediterranean……the Russian army moved in and the French and British troops opposed them.

And on September 20th 1854 the French and British won a famous battle at Alma…….

I’ve always considered supporters of Rochdale FC to be kindred spirits….any fan who can follow a club claiming the longest unbroken run in the bottom division of the Football League (broken only by promotion to L1 in 2010) must be counted as ‘one of us’.

Rochdale’s long history has forever been wrapped up in a survival blanket. They avoided becoming a founder member of the fourth division in 1958, a fate that inevitably befell us, by virtue of their above average finish in the last year of the regional leagues.

But we didn’t have to wait long for our first encounter. Rochdale’s immediate relegation to Division 4 led to our first competitive fixture with the Lancashire club ….a no score draw on January 9th 1960.

Rochdale’s fortunes flickered in the late sixties and for a brief moment they played with the slightly ‘bigger boys’ and the ‘fading stars’, just as we did for a while in the seventies and eighties….

But for most of the years from 1959 to our demise in 1992 it was the convention that we both survived in the basement, the Shots winning at the Rec and the Dale winning at Spotlands (at home: 14 wins, 7 draws, 3 defeats and away: 3 wins, 7 draws and 14 defeats).

Yes, it’s fair to say that our history of engagement is pretty average and for most of the time lacking any colour.

Derick Allsop’s, Kicking In The Wind is an evocative account of ‘The real life drama of a small-town football club’ – and it could just have easily been written about Aldershot.

‘The Third Division (L2) is the factory floor of the game, where diligent tradesmen endeavour to stave off injury and competition long enough to make a living, buy a comfortable semi and run a second-hand car……And yet, within inevitable constraints, a club like Rochdale can still have its ambitions and motivation….The supporters, too, yearn for greater things – a Cup run, the play-offs, even promotion. Faith and hope will forever bond all football people.’

And beyond the mediocrity of our on-pitch encounters, just a hint of the unexpected delivered by way of an odd sequence of transfers.

The 1970 season started with the great Peter Gowans (who sadly died in 2009) moving back north in a surprise deal with Rochdale, taking with him Tony Godfrey, our legendary, if somewhat short in stature keeper. And then Jack Howarth packed his bags in 1971 and went north too….it was all a bit odd.

Perhaps it was a mistake, having something to do with the on-screen, and Rochdale born, Jack Howarth who in 1960 auditioned for the role of Albert Tatlock in Coronation Street where he made his screen debut in episode one, transmitted on 9 December 1960. Jack went on to appear in over 1700 episodes, making his last appearance on 25 January 1984.

Anyway after their expedition north, Jack and Tony came back in 1972 and Aldershot secured promotion to Division 3 at Stockport on the last day of the season.

Gosh, I’m really struggling to make any connection between Rochdale and Aldershot memorable……ok, so what about Gracie Fields?

Born above a fish and chip shop on Molesworth Street, Rochdale she was adored by the millions of allied troops that she entertained during the Second World War, even if the British government officials were less fond of her. Yes, poor old Gracie was refused a passport in 1945 because she had become an Italian citizen on her marriage to Monty Banks five years earlier……in a service held in St Michael the Archangel, the oldest church in Aldershot. Dating back to the Saxon period, the oldest part is the tower built in the 12th Century…….

Now, history is of course interesting but last night was exhilarating……

Michael Rankine’s 47th minute equaliser, scored with an overhead kick, was just reward for another towering performance. And Danny Hylton’s spectacular winner in the 78th minute was a goal good enough to win any competition on the world stage…….yes, it was just that….spectacular.

In the first half, Rochdale were competent and kept up with the pace and tenacity of a fluent Aldershot. Their 45th minute successful strike the result of a relentlessly direct style of play. An outdated approach that by the end of the game was about as efficient as our own operation of a set of turnstiles…..

Throughout the 50 years and more of following the Shots Rochdale have always been the model of average. But last night will live on in my memory, as the day the Shots beat Rochdale and went on to play…….

And just a footnote for Aldershot Town manager Dean Holdsworth…..we play in red and blue, not white.

September 20th was a memorable night……even if it was without colour.

Coming soon to the Recreation Ground....

2011-09-18T22:03:00.007+01:00

I guess the fact that I can feel no love for Crawley Town, despite an excellent start to their first League season, does appear to be somewhat harsh. Or is it?

The Sussex club have twice suffered points deductions for breaking rules and going into administration. In fact in 2006 they were an hour away from going out of business before a new owner saved them.

Ok, so they have had a few financial scrapes. But in these troubled times, who hasn’t.

And with the availability of ‘new money’ Crawley Town were described last season, by the ‘envious many’, as the Manchester City of non-League football - with all the cash then, perhaps just a touch of vulgarity.

But my uncharitable feelings towards Crawley are not as a result of their financial fortunes……no, it was the appointment of Steve Evans to the position of manager in 2007 that caused me to draw breath.

Stephen (Steve) Evans wasn’t a great footballer and a knee ligament injury ended his playing career at the age of just 24 after 168 appearances for Clyde, Albion Rovers, Ayr United, Hamilton Academicals and St Johnstone.

His managerial career started at Stamford in 1994 where he led the club to the United Counties Premier Division title and promotion to the Southern League.

At this point I have to state my admiration for his obvious ability to ‘get the best’ out of his players.

But after my momentary lapse into idolatry back to reality and his confrontational style of management. His uncontrollable touchline antics eventually saw the FA ban the feisty Glaswegian for 12 games (reduced from 20) at the start of the 2008-09 season.

Indeed one ref who knew him from his Stamford days said: "We dreaded his matches. He would barge into the ref's room and dish out abuse. He was a nightmare."

And Evans certainly has plenty of ‘form’, being the man who took Boston United into the Football League but was subsequently suspended for 20 months for impeding an investigation into player’s contract irregularities.

Then he was just a tad unlucky when a conviction for Tax fraud led to a 12 month suspended jail sentence…..

Yes, a convicted criminal and part of a scam that took a club from ‘nowhere’ to the Football League.

Boston’s winning of the Conference in 2002 followed a neck and neck race with Dagenham & Redbridge – after a hard fought campaign Evans took his club into the Football League on the slim margin of goal difference.

But not everything was as it seemed and the FA launched an investigation into the financial affairs at Boston United. In July of that year, the club were found guilty by an FA disciplinary committee of systematically lodging false contracts for players. The ploy was a simple one. Players signed contracts that were worth a fraction of the value of what they were being paid.

The club was fined £100,000 and docked four points for the following season, a decision that quite rightly enraged Dagenham & Redbridge, who had missed out so narrowly on promotion, to Evans’ club.

And then poor old Steve was found guilty by the FA of having ”facilitated a payment of £8,000 to a witness to attempt to mislead, impede and frustrate” - the FA’s enquiry into the scam.

Evans was fined £8,000 and suspended from football for twenty months…….

But the FA ban was the least of Evans’ concerns as a criminal investigation was launched into the goings-on at Boston…..

Boston United were relegated from the Football League in 2007 after a last day of the season defeat at Wrexham.....and then demoted straight into the Blue Square North in June of that year. Relegation to the Northern Premier League followed a year later……

Evans resigned his position as Boston’s manager in May 2007, shortly before the inevitable relegation from the Football League. But surprise surprise Evans landed on his feet and two days after his resignation, he took up the managerial position at Crawley Town.

I know, I should support the rehabilitation of offenders……but I just don’t like the man.

See you on Saturday Steve……

Silence the tweeters.....

2011-09-18T17:22:00.003+01:00

The Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle’s fascination with all things Aldershot knows no bounds.

Rod believes that football clubs ‘should live in the same world as the rest of us, where there’s freedom of speech which extends to people saying very stupid things, or annoying things.’

In today’s Sunday Times Rod comments on how he is entertained by what ‘these strange people (professional footballers) have to say, with their mangled grammar and somewhat narrow horizons.’

He seems absorbed by the musings of Joey Barton but his own ‘favourite’ was composed by our former player Marvin Morgan: ‘ Like to thank the fans who booed me off the pitch. Where’s that going to get you? I hope you all die’.

Rod quite rightly observed that this outburst was unlikely to break down any barriers that exist between players and fans….’but I enjoyed it anyway.’

You’re a fine one Rod, to talk about narrow horizons…..

Bristol Rovers 0 v 1 Aldershot Town

2011-09-18T17:07:00.009+01:00

Aldershot Town maintained their excellent form away from home with a hard fought win at The Memorial Ground, Bristol.

In attack, Michael Rankine was too strong for The Pirates and in defence, Jones and Morris played as men up against the 'boys' from Bristol.

Images from Edgar Street

2011-09-18T16:58:00.008+01:00

Aldershot Town were simply too strong for Hereford United last Tuesday night. 2v0, three points and the first win at Edgar Street since 1982.

Lost Football League Grounds - Plough Lane, Wimbledon

2011-09-12T23:54:00.021+01:00

I can’t say I have ever been too misty eyed over the return of Wimbledon to the Football League. In fact for most of my footballing life The Dons have never been anything other than a very good amateur and semi-professional non-League side…..but a team who did dramatically reach the ‘First’ Division in 1986 after a mere nine seasons in the League.

The club goes back a long way, having been formed in 1889 taking its name from the Old Central School on Wimbledon Common where players had been pupils. The club continued to play on the Common until 1912 when the lease to Plough Lane was purchased. The disused swampland was subsequently fenced in and the playing surface was improved…..!

As the Club prospered during the 1920s crowds of between five and eight thousand regularly filled the ground and by the outbreak of the Second World War the capacity stood at 30,000.

Wimbledon were champions of the Isthmian League on eight occasions and won the FA Amateur Cup in 1963 beating Sutton United 4-2 at Wembley, with Eddie Reynolds scoring all four of his side’s goals with headers…..

In 1964 the club turned professional and entered the Southern League. After winning the League three years running from 1974-5 to 1976-7 they were elected to the Football League in place of Workington Town.

The first League season was simply average….the next resulted in promotion…then down……then up….then Chairman Ron Noades walked out on the club to take over at Crystal Palace, taking manager Dario Gradi to Selhurst Park with him.

Dave Basset was promoted to manager…..and the Club were relegated back to Division 4 in 1982. But then someone opened the door at the back of the stand and a few rays of Lebanese sunshine cut through the smoke-filled boardroom and warmed the Directors' pockets. The heat intensified and the meteoric rise to Division One was achieved by 1986…..

Samir ‘Sam’ Hammam was born in Beirut and he made his fortune as a building contractor in the Middle East. Sam emigrated to the UK in 1975 moving to the Wimbledon area because he liked tennis. Hammam bought a majority share in his local football team in the early eighties probably thinking that the ‘Centre Court’ was included in the deal…….

Sam purchased £40,000 worth of shares in Wimbledon over a two year period and became Chairman during the roller-coaster ride to the top of English football.

And no doubt the Crazy Gang live on in the memories of many…… the after dinner circuit kept amused by stories of the bizarre ‘rewards’ and initiation ceremonies for new Wimbledon players – even our own manager Dean Holdsworth was promised a camel should he score 20 goals in a season!

But after a while Sam got bored and when his proposal to relocate the club to Dublin or perhaps Cardiff and why not Milton Keynes was turned down by the footballing authorities he simply sold his stake in the ‘homeless’ club for a reported £30m ….

A decision that ultimately led to the franchising of Wimbledon and the move to Milton Keynes.

Wimbledon’s final first team match at Plough Lane was played on 4 May 1991, ironically against new ‘landlords Crystal Palace…….

Sam Hammam sold the ground to Safeway but local resident’s opposition and local authority objections to their plans consequently resulted in the demolition of the stadium and the sale to David Wilson Homes……..

Following lobbying by Wimbledon supporters the site was named ‘Reynolds Gate’ after Eddie Reynolds and his famous headers with the blocks of flats named Bassett House, Batsford House, Cork House, Lawrie House, Reed House and Stannard House……..

Aldershot Town 1 v 0 Cheltenham Town

2011-09-06T15:11:00.013+01:00

The Shots maintained their unbeaten run with a workmanlike win over Cheltenham Town, last Saturday.

Michael Rankine was simply too powerful for the Robins throughout the game and the winner came in the second half from a Rankine goal bound header that was eased on its way by Danny Hylton.

A footnote to Carlisle.....

2011-09-06T14:33:00.005+01:00

The decision to play the 2005 Conference play-off semi-final second leg on a Friday night was disrespectful to the thousands of fans who had supported the Shots over the season but were never going to be in a position to make the long trip north before the weekend.

The game was memorable for the very late Jamie Slabber equaliser…..a moment that delivered such intense corporate ecstasy. Then the penalty shoot-out….the Shots ahead….Carlisle fans started to leave….the ‘wheels came off’ and a pitch invasion by hundreds of ignorant Cumbrian fans resulted in the pushing and shoving of ‘keeper Nikki Bull…..and then Danny Livesey hit the winning penalty for Carlisle making the long drive back to Wales a pretty sombre affair…..

But who should score the second Shots goal last week in our Carling Cup win…..oh yes, Danny Livesey (own goal following an Anthony Straker cross).

I hope you enjoyed the long and sombre drive back north Dan…..

Aldershot Town 2 v 0 Carlisle United Carling Cup Round 2

2011-08-31T23:31:00.003+01:00

The last time we beat Carlisle was just over 20 years ago.

In 1991 our club was in terminal decline so our ‘one above the bottom’ position was pretty understandable. Carlisle were simply very poor….and off the back of a 5v0 reverse at Torquay we somehow managed to win 3v0 at The Rec on April 13th.

Last night we witnessed an organised and high tempo display by Aldershot Town which was always going to be too much for a pretty lethargic Carlisle side who quite clearly didn’t enjoy the long trip south.

Rankine scored his first for the Shots just on half time….a fair reward for his superb effort all night……Straker induced an own goal and Guttridge was acclaimed ‘man of the match’, but the outstanding players were Darren Jones and Aaron Morris in the centre of our defence.

Gary (Speed) might just turn up at Hereford on September 13th if Wales lose heavily to Montenegro and England in their next ‘Euro games’….giving him time to reshape his squad before the October fixtures with Switzerland and Bulgaria…….

Images from Oxford

2011-08-29T23:45:00.009+01:00

Aldershot Town were reduced to ten men early in the first half but still came away from the Kassam with a point following a 1v1 draw.

The Kassam offers great views of the pitch but not much else......

League 2 Pub Watch - Oxford

2011-08-29T23:34:00.012+01:00

The Priory stands in the shadows of the Kassam Stadium.....

A beautiful building that suffers from its environs and lack of investment.

With the omnipresence of mounted police, police vans and cars.....well, simply loads of police, it is certainly a pretty safe place for the travelling supporter.

The Last Word

The cask beer is excellent, the home fans are welcoming and the food is ok. The toilets are best avoided and if you want a seat arrive by 1230hrs.....

West Ham United 1 v 2 Aldershot Town - Carling Cup Rd 1

2011-08-29T23:12:00.016+01:00

‘We are on holiday, so you can forget Aldershot for a few days’, my wife’s strident statement couldn’t have been more precise. Yes, the ‘heads of terms’ seemed pretty clear…..even if they were going to be difficult to satisfy as we prepared to join friends for dinner in a Provencal restaurant at about the same time as the Shots lined up against West Ham.

Phone on silent…..discreetly tucked away under the dinner table…..regular text updates from my brother at Upton Park…..yes, that should work.

When the day of the riot-postponed game with West Ham arrived the weather in Provence was oppressively hot. As far as the eye could see, clouds of dust hung over the burning white farmers' tracks between the gardens of olive trees and well tended vines under a huge sun of a dullish silver which filled the whole sky.

Not a patch of shade, not a breath of wind. Nothing but the quivering hot air and the raucous cry of the cicadas, the crazy, deafening, urgent music whose loudness seemed the equivalent in sound of this immense quivering radiance……

By 2045hrs we were seated in a beautiful Avignon restaurant and I was expressing my opinion that the beauty of the Provencal countryside is born of the sun, it lives by light…….

My phone vibrated, ….’stuck in the Dartford Tunnel’. The message from my brother was short and to the point….and I hoped somewhat delayed, as by my reckoning the game was already two minutes old.

‘Who was it?’. My wife questioned. ‘Work! People should know I’m away for a few days’, I offered innocently. ’Turn it off then…!’.

‘This Tavel is so dry….shall we go to the vineyards in the morning’. The phone was quickly forgotten as we embarked on a 'wine tour' from Bandol to Burgundy.

‘Losing 1v0’, landed at midnight and news of the stunning 2v1 win by the Shots at Upton Park arrived just as we stepped out of the Taxi after a very extensive 'wine tour'…..

‘Was that your brother….did they win at West Ham?’

A bit of work needed Deano.....

2011-08-17T09:00:00.004+01:00

The 1v0 home defeat last night at the hands of another pretty ordinary side, in front of a disappointingly small crowd, should result in manager Dean Holdsworth making a few changes for the long trip north to Morecambe on Saturday.

I will be leaving for Avignon in just a few minutes and won't be back until the Oxford United fixture on August 27th....so when I get back Deano, I don't want to be writing about your 'three blind spots'.....I hope you know what I mean!

Health and Safety.....

2011-08-15T23:20:00.019+01:00

How times have changed.....long gone the days when we could climb just about anything to get a glimpse of our heroes or stand with our noses pressed against the railings that separated the East Bank from the pitch.

On March 9th 1946, a little over six months after the end of World War II, Bolton Wanderers met Stoke City in an FA Cup Quarter-Final Second Leg. Due to the season starting after the cessation of hostilities, players still being demobbed and the fact that the clubs needed the money, all the ties up to the last eight were played on a home and away basis.

After beating Blackpool, Liverpool and Middlesbrough, Bolton travelled to The Potteries on March 2nd and came away with a 2-0 victory, both goals scored by Ray Westwood. A place in the Semi-Final beckoned. And so it was that a large and expectant crowd travelled towards Burnden Park a week later to watch the return leg.

The Burnden Stand was not available to fans, as it was still in use by the Ministry of Supply. The closure of the stand also meant that those fans who had tickets for the Burnden Paddock had to enter by the Manchester Road end and be escorted around the pitch. On top of this, the turnstiles at the east end of the Railway Embankment which adjoined the Burnden Stand had been closed since 1940.

This meant that, on top of the 28,000 spectators that had tickets for the Railway Stand, a further 9,000 were entering the ground through turnstiles virtually next door.

Because those in charge were simply unprepared for the amount of people who wanted to see the game, the numbers swelled by Bolton's victory at Stoke and it being many people's first opportunity to see the already legendary Stanley Matthews play for Stoke, at 2:40 p.m it was decided that the turnstiles be closed.

This action, however, did not stop people entering the ground. They did this by climbing over the same turnstiles, by removing sections of fencing and climbing in from the railway, or by entering the ground through a locked turnstile that had been opened by a father and son who had picked its lock, trying to escape the crush that was forming inside.

When it became impossible to climb over and in, some fans stood on top of a stationary train that had stopped outside the ground............

What happened next became a forgotten tragedy.

From 'Vital Bolton' by Quentin

Ibrox 1902 33 lives lost; Burnden Park, Bolton 1946 - 33; Ibrox, Glasgow 1971 - 66; Valley Parade, Bradford 1985 - 56; Heysel, Brussels - 39 and at Hillsborough, Sheffield - 95 people were killed when all they wanted to do was watch a football match.

Sadly it took so many more tragedies to sharpen the focus of government and the footballing authorities before the safety of spectators became the paramount consideration.

But as the world becomes every increasingly risk averse our previously 'innocent pleasures' become no more than distant memories.

Aldershot at home to Peterborough Utd in 1960, then Aston Villa in 1964 and finally away to Guildford in 1938.

Aldershot Town 0 v 1 Northampton Town

2011-08-15T16:56:00.012+01:00

Where did the pace, tenacity and composure displayed last week at Bradford go?

The Shots were painfully slow to realise that the game had started and we were a goal down after a minute of play. It improved slightly in the second half and against a pretty poor Northampton side a goal or two should have been achievable....but it wasn't to be and the Cobblers went home with the three points.

And just a couple of early season observations.......it was somewhat odd that the North Stand was 'sold out' twenty minutes before kick off....supporters were being asked to join other queues and to sit elsewhere. Strange, as I counted more than 100 empty seats around me.

I'm sure the ticket arrangements for the hospitality seats went to plan .....now all we have to do is to serve the rest of us as well.

And finally, much has been posted about the 'new playing kit' on the 'unofficial' Aldershot Town message-board. Some supporters have likened it to the Ukrainian volleyball team and others to Costa Rica's football kit...

My final comment on the matter.....the kit is awful.

League 2 Pub Watch - Aldershot

2011-08-15T16:29:00.009+01:00

La Fontaine sits just below the crest of Windmill Hill where Holly Road joins Redan Road. It’s about 330 feet above sea level and the walk back down to the home entrance affords ‘wonderful’ views across the town.

The pub was built about 1863, perhaps a little earlier, and it has been known as The Mount Pleasant Hotel, The Mount Pleasant and since 1983, when the then owner took a holiday on Jersey and stayed in a hotel of the same name, La Fontaine.

Its location, within touching distance of the away entrance, makes the pub a popular resting place for visiting fans.

The beer is fine and the food (just pies)…but only if you get there early enough….is fine too.

Now what was it Bruce said to me, when I took my empty glasses back on Saturday….ah yes , he was telling me about his recent holiday…………

The Last Word

With just a few home fans ‘sitting in the corner’, it’s a great pub for visiting supporters.

Lost Football League Grounds - The Manor Ground, Oxford

2011-08-12T21:38:00.024+01:00

For me, the experience of visiting a football ground has always been inseparable from the game itself. With every arena providing a different backdrop and a different atmosphere. My memories shaped by the visits to ‘proper’ grounds. Indelible images created in my mind following the rush of excitement and anticipation when I catch that first glimpse of the floodlights and stands.

But sadly the decimation of our football ground heritage over the last twenty years has left us all with no more than a collection of ‘modern grounds’.

Featureless stands, shiny and loved today.

Featureless stands, tarnished and no doubt unloved ‘tomorrow’.

And it’s not just the stands that have changed. So too have the floodlights. Long gone are the towering structures that filled every house in street after street with a brilliant and blinding light. The majestic structures replaced by a few sticks topped off with some energy efficient hooded lights…… and in the bigger grounds….a ring of lanterns, as featureless as the ground itself.

With Aldershot visiting Oxford United on August 27th the second in my series, ‘Lost Football League Grounds’, takes a look back to the Manor Ground, Oxford.

Jan Ludvik Hoch was born in the small town of Slatinske Doly in the Carpathian Mountains of Czechoslovakia in 1923.

He died Ian Robert Maxwell on November 5th 1991. His body found floating in the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands. He fell overboard from his luxury yacht, Lady Ghislaine.

And Oxford United was, until 1960, Headington United. A club founded in 1893. The name change a matter of profile, and driven by the desire to gain entry to the Football League….

And in 1962 their wish came true, when they were elected to join the League following the demise of Accrington Stanley.

Early success was followed by a period of mediocrity…..and then along came Robert Maxwell. A man whose business empire was built on heavy indebtedness and dishonest practices. His arrogance was such that he ‘borrowed’ millions of pounds from his companies’ pension funds to prop up his group of companies.

Yes, in 1982 Cap’n Bob the man lampooned by the satirical magazine Private Eye as the ‘bouncing Czech’, took over Oxford United. His ‘money’ took Oxford into the top flight and subsequently they experienced success at Wembley, a 3v0 win over Queens Park Rangers in the Milk Cup Final of 1986.

Then Bob was off to Derby and the Club started to slide….. Oxford dropped out of the League in 2006 and there followed four very hard years in the National Conference.

Oxford and Cambridge have more in common than a few rowing eights and a collection of academics…... Yes, in each city there are two football clubs – City and United – and either one of them could have become the senior one. Despite Oxford City winning the FA Amateur Cup in 1906 it was Headington who turned professional, leaving the Spartan League to join the Southern League in 1949. And in the same year the other sporting clubs – cricket, bowls and tennis - who shared the facilities at the Manor Ground, left, leaving United as the sole tenant.

A small stand and changing rooms were built in October 1949 to be followed a year later by an historic event. Headington United were the first professional club in Britain to install floodlighting at their ground. They were only temporary lights, borrowed from a few Oxford Colleges and once used to light up their facades at night. The lamps were fixed to 36 wooden poles and the first game under lights was played out on 18 December 1950 between Headington Utd and Banbury Spencer (now Banbury Utd).

After election to the League in 1962, Oxford quickly found their feet and moved purposefully upwards leaving the Shots far behind and with memories of only three League encounters at the Manor Ground - all of the games were drawn.

Although the ground was far from the hallowed spires of the University it was set in a pleasant and leafy suburb that displayed much of the stone-walled confidence of Oxford itself.

But of course the ground was considered inadequate when set against the desire to run a professional football club. The long driveway from London Road was hopeless as a main entrance. And on the west side , in a corner of the pitch at an angle, just like Craven Cottage, stood the Manor Club – the original stand, and so miniature in stature.

But for all of its failings the Manor Ground still managed to accommodate 22730 when Preston visited in 1964 and United became the first Fourth Division club (L2) ever to reach the FA Cup quarter finals.
The last game played at the Manor Ground was on May 1st 2001….the site being subsequently developed for housing and as part of a hospital.

The 2001/02 season saw Oxford’s move to the all-seater, three-sided Kassam Stadium.

Next time you visit Oxford United take a bit of time to have a good look at the Kassam, before heading for the pub ‘next door’. Yes, do visit The Priory, it has been a sanctuary in the past, fighting to keep at bay the sea of concrete, tin and tarmac that out of town developments create (although the pub wasn’t so great in 2010/11).

Anyway back to the ground; not even the prospect of brilliant late summer sunshine could bring me to love the Kassam.

The floodlights are strung along the leading edge of the main stand like pigeons roosting on a redundant building….repeated on the north stand? No of course not. The stand being slightly smaller, required the lanterns to be fixed to small columns.

And so lacking in emotion.

Concrete and cheap tin will never evoke images of Highbury or the Bernabeu. In fact they will only evoke memories of tin and concrete….

Featureless stands, somewhat tarnished and already unloved.

‘

Next up at the Rec.........

2011-08-10T17:30:00.010+01:00

Northampton Town, fresh from their excellent 2v1 win at Ipswich in the Carling Cup last night, visit the Recreation Ground on Saturday no doubt hoping to affirm their 'big club' status with a victory over the Shots.

Daedalus warned him. But did he listen?

No, of course not…. Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and he plunged to his death in the sea.

Great shoes are still made in Northampton…..Crockett and Jones – Belgrave…..but the football team can claim little more than being founded in 1897….election to the Football League in 1920, a few years before the Shots….and a dramatic rise to the premier division in the early sixties.

But did I hear the cry of caution as Geoff Hurst scored the winner at Wembley…..….oops no, by 1966 they were just too close to the sun….the wax melted, the feathers came loose and the Cobblers plunged back to the Recreation Ground, Aldershot.

And a reminder for all Northampton fans who hold the opinion that the Cobblers are too big for League 2 - in 1992, just months after we went bust….you entered administration with debts of £1.6m. And of course relegation to the Conference was only avoided in 1993 by winning 3v2 on the last day of the season at Shrewsbury.

Then in 1994 the Cobblers finished bottom of the Football League, but escaped relegation when Conference champions, Kidderminster Harriers, failed to pass the League ground criteria test.

Thank goodness for ‘historically smaller clubs'.

West Ham United v Aldershot Town - Carling Cup

2011-08-10T17:08:00.011+01:00

Aldershot Town’s first round Carling Cup match at West Ham United will now be played on Wednesday 24th August…..well it will, assuming that all of the young and not so young thugs have been locked up, put to bed or given a ‘jolly good tug’ by someone in authority.

West Ham have rarely featured on our fixture list over the years. In fact apart from six wartime games, which we invariably lost……with the last encounter at the Rec resulting in a thumping 8v1 reverse……Aldershot have only played the Hammers twice.

As the ‘former’ Shots entered the last year of existence a Cup win over Tiverton Town followed by victory at home to Maidstone saw the Shots drawn at home again, this time to West Ham United, in Rd 3 of the FA Cup..

1990-91 was a great season for the Hammers, as Billy Bonds returned the club to the top flight of English Football in his first full season in charge. Aldershot finished one point off the bottom of the League, just ahead of Wrexham.

Aldershot Chairman at the time, Colin Hancock, was ‘disappointed’ that a request had to be made to the FA under Rule 9 to switch the venue. But no doubt with a big sigh of relief he was allowed to go off to Upton Park to see the Shots play out a 0v0 draw in front of 22292 on Saturday 5th January 1991. Eleven days later we were beaten 6v1 in front of another massive crowd (21484)…..

A year later we were bust and chucked out of the League……now, where did I put my calculator……

League 2 Pub Watch - Bradford

2011-08-09T22:04:00.015+01:00

The Fighting Cock is isolated in a rather desolate quarter of the city. The barren landscape surrounding the pub giving no clue to the reason why so many people flock to the old brick and stone building ‘on the corner with lots and lots of discarded steel beer kegs outside’.

Inside, it has a dark wood floor, white walls and a dingy brown ceiling. The Fighting Cock certainly has atmosphere but more importantly, wonderful beer.

On Saturday it was at capacity with an eclectic mix of genuine customers…….city folk in search of a decent pint…..and football supporters (home fans) praying for a good season.

On draught you will be spoilt for choice - Landlord (brewed at the Timothy Taylor Brewery in nearby Keighley), Erdinger, Veltin’s, Brakspeare, Lindeboom and Abbot Ale.

There's also an impressive array of real ales, including Skipton’s Copper Dragon, Saltaire from West Yorkshire, the Glentworth Brewery in Doncaster and Bradford’s very own Salamander Brewery. Even the ciders are classy, from Biddenden’s Monks Delight to Weston’s Old Rosie.

The Fighting Cock is a small drink-focused pub………but the food isn’t great. A couple of years ago I had a reasonable stew….last year it was an inedible pie capped with a layer of mushy peas….this year I played safe and opted for the classic ‘doorstep’ sandwich - a better choice.

The Last Word
Possibly the best real ale pub in this season's League 2…..

The Fighting Cock, 21 Preston Street, Bradford, BD7 1JE………probably a tad too far to walk to Valley Parade not improved by an unforgiving hill - a 5 minute drive and an 'impromptu' car park adjacent to the away stand - a much preferred option.

West Ham Utd v Aldershot Town - postponed

2011-08-08T23:48:00.011+01:00

With riots breaking out across London....the situation getting out of control.......and the Metropolitan Police stretched to the limit......our Carling Cup first round game on Tuesday night has been postponed.

Prime Minister David Cameron has flown back from holiday to 'sort it out in the morning' and Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, blames deprivation.....

Ken, you are an idiot....just look at the pictures.

David, shut the mobile phone networks down for 24 hours, that will pour cold water on the situation....

Can it really be 45 years ago.....

2011-07-30T17:04:00.010+01:00

As I enter my 51st year of watching Aldershot it’s hard to believe that I’m married to someone who has never been to a football match. Someone whose only soccer anecdote is based on the Allied Forces drawing 4v4 with Germany in about 1943, just before the D-Day Landings. Images in her mind framed by the many famous players and coloured so vividly by Pele’s spectacular equaliser…..and with the added value of a rare Bobby Moore goal.

And as she frequently tells me, ‘Sylvester Stallone was a ‘legend’ in goal for the Allies and Osvaldo Ardiles so ‘cheeky’ in midfield.’

Bobby Moore staged his farewell performance in London on May 7th 1977, 11 years after lifting the World Cup.

And as if to record his famous No. 6 for posterity, Fulham scored precisely that number of goals against Leyton Orient, conceding only one in reply. Then with a turn and a wave to acknowledge his standing ovation, he was down the tunnel and into the bar above The Cottage.

That was his 999th game in senior football and with such an ordered mind Bobby could never have rested easily had he left it there. So to round it up to 1000, Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore played at Blackburn the following Saturday in Fulham’s last match of the season.

And as the curtain came down for the final time on a glittering career Bobby waited for the overtures that would surely follow.

Many months elapsed without the slightest hint of a realistic offer of employment……then along came John Huston and the opportunity to ‘play’ alongside Michael Caine in ‘Escape to Victory’.

The movie, shot on location in Hungary, is simply an implausible film about a bunch of World War II prisoners using a football match against their German captors as cover for a break to freedom. Although most importantly, I guess, it did give Michael Caine the opportunity to tell Moore, ‘hit it long son….hit it bleeding long’.

So why did this film create such a lasting impression on my wife, giving her such a surreal football anecdote?

Find the answer to that question and you will be part way to solving my own obsession with the Shots - a feeling so piquant that it continues to deliver my car to Accrington on a freezing cold Tuesday night in January, when anywhere would be considered more appealing than the facilities offered by a stadium that was surely purchased from war-torn Beirut in about 1979.

The events of July 30th 1966 broke through all barriers to class and culture.

England awoke that day to the sight of Union Flags fluttering from every window. The pavements full of people hurrying about their business in advance of the afternoon kick-off. And as we all huddled around a flickering TV screen the country was united by the same apprehension. The memory of those intense stomach cramps still painful today, 45 years later. And then, with the curtains drawn tight in every household across the land, to keep the brilliant sunshine at bay, the game to beat all games commenced……

But by tea-time Bobby Moore was climbing the Wembley steps to receive England’s golden prize – the Jules Rimet Trophy. And what was Bobby worried about? His hands were dirty.

‘It had been a wet afternoon and when I got about two yards from the Queen I saw her lilywhite gloves. I thought: My God, my hands are filthy. All the front of the Royal Box was decked out in velvet and there am I more worried about scraping the mud off my hands on the velvet than getting hold of the World Cup’ – Bobby Moore (The Life and Times of a Sporting Hero).

If you ask my wife today, and this despite not having seen the final, to name the ’66 World Cup Winners, she will get them all, with the exception of the quietly competent George Cohen, the world class Ray Wilson and the hard working Roger Hunt, a player who did so much to symbolise the brutalist architecture of the 60’s.

Banks, Cohen, Wilson, Stiles, Charlton (J), Moore, Ball, Charlton (R), Peters, Hurst, Hunt.

Separating the wheat from the chaff.....

2011-07-20T13:56:00.008+01:00

Ten hacking inquiries…..and 'probably counting'…….have been prompted this year by the much publicised scandal. Most of them have passed me by and I have no doubt the rest will struggle to hold my interest.

Inquiry into the IPCC; IPCC Investigation; Police corruption; The Met’s relations with the media; News Corp Inquiry; Culture Media and Sport Committee; Home Affairs Select Committee; Lord Justice Leveson…..oh and Operation Weeting and Operation Elveden.

Charles Burrell was born in Thetford in 1817 and inherited his father’s foundry workshop in 1837. In 1848 he manufactured his first portable steam engine and within 20 years he was Thetford’s largest employer, producing a wide-range of award winning agricultural machines and traction engines from his St Nicholas works.

In 1848 he produced the first steam engine that also dressed the grain. This type of combined threshing and dressing machine soon became the standard for all except the smallest machines.

Weeting is a small village in Norfolk, just off of the main A1065 between Brandon and Swaffham, pretty close to Thetford (home to the Charles Burrell Museum).

The Weeting Steam Engine Rally was started by Richard Parrot in 1968 and has grown over the years to encompass a whole variety of attractions and interests.

Unfortunately I was watching the Shots play Inverness Caledonian Thistle last Saturday, so I missed this year's Rally!

Thetford, and the surrounding area, was used for much of the filming of the Dad's Army television series and has a small museum dedicated to the subject.

And Ancient House – the Museum of Thetford Life is a museum about Thetford and its past. The museum is located inside an old building….the entrance dating from around 1490.

The building became a museum thanks to the beneficence of a local resident.

Maharajah Dulip Singh was the last Sikh ruler of the Punjab. When he gave up his kingdom and the Koh-i-noor diamond to the British in the 1840s, he moved to England, where he befriended Queen Victoria. He settled with his family at Elveden Hall near Thetford. His second son, Prince Frederick, bought The Ancient House and paid for it to be restored, before presenting it to the town in 1924 to be used as a museum.

Now, are the Police Inquiries into the phone hacking and corruption allegations being coordinated by a steam engine lover or just someone who visited Centre Parcs, Elveden, on a very wet weekend?

A cheap shot.....

2011-07-17T13:09:00.024+01:00

Not satisfied with simply hacking the voicemail of Milly Dowler, News International have now turned their bilious form of journalism on Aldershot Town FC…..

‘’About 20 years ago, Millwall usually had a pre-season friendly game arranged down at Aldershot Town. I enjoyed these relaxed, lubricated outings more than most of the serious matches that followed.

You didn’t have to sit down and you were privy to the confused, counter-intuitive instructions bellowed out by the manager. Also, because there were so few people there, you were allowed to mingle with the players and their Wags in the bar afterwards.

That was fun. It was always a source of pride for me that our Wags were of a different class to the Aldershot Wags, who were, by and large, rough as hell……….’’

Rod Liddle The Sunday Times 17th July 2011

Rod, ‘me ole mucker’, just a couple of observations, if I may.

First, ‘about 20 years ago’ Aldershot FC were terminally ill and eventually died after playing Cardiff City on March 20th 1992. Perhaps your researcher would like to read through the rest of this blog to ‘catch up’. (Aldershot Town - first competitive game 22/08/92)

And I suppose shaping opinion with only limited evidence can prove to be a dangerous approach. I must admit to having never met you…..although I have seen you on television, read your comments in The Sunday Times and of course a photo of you is attached to each of your columns.

‘Are you really as ‘rough’ as you appear?

Furthermore, I have never got close enough to a Millwall fan to exchange football anecdotes. But I’m sure they are all as nice as you. So it was somewhat strange, the last time we played your club in a competitive game, to be herded into The New Den under police escort.

Is this usual?

I can’t believe that your supporters are, ‘rough as hell’.

Millwall Donkey Derby - 1935

Millwall fans just wanting to exchange anecdotes....

Lost Football League Grounds - The Goldstone Ground, Brighton

2011-07-16T00:23:00.020+01:00

Despite its obvious importance to our transport system the M4 is for me no more than a connection between my home in Wales and the Recreation Ground, Aldershot. And few would argue with the observation that it is a route unlikely to feature in Britains’s Best Drives.

The gridlock that engulfs Newport, replaced by the barren landscape that surrounds Swindon, always enough to dull the brain into submission for the final leg of my journey.

Junction 11 can never come soon enough; the wind turbine standing oddly alongside the Madejski Stadium never fails to wake me up……’almost there’.

Just time for a cursory look left culminating in the perennial thought, ‘it seems that every club in the land wants to build a new stadium…..the Madejski at Reading no different to the Liberty in Swansea. The Stadium of Light so similar to the City of Manchester Stadium (Etihad).

But Elm Park, the Vetch Field, Roker Park and Maine Road; now they were proper grounds. And the ramshackled collection of stands at Layer Road, Colchester were simply splendid….the club’s evolution chronologically captured by the sporadic addition of a new stand.

Today, football has been drawn into a world surrounded by concrete and cladding, where plastic seats are resplendent in club colours, fizzy cold beer is served in plastic containers or plastic bottles and floodlights stretch out along the leading edge of the stand giving a faultless impression of pigeons settling down for the night. Oh, but of course I forgot the ‘corporate dining’, the executive lounges, the restaurants……

As I turn off towards Hartley Wintney the memory of Archibald Leitch always burns forever bright in my mind….and when he died in 1939 his legacy included Anfield, Ayresome Park, Celtic Park, Roker Park…..
But so sadly the time is fast approaching when all that I will have left are the images of so many great grounds…..and for the youngsters of today? No more than a plastic cup and a plastic seat in a tin-clad stadium…..nice view? Probably, but a lifetime of attachment? Somehow I doubt it.

Since the Football League was established in 1888 more than 200 grounds have played host to League matches. And with only 92 clubs forming the top four divisions there are plenty of ‘lost grounds’.

Now I must admit to having an eclectic list of favourites – Highbury, of course….the beautiful pitch and Archibald Leitch East Stand; Boothferry Park – how grand to have a railway station alongside ( well a ‘halt’) and such towering floodlight columns (six!); Burnden Park – the history somehow more powerful than the decay and neglect.

Hayling Island is my earliest holiday memory. Dad had gone to King Alfred College, Winchester after the War and then two years later took up his first teaching position at Frimley. So as my brother and I grew up in Cove during the 1950’s I guess the Island was the easiest place to get to….especially when the family transport was a BSA Bantam.

I seem to recall we reached Hayling Island by way of a bus or was it a coach. And I can just remember getting off the bus at the Havant side of the ‘bridge’ to avoid the toll charge. A bit like a prisoner exchange at Checkpoint Charlie, we trudged across to the other side and to the awaiting bus.

After a ‘second promotion’, that took Dad from Frimley to France Hill we had enough money to buy a car, a Standard 8. Holidays would surely become more exotic now.

And we weren’t disappointed.

For weeks Dad disappeared every night after work…..and then all was revealed. One of our uncles had acquired some camouflage paint from the REME or the RAE and Dad hand-painted our new car ….a sort of grey-green.
The school holidays came around and our first long distance holiday dawned, St Mary’s Bay Holiday Camp, Brixham. I’m sure it was a great place…well it must have been because we returned the following year….and the following….and yes, the following year too. Then thankfully Dad got a Headship, became too busy to take us on holiday, and we were free to play Cricket all summer and get ready for the football season.

I have been back a few times to Brixham but still can’t find the building that housed the Fish and Chip shop, on the western side of the harbour.

And it is only now, after so many years, that I find it odd that we never went to Brighton, not even for the day…

The Goldstone Ground was first used as a sporting arena in 1900 and a year later Hove FC moved in – immediately building a small stand. Then in 1904 Hove were taken over by Brighton and Hove Albion.
The Albion joined the Football League in 1920 as a founder member of Division Three and they played at the Goldstone until 1997 when they were forced to move out. A couple of seasons ground sharing with Gillingham was followed by a return to town in 1999 and the Withdean Athletics Stadium……
The Goldstone has gone now and the site used for a retail development.

Brighton and Hove Albion have moved into a new tin-clad home, the American Express Community Stadium …..It looks very nice and everyone is happy.

Season ticket sales are reported to be massive and the Seagulls are flying again…..

In search of a safe pair of hands.....

2011-07-13T11:10:00.022+01:00

After 168 years of publishing, the final edition of the News of the World, was distributed on Sunday July 10 2011.

Of course the British press have been ‘at it’ for years….probably for as long as the News of the World spoke for the people. And today’s electronic spying no more than a habit previously delivered by men in shabby raincoats.

Rupert Murdoch probably assembled his News International team in a manner similar to Alf Ramsey in 1970 - energy and enthusiasm balanced with experience and security. But sometimes events follow a different course than expected. It was therefore just a little bit unfortunate that Rupert had Andy Coulson in goal and Rebekah Brooks on the bench when the reported phone hacking took place….he really had no chance. At least Sir Alf had ‘Banks of England’ between the sticks until the stomach upset that gave Peter Bonetti the chance to destroy our hopes in the 1970 Mexico World Cup Quarter Final..

My lifetime connection with football in Aldershot started on Saturday October 15th 1960.

I remember getting to The Recreation Ground quite early. The streets around the stadium were full with supporters; most of them were wearing blue and white hats, with scarves wrapped tightly around their necks ('Posh' fans). Peterborough United, in their first League season, brought thousands of fans to the game.

The crowd was massive, about 12500. I gripped my Dad’s coat not wanting to get separated from him in this big and exciting new world. And the noise of the fans was deafening as we queued up at the historic turnstiles.

Steam trains rumbled over the bridge, just behind the ground, covering the High Street in a blanket of sulphurous smoke. The carriages packed with even more supporters on their way to the game………

I can’t really remember much about the game, and as for the names of the players who pulled on the red and blue that day….well I have to admit, I just couldn’t say. But I do have a complete recall of the Spurs team that achieved the ‘double’ that same season……Brown, Baker, Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay, Jones, White, Smith, Allen and Dyson…..now that was a great team.

And it took Ron Fogg’s return of 21 League goals and three in the FA Cup in the 1963/4 season, including the winner against Aston Villa, to convince me that Spurs were simply no more than a club in north London……

And as I look back over the history of our club it is somewhat surprising to note, given our ‘basement’ status, that of the 20 teams who will start this season in the Barclays Premier League only six clubs have missed the opportunity to take on the Shots in a competitive fixture……but I suppose I really should say three clubs – Manchester City, Newcastle Utd and West Bromwich Albion.

Britain declared war on Germany on September 3rd 1939…..and that same day Aldershot drew 2v2 with Swindon Town. The outbreak of the Second World War bringing our Div 3 (South) campaign to a close after just three games.

But it wasn’t long before the Football Association organised regional Leagues and with the added dimension that Clubs were allowed to use ‘guest players’. And so it was that Aldershot, ‘home of the British Army’ – signed up Joe Mercer, Stan Cullis, Tommy Lawton….and so many more great players.

And with that, Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea found their way to the Rec, leaving just the three absentees.

Chelsea made the short journey south on March 6th 1940 and were summarily squashed 5v1 thanks to a Tommy Lawton hat-trick and a defence secured by perhaps the greatest ‘keeper ever to pull on an England jersey – Frank Swift.

Frank was big…..in fact Raich Carter (Sunderland and England) once said of Frank that he looked so big in goal that as a forward it often seemed that trying to score against him was like trying to put the ball into a match box.

And Swift had big….very big….safe hands.
David Mellor was the Member of Parliament for Putney from 1979 to 1997. He was born in Dorset and educated at Swanage Grammar School, followed by Christ’s College, Cambridge. He should be a Bournemouth fan….but he isn’t. Perhaps it was the swinging sixties and Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke and Bobby Tambling that turned him ‘blue’….

I first met Mellor in 1990 when he was very briefly Arts Minister and just before he entered John Major’s new Cabinet, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in the November of the same year.

The encounter was memorable. I was introduced and purposefully offered my hand in response, only to be subjected to a ‘parental guidance’ classification ‘Bush Tucker Trial’……a handful of limp lettuce leaves.
So when David was caught in a steamy affair with the actress Antonia de Sancha in July 1992 I was shocked. In fact when the events were undressed in public I was deeply offended..
I know Antonia sold her story to the press. And of course it did turn out that her telephone in the flat where she lived and where David frequently visited her had been bugged. Her landlord had co-operated in the events with journalists…..and The Sun ran a front page story alleging that Mellor had asked to make love to her whilst dressed in his beloved Chelsea FC kit….

Offended by the murky press tactics?

No, not really.

Surprised by the antics of a public servant?

I have a low opinion of politicians and therefore I’m unlikely to suffer disappointment.

But Antonia….how did you get on with such a flaccid handshake!

Mellor resigned his Cabinet post in September causing the Sun to jeer, ‘From Toe Job to No Job’ on its front page (allegedly she liked his toes) and this just a few days after the headline, ‘Now We’ve All Been Screwed by the Cabinet’ – a double pun on Mellor’s sex scandal as well as the ‘Black Wednesday’ financial disaster which saw interest rates rise from 10% to 12% and the devalued pound removed from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

I have no doubt that Gordon Brown carried with him a copy of "It's The Sun Wot Won It", for many months after John Major’s surprise election victory in April 1992. And as Gordon moved from his position of Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to Shadow Chancellor perhaps he was more concerned with shifting press support and booking a table at the former Granita restaurant in Islington than the ethics of Mellor’s demise.

Then in 1997 the sun set on Major’s government and The Sun won it for Labour……Tony Blair and his ‘mate’ Gordon embarked on a mission to make new friends, getting closer to the press and the wider media….meeting celebrities and raising their popular profile was the new order ….such heady days.

Making friends with hunting dogs I think is best left to a ‘Master of Foxhounds’. And I guess Keith Vaz, the senior Labour backbencher and Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee would be a good pick. He was great yesterday stripping away the shroud of authority so often displayed by our Police. Yes, I know Scotland Yard were over-seeing 70 live counter-terror operations after the July 7 bombings but I did detect just a bit of arrogance in the evidence given by Andy Hayman and John Yates….yes Keith you were right to say, it did all ‘sound rather more like Clouseau than Columbo’.

And now quite rightly Gordon Brown is ‘shocked’ by the allegations in The Guardian that The Sun had obtained details of his son’s cystic fibrosis from a medical file. Despite Rebekah Brooks, now chief executive of News International, but then Editor of the tabloid when it published an exclusive story in 2006, phoning Gordon Brown because of her personal relationship with him, to seek approval to publish a story.

So was Gordon wise to cosy up to the press with such earnest endeavour following his ‘final ascent to the summit’ in 2007. He gave his first ‘exclusive’ interview as Prime Minister in July of that year; his friend Rebekah Wade was invited to Downing Street as one of ‘the world’s most successful women; he presented The Sun Global Recognition Award to ‘our Armed Forces’ at the Sun’s Britain’s Best 2008 awards hosted by…oh yes, Rebekah, and then he invited Rupert Murdoch to dinner with President George Bush, not forgetting the wedding party for Rebekah Wade and Charlie Brooks…..and so much more shmoozing (I think that’s the word of the day).

Then the wheels came off and Brown failed to turn up at The Sun’s party at the Labour conference in September 2009 after learning that the paper would abandon its support of Labour.

So now Rebekah is Prime Minister, David Cameron’s friend…

Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) divorced her first husband, former Eastenders' star, Ross Kemp just a couple of years after it was reported that ‘Wade’ had been arrested on the morning of November 3rd 2005 following an alleged assault on her husband. Wade’s newspaper The Sun had been running a campaign against domestic violence at the time. Wade was released without charge and no further action was taken.

Frank Swift made 376 appearances for Manchester City and a further 134 wartime appearances for the sky blues……and 12 guest appearances for Aldershot.

After the war he made his competitive international debut, making 19 appearances for England between 1946 and 1949.

Swift retired in 1949 and following a period serving as a director of a local catering company, he took up a career in journalism, most notably with the News of the World..

Swift died, aged 44, in the Munich Air Disaster after reporting on Manchester United’s European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade.

On 6 February 1958, the flight back to Manchester carrying the Manchester United team and journalists made a refuelling stop at Munich-Riem Airport in poor weather. Two take-off attempts were abandoned due to engine problems, with the weather continuing to deteriorate. On the third attempt, slush on the runway prevented the aircraft from reaching the required speed for take-off.

Swift was one of the 23 victims of the disaster….

Despite his public statements I bet Rupert Murdoch is now looking for a safe pair of hands……..

Well it is summer......

2011-07-11T11:00:00.007+01:00

As the years pass with ever increasing speed and my memory becomes just a little bit more selective……..cricket, now that’s something I can remember.

Last week The Times newspaper carried a ‘page filler’ under the title, ‘Australians give Collingwood a bash in new-look T20’.

I had a few minutes to spare so I read on.

It was about County Durham born Paul Collingwood MBE securing a contract in Australia’s much re-vamped Twenty20 tournament. The event has been designed to stimulate interest in cricket across the country with eight city-based franchises…..and its full title is…..the KFC T20 Big Bash League.

Colin Milburn, ‘Ollie’ to most of us who didn’t really know him, sadly died in February 1990 aged only 49. He played in just nine Test matches for England before an accident led to the loss of much of his sight and prompted his retirement.

Like Collingwood, Milburn was born in County Durham and in 1959, as a seventeen-year-old school pupil, he made his debut for Durham (then still a Minor County) against the touring Indian team. Playing at Sunderland, Milburn scored a typically belligerent century, which brought him to the attention of the first class counties.

And so in 1960, Milburn signed for Northamptonshire because they offered 10 shillings a week more than Warwickshire.

His Test career was far too short….the highlights included 126 not out in the drawn Test against the West Indies at Lords in June 1966. In an innings that was so typical of the enormous man, Milburn dispatched Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, who were undoubtedly the most fearsome bowling attack, to all parts of the ground and England finished the match on 197 for 4.

And as a reward…… Milburn was dropped for the final Test - supposedly because his bulk hindered his mobility in the field.

That winter, Milburn travelled to Australia, where he played Sheffield Shield cricket for Western Australia. He played a Test against India and against Pakistan in 1967, and was selected to tour the West Indies in the winter, where he was much more successful off the field than on!

Milburn was picked for the second Test against Australia in 1968, scoring 83….it was an innings set against the backdrop of Boycott’s infuriating prodding - Milburn’s 12 boundaries and two sixes no less than one of the finest innings that I have ever seen at Lords.

The following winter Colin returned to Perth, where he enjoyed a prolific season for Western Australia. The highlight was an innings of 243 against Queensland in Brisbane, where he scored 181 runs between lunch and tea…..

‘’And to receive the Man of the match award of a bucket of KFC and….’’

‘’You can keep the Champers mate…..I’ve got a few tinnies in the dressing room…..’

Hope, friendship and strength

2011-07-07T22:20:00.006+01:00

Two years ago today, James (Jimmy) Robinson died.

To many at the Rec, Jimmy Robinson needed no introduction - a committed supporter for more than 60 years he was genuinely a man for all seasons; standing on the old East Bank when it was cinder and railway sleepers then going ‘up-market’ with a season ticket in the North Stand from the early seventies…..

Jimmy started following the Shots in 1947 although he could never recall his first game at the Rec, only the fact that it cost 9d return on the double-decker bus from Dogmersfield to Aldershot.

In 1950 Jimmy joined the RAF as a stores accountant and was stationed at Middle Wallop. On Saturdays he used to get the train up from Andover via Basingstoke and Woking to Aldershot. In those days the Shots played in front of 8 or 9000 fans and even the reserves played to crowds of 1000. Then after the game Jimmy would hit the town….well the cinema, and he probably downed the odd pint before catching the last train home.

I guess that by the time I started following Aldershot in 1960 Jimmy was paying the adult rate, and probably having a good moan about the ‘exorbitant cost of getting in these days’.

And then when Aldershot Football Club died in 1992 Jimmy was still gripping the railings of the North Stand, refusing to be removed.

But somehow we came back….happier…stronger…optimistic…joyful. And gosh didn’t Jimmy make the most of the new adventures. Consigned to memory the inevitably dismal trip north to Barrow, the open terrace, horizontal rain, barely warm Bovril and a last minute own goal…..to be replaced by the superb Clubroom at Eastleigh and the beautiful ground at Bognor…..and the last minute winner.

So as we accelerate towards the new season I can’t help but be comforted by the memory of Jimmy’s old plastic carrier bag….the contents always a mystery; the lifetime of memories etched in his face…victory over Aston Villa, Sir Matt Busby bringing Charlton, Law and Best to the Rec in 1970…. ….Jack Howarth and the Cup win over Reading; so many shared experiences.

Former manager Kevin Dillon never understood that the restoration of League football to the Recreation Ground in 2008 was achieved, not by the players and the management, but through the combined emotional power of people like Jimmy. And he was unable to come to terms with the fact that our feelings could not be stimulated by professionalism alone.

Like most Shots supporters I didn’t really know Jimmy, but somehow I could recognise that James Robinson was the personification of hope, friendship and strength……. so when I enter the seats on July 16th for the Inverness Caledonian Thistle pre-season friendly I will look to my left, fully expecting to see Jimmy gripping the railings in the North Stand…..

So with an optimism born out of a belief that manager Dean Holdsworth may just understand the DNA of our Club…..my blog is back.

Enjoy the season…..

No time to Blog.....

2011-03-16T15:18:00.006Z

Sorry but it's time to give my Blog a rest.....

Dillon's disastrous tenure fired me up a bit....but he has gone and I'm left with just the sincere hope that Holdsworth will do ok.....

Who knows but a young and hungry Aldershot Town next season..... displaying pace and power....enthusiasm and vigour may just inspire a return of my Blog.

I'll be watching you Dean!

Northampton Town 1v1 Aldershot Town

2011-02-21T17:25:00.005Z

Daedalus warned him. But did he listen?

No of course not…. Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and he plunged to his death in the sea.

Great shoes are still made in Northampton…..Crockett and Jones – Belgrave…..but the football team can claim little more than being founded in 1897….election to the Football League in 1920, a few years before the Shots….and .a dramatic rise to the premier division in the early sixties.

But did I hear the cry of caution as Geoff Hurst scored the winner at Wembley…..….oops no, by 1966 they were too just too close to the sun….the wax melted, the feathers came loose and the Cobblers plunged back to the Recreation Ground, Aldershot.

And a reminder for all Northampton fans who hold the opinion that the Cobblers are too big for League 2; in 1992, just months after we went bust….you entered administration with debts of £1.6m. Relegation to the Conference was avoided in 1993 by winning 3v2 on the last day of the season at Shrewsbury, despite being 2v0 down at half-time…..

Then in 1994 the Cobblers finished bottom of the Football League but escaped relegation when Conference champions, Kidderminster Harriers, failed to pass the League ground criteria test. Thank goodness for ‘historically smaller clubs than ours’.

If it's match day.....it's Quorn day

2011-02-16T15:55:00.009Z

Good old Dale Vince, chairman of Forest Green Rovers and a vegan who runs a green energy business, recently stopped his club feeding the players red meat 'on performance and health grounds' ……oops, they lost 4v0 at fellow relegation candidates, Southport, on Saturday.

But Vince is simply not satisfied with the well-being of his staff and he has now turned his attention on the few hundred faithful who regularly visit the New Lawn Stadium’s catering outlets. ‘If it wasn’t good enough for our players, really it wasn’t good enough for our fans, staff and visitors’, he said.

So, no more beefburgers, hot dogs and cottage pies…..I loved visiting Forest Green in our Conference days so it is so sad to record, ‘what, no more cottage pie at the New Lawn!’

‘’Visiting the New Lawn on Tuesday, my shortest trip of the season, was a welcome return. Cottage Pie…it’s always Cottage Pie on match days. 'The supporters love it', I was advised with just a touch of 'and......your point is'. Perhaps. But I would go for a bit of variety….Shepherd’s Pie…or something exotic like Lasagne.’’

If it's match day. It's Cottage Pie day - A Shot from Wales, 7th September 2007

Morecambe 1 v 1 Aldershot Town

2011-02-16T15:43:00.010Z

A very long trip and a dull game....just about sums it up.

Despite the loss of so many of its original features, the Midland Hotel still represents hope for a brighter future.....

Well done Crawley Town?

2011-01-30T23:49:00.013Z

The history of the FA Cup is littered with romance and extraordinary endeavour……little clubs taking on the ‘giants’ of the day, memorable goals and record crowds.

Although it is somewhat sad to note that perhaps the current crop of ‘big clubs’ give only a passing interest to the early rounds of the Cup. Fulham’s demolition of Tottenham had as much to do with the forthcoming Champions League fixture between Spurs and AC Milan as the directness of their own play.

But then Tottenham Hotspur hasn’t always been a club big enough to take over the Olympic Stadium and then plan to knock it down……mind you I wouldn’t criticise them for their ‘stadium bid’. The proposals that will lead to the cleaning up of the ‘legacy mess’ created by the vanity of the last Labour government and the distorted phantasm of sporting life that floats around in Sebastian Coe's head, might be opportunistic but they do make business sense……

No, we shouldn’t forget that Tottenham lifted the FA Cup for the first time in 1901 when still entertaining the crowds in the Southern League.

But the days when the ‘good old amateur’ could match the professionalism of the Football League are long gone. In fact since the FA Cup was re-organised in 1925 only six non-League sides have reached the fifth round – Colchester United, Yeovil Town, Blyth Spartans, Telford United, Kidderminster Harriers and now Crawley Town.

So, why don’t I feel like celebrating Crawley Town’s excellent victory at Torquay? A victory that follows on from dumping both Swindon Town and Derby County out of the competition.

I guess the fact that I can feel no love for Crawley Town, when they are favourites to follow in the Shots footsteps and achieve promotion to the Football League, does appear to be somewhat harsh. Or is it?

The Sussex club have twice suffered points deductions for breaking rules and going into administration. In fact in 2006 they were an hour from going out of business before a new owner saved them……ok, so they have had a few financial scrapes. But who hasn’t.

And with the availability of ‘new money’ Crawley Town are now described by the ‘envious many’ as the Manchester City of non-League football - with the cash then, perhaps just a touch of vulgarity.

But Crawley pulled off their greatest ‘coup’ in 2007, when Steve Evans was appointed manager.

Now this is a man who is widely disliked for his confrontational style of management…..so it was hardly surprising when his ‘boys’ upset the Torquay groundsman before the start of Saturday’s encounter – naughty!

Steve certainly has ‘form’, being the man who took Boston United into the Football League but was subsequently suspended for 20 months for impeding an investigation into player’s contract irregularities.

Then he was just a tad unlucky when a conviction for Tax fraud led to a 12 month suspended jail sentence…..

Yes, a convicted criminal and part of a scam that took a club from ‘nowhere’ to the Football League.

Boston’s winning of the Conference in 2002 followed a neck and neck race with Dagenham & Redbridge – after a hard fought campaign Evans took his club into the Football League on the slim margin of goal difference.

But not all was as it seemed and the FA launched an investigation into the financial affairs at Boston United. In July of that year, the club was found guilty by an FA disciplinary committee of systematically lodging false contracts for players. The ploy was a simple one. Players signed contracts that were worth a fraction of the value of what they were being paid.

The club was fined £100,000 and docked four points for the following season, a decision that quite rightly enraged Dagenham & Redbridge, who had missed out so narrowly on promotion, to Evans’ club.

And then poor old Steve was found guilty by the FA of having ”facilitated a payment of £8,000 to a witness to attempt to mislead, impede and frustrate” - the FA’s enquiry into the scam.

Evans was fined £8,000 and suspended from football for twenty months…….

But the FA ban was the least of Evans’ concerns as a criminal investigation was launched into the goings-on at Boston…..

Boston United were relegated from the Football League in 2007 after a last day of the season defeat at Wrexham.....and then demoted straight into the Blue Square North in June of that year. Relegation to the Northern Premier League followed a year later……

Delayed retribution for Dagenham and Redbridge. – Conference Champions 2007.
Evans resigned his position as Boston’s manager in May 2007, shortly before the inevitable relegation from the Football League. But surprise surprise Evans landed on his feet and two days after his resignation, he took up the managerial position at Blue Square Premier club Crawley Town.

I know, I should trust in the rehabilitation of offenders……but I just don’t like the man.

Crawley Town will no doubt enjoy their 90 minutes of fame and fortune at Old Trafford in the 5th round of the cup, but will it all end in tears……

If it does, the Sussex County League awaits and no doubt Pagham FC will look forward to the visit!

It was just a joke…..

2011-01-24T22:03:00.012Z

Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys have been accused of ‘appalling and damaging’ sexism after being recorded making strident criticism of a female match official.

Gray and Keys clearly thought that their microphones were switched off when they declared that professional football had ‘gone mad’ in allowing women to be assistant referees.

The unguarded comments were made before Liverpool’s Premier League game against Wolves on Saturday.

It looks like Gray and Keys have been suspended….with a ‘telling off’ to follow.

Just sack them Sky….it’s not simply the pathetic and old-fashioned opinion wrapped up in a ‘joke’ that offends…..football is fuelled by prejudice and dark comment. No it’s the fact that they were too stupid to realise that the microphones may still be switched on that should lead to their dismissal.

Now didn’t Gordon Brown display a similar failing last year….…..?

Whatever happened to this nice young man....

The inevitable denouement

2011-01-18T10:11:00.007Z

Kevin Dillon still has time to reflect on his approach to the first few months at the Recreation Ground…..and the ’restoration of factory settings’ could be a good first move.

A Shot from Wales – Friday 12th February 2010

I guess the inevitable is never a surprise…..so when news of Dean Holdsworth’s appointment to the position of Aldershot Town manager was announced shortly after the pathetically shambolic defeat by Oxford United, my face was no more than a picture of epiphany.

Saturday 8th January 2011

The final whistle…..a 2v1 defeat by the resurgent U’s and I said my goodbyes to friends and family, quickly making my way out of the North Stand to join a despondent crowd of Shots fans trudging helplessly out of the Recreation Ground.

An embarrassed row of policemen and stewards stood silently, offering protection to the changing rooms and Directors Lounge….. a sad and somewhat apologetic response to the growing calls for change……

I stopped briefly underneath the Directors Lounge and was quickly engulfed by perhaps a hundred ‘protestors’. The resigned and timid mutterings increasingly drew on an inner corporate strength and then with an explosion of Recreation Ground emotion…..

’Dillon Out’….’we want our football back’….the call from the fans desperate but somehow assertive. The police linked arms and gently reprised their Millbank student riot manoeuvres, moving the crowd down towards the High Street and out of our Directors’ sight.

I made my way back up Redan Road, threading a way through the joyous hoards of Oxford supporters and strutting policemen. I sat motionless in my car for perhaps a few seconds, just a moment of depressed contemplation……’I can’t keep doing this……our Club is being dismantled in front of my eyes’.

I fired up the engine and hit the CD button….I couldn’t risk hearing manager Kevin Dillon on BBC Radio Surrey and Robbie Savage on ‘606’ would inevitably add 3 points to my driving licence.

Just sometimes my wife can be predictable with her sagacity.

“You would be so useless as a castaway on Desert Island Discs’, she exclaimed as Gyles Brandreth exposed his favourite tunes to the Radio 4 listening audience.

Yes, you would be the first guest to choose all eight tracks from the same album.”

Ok, so I’m not big on music. And my record collection is just that. A few records……

When I hit the ‘Dillon and Savage avoidance button’ I probably knew that ‘Elephants Memory’ was not going to be lurking in the CD changer.

Completed in 1919, the Cello Concerto was Edward Elgar's last major work for orchestra, and his most confessional.

In spite of fleeting moments of idyllic release, it's dominated by disillusionment and a sense of suffering that at times cries out against life, yet more often speaks in quiet anguish. Elgar had been ill, and he was deeply depressed by the Great War's destruction of the world he had known.

All of this he poured into a concerto for the cello — apparently this is not such an unlikely instrument, considering its rich-toned yet brooding personality and its searing, dark timbre.

Four movements unfold from one to another as if forming a single, rhapsodic thought. The almost funereal beginning of the first movement a portent for the events unfolding at the Recreation Ground……..

And as I joined the M4 at Reading, the concerto's rondo finale delivered just a bit of the pre-Great War Elgarian swagger, if only fleetingly.

Fragments of melody from the concerto's earlier movements touchingly hinted at, before the climax of anguish and resignation.

Dillon was gone…….and ‘factory settings’ were about to be restored.

Dean Holdsworth, manager and Matthew ‘Bish’ Bishop, assistant manager were introduced to the Aldershot supporters for the first time on Wednesday January 12th…..

All change at the Rec

2011-01-10T22:16:00.007Z

Miracles are best left to those who specialise in such matters……..

2011-01-06T22:48:00.013Z

The late Pope John Paul II has closed in on a ‘fast-track’ sainthood after a Vatican medical committee confirmed his first miracle.

The former pontiff, who died in 2005, has been credited with saving the life of a French nun who recovered overnight from Parkinson’s disease.

Despite doubts being cast on the ‘miracle’ last year – a Polish newspaper suggested that Sister Marie Simon-Pierre may have suffered from a curable neurological disease with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s – the case has now cleared the medical commission and John Paul is likely to be beatified before the end of the year.

All that is needed for canonisation is evidence of a second miracle……

Looking back, I guess the terminal illness that struck Aldershot FC could have been diagnosed long before December 28th 1991, when the Shots recorded their last League win - 2v1 v Maidstone Utd. However, what followed was an experience to which no football supporter should ever be subjected.

The death of our once proud Club was painful. From January to March 1992, Aldershot played 16 games, lost 14, drew 2 and scored just 2 goals.

As Aldershot clung on to life in 1992 the saving grace was the dwindling band of professionals, only one of whom refused to play, even though they had not been paid since December.

Moreover, Dave Puckett, on signing for Bournemouth, even wrote in the Aldershot programme that he did not want supporters to think he had deserted them. He would have carried on playing for nothing until the end of the season.

1,374 fans saw the ‘last game’ at home to Northampton Town on March 7th 1992. However, it was not all over, the heart flickered, the Shots entered a phase of temporary remission and Lincoln City attracted a crowd of 1,473 programme collectors to the Recreation Ground for what had to be the last game.

Nevertheless, with the Government resisting all requests to legalise the services of Dignitas in Switzerland, assisted suicide was simply not an option and it was Ninian Park Cardiff on March 20th 1992 that finally saw Aldershot pass away.

The Football League statement that followed the High Court decision was short and to the point….’ The liquidator called in to supervise the winding-up order of Aldershot confirmed to the League that no offers had been received for the Club. It is with deep regret that the League is left with little alternative but to announce that Aldershot’s membership is terminated with immediate effect’.

It was so hard to watch Aldershot gasping for breath over the final weeks of life. Each visit to the Recreation Ground undertaken with a devotion only normally displayed by those who dutifully attend the bedside of an aged relative in the last days of their life.

For too long the devoted ‘faithful’ could be seen gripping the railings in the North Stand, perhaps holding on in the forlorn hope of a saviour, a strategy for recovery, a new dawn…….and when death finally came, we were released to get on with our lives.

The rebirth of senior football in Aldershot, created from the ashes of the old club, was for me, no more than a distant ‘play-thing‘. The start of the 1992/3 season coincided with a move away from London and the southeast. Aldershot Town was still an ‘obsession under construction‘.

My ‘big’ brother constantly pulls my leg about the lame excuse, ‘but I live in Wales’, offered when I could not get to Collier Row for a Tuesday night fixture. Yes, ‘where were you at Royston Town?’….he chides, forgetting his absence at Carlisle on Tuesday 28th December 2004 - oh, and this Saturday when Oxford United visit the Rec.

However, in those ‘early years’ my infrequent trips back to the Rec always aroused the feeling of ‘ghosts from Christmas past’.

After parking close to Redan Hill, the walk down to the ground always exposed deep-seated emotions. The floodlights coming into view first, then the East Bank, the North Stand followed by a glimpse of the ageing but classic form of the South Stand. Everything was in place…..

Looking around in the North Stand, the faces were the same. Perhaps all showing signs of age but still no wiser.

Promotion to the Conference at the end of the 2002/03 season coincided with my own ‘life changing’ moment.

The season started in hospital and ended up at Stoke. It was to become a season that exposed the senses to the beauty of power and pace. A confidence developed in innocence.

In May 2003 and against all odds Aldershot Town reached the Nationwide Conference play-off final. The defeat by Shrewsbury Town of no significance when set in context with the explosion of excitement dressed securely in a feeling of community pride as the game was played out in front of 20,000 fans.

Therefore, when around 900 Shots fans made the trip to St James’ Park on Tuesday April 15th 2008 to experience a 1v1 draw with Exeter City, it was not just another game and another point. No, the result returned to Aldershot a status that was so painfully taken away in 1992.

Membership of the Football League is not a ‘right’ held in perpetuity by 92 Clubs - a fact of life that all supporters of Wrexham, Luton Town, York City, Newport County, Mansfield Town, Darlington, Grimsby Town, Kidderminster, Rushden and Diamonds, Barrow, Southport and Cambridge United….….will agonisingly understand.

Getting back to the Football League in just 16 years was an achievement that was not simply delivered by the youthful exuberance of the young squad, the outstanding goalkeeping of Nikki Bull and the leadership shown by manager, Gary Waddock. And despite its obvious impact, the genuinely caring 'hand' of Chairman, John McGinty was not single-handedly responsible for the explosion of joy that lit up the Exeter sky in April 2008.

Undoubtedly, it is easy to conclude that financial mismanagement and widespread apathy sank the Shots in 1992…..but the restoration of League football to the Recreation Ground in 2008 was achieved through something far more complex - the innate heady mix of innocence and enthusiasm that delivered the irresistible and combined emotional power of so many people.

On April 22nd 1992 Terry Owens held a public meeting to seek support for the ‘proposed’ new Aldershot Town FC….the Shots were soon to be ‘alive and kicking’.

Aldershot came back to life in 1992 because for many, its power was defined by something greater than anything that money could achieve, or indeed destroy.

Our Club was re-created by the genuine passion that flows through the veins of us all. But today we appear to be 'bleeding to death'......action on all fronts is required before the end of January.

Miracles are best left to those who specialise in such matters……..

It was no surprise......

2010-12-15T17:37:00.030Z

On March 19th 1986 the Palace announced the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson, daughter of the Prince of Wales' polo manager - the couple, both 26, were married in July of the same year.

Before hooking up with her Prince, Sarah Ferguson had been a very well known socialite with a pretty public CV. Undoubtedly for her, marriage into the Royal family was just going to be fun. But, for the Palace, and at the time it seemed all too obvious, the keys to the Aston Martin were now in the hands of a ‘young tearaway’.

By 1992, the marriage between Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson was faltering. Sarah was with various men including Texan multimillionaire Steve Wyatt, while her husband was away on royal duties. They agreed to separate in January 1992, but by August of the same year, surreptitiously taken photographs of John Bryan, an American financial manager — apparently in the act of sucking on the toes of a topless Sarah in the south of France — were published in the The Daily Mirror.

Ferguson was at Balmoral with the rest of the Royal Family when the story broke. Prince Philip handed her a copy of the paper and quipped, “there but for the grace of God go I.”

Unfortunately for Sarah The Queen was less amused. After splattering The Mirror with her egg coated ‘soldiers’, the Queen’s private secretary was instructed to tell Ferguson that she might feel better if she left immediately for London, effectively banishing her from the royal household.

The only feeble defence both Fergie and John Bryan could muster up was that he hadn’t been sucking her toes, he was simply kissing the instep of her foot.

But, I don’t blame Ferguson for the antics….after all she was only doing what came naturally to her. No, the fault line ran through the heart of the Palace and all the way to the interview panel…..the CV was well known and her personality could never be disguised.

Sarah Ferguson was no surprise…….

When I started writing this blog in 2007 it was based on a love of our Club, the combined emotional power of our fans and the exuberance that took us to the top of the league and almost inevitably, promotion…..writing was easy and at times I guess quite uplifting. The bad times were quite simply dismissed by the optimism that ran through our Club.

And my ‘passing shots’ were reserved for Gordon Brown, RBS, Northern Rock and almost any politician …..

But, I do believe our return to the League has delivered no more than the invasive ‘cancer’ of professionalism. And my current state of mental well-being can be best summed up when I pause for thought….. and then consider how I felt when we were dumped out of the FA Trophy by Ebbsfleet, in context with the feelings that sent shivers through my body at the Don Valley Stadium last Saturday.

We lost to Ebbsfleet….the dream of the Shots walking out at Wembley gone….but the pain was removed almost instantly as my thoughts turned to playing Altrincham at home the following week.

And last Saturday…..I just wanted to get home.

Even my wife, who has never seen a football match, could sum up our on-pitch activity as dismal. But, my own despair is based upon so much more….

Last February I wrote that Kevin Dillon had destroyed our young and innocent team in a matter of months. I remember, at the time, being rounded on by a number of ‘loyal supporters’ who cried ‘foul’. And how right they all were as we successfully secured a place in the end of season play-offs………but was their instant judgement based on no more than fragile evidence?

Did we have fun? Did we enjoy the games? Can we honestly say, ‘we were uplifted by the experience’? Well, perhaps not all of the players were impressed with Dillon as so many left at the end of the season, only to be replaced by the ‘best ever squad’ assembled by the Shots.

Added to which I have been ashamed by our manager’s ranting and raving at the officials and opposition players…..it has been a constant embarrassment……and his post-match public comment? No less than ‘terrific’….

After quite a long break in writing I brought my blog back to ‘celebrate’ fifty years at the Rec…..but recording my 50 best memories only served to reinforce the pain of watching our Club be systematically taken apart by the ‘professional’ approach of our Directors and ‘new’ management team.

The restoration of League football to our town so beautifully lit up the Exeter sky in April 2008, but today I’m left with no more than a happy memory.

Following the return of my blog earlier this season I have tried to write optimistically about the club that has been such an important part of my life for so long. And I have never considered travelling 12000 miles every season since our return to a national league to be an effort….an expense…..madness…..work inhibiting. No, it has always been just something that I have done.

However, as I sat in the desolate bowl of the Don Valley Stadium, last Saturday, and watched the sun disappear behind the grim urban form of Sheffield, I saw for the first time the meaning of my wife’s incessant background noise. ‘It’s a waste of time watching a bunch of overpaid mummy’s boys…..we can buy more horses with the thousands you could save…..why not change your car every three years and not 12 months……let’s go on holiday…..you can spend more time with me’.

Such female logic has been ignored up until now.

When the fixtures were released for this season I thought that Morecambe away, just after Christmas, would satisfy my need for an ‘extreme’ trip. Perhaps an overnight stay at the, once wonderful but still evocative, Midland Hotel. But will I be going?

No.

And Gillingham at home on Boxing Day?

No….Exmoor beckons and the next day I will be going with some friends to watch Barnstaple Town v Ifracombe Town in the Western League.

And then Barnet….no, as I still have the Ruiz Ruiz chants ringing in my ears….and Hereford?

Possibly…but then for the Club it matters not financially….as I own two season tickets….and I drink in a local pub following the club’s move to corporate dining some years ago.

But it may just matter next season if I decide to invest my money in Barnstaple Town and not the Severn Bridge Toll, fuel, tyres, servicing, depreciation etc etc…..oh yes, and my season tickets in the North Stand.

I was in Wrexham yesterday and as I drove back south later in the evening my mind turned to thoughts of how I would feel the day ‘Dillon’s departure was announced’…..I mused; perhaps as I do when I watch the sun rise over the snowfields of the Brecon Beacons or the sun setting over Camargue, or the exhilaration that coursed through my body as the final whistle went with the score - Exeter City 1 v 1 Aldershot Town (back to the League).

Then Edgar Street, Hereford came into view…..the skeletal away stand – cold and inhospitable…..a shroud of dereliction hanging over the ground…..just waiting for the announcement that, ‘Hereford United was today relegated from the Football League’…..

And with a sad feeling of realism I take no pleasure in sharing my despair with our Club.

But, I don’t blame Dillon for our current plight….after all he is only doing what comes naturally to him. No, the fault line runs through the heart of the Rec and all the way to our Board Directors....the CV was well known and his personality could never be disguised.

Kevin Dillon was no surprise........

Do we love him.....?

2010-11-25T16:25:00.004Z

Uefa has charged Jose Mourinho and four of his Real Madrid players over allegations he ordered Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso to get themselves sent off in a Champions League match against Ajax.

With the Spanish ‘giants’ leading 4v0 in Amsterdam Mourinho appeared to send instructions from the bench before two of his players received second yellow cards for time-wasting.

Their expulsions meant they should serve one-match suspensions in a meaningless group match against Auxerre next month, then start the knock-out rounds in February with a clean slate.

I’m sorry but that was very naughty Jose…..and you will be told off.

A wonderful gesture......

2010-11-22T22:33:00.011Z

Not long after Aldershot reformed in 1992 we were drawn away to Newport County in the 1st qualifying round of the FA Trophy. The Shots won the encounter at the Newport Stadium 3v1……it wasn’t a particularly memorable game and it hasn’t featured in my recently published ‘top 50’ memories.

However, I was a guest of the County at the game back in September 1994 and was enjoying the post match hospitality when Terry Owens, our founder Chairman, entered the room with the Shots players. My abiding memory is one of how so obviously proud he was of our Club, our players and ‘us', the supporters.

Although it was not a particularly inspiring game something happened this week to bring the events sharply back into focus. Terry Owens, our former Chairman has hired five, yes five coaches to take up to 250 supporters to Dover on Saturday, for the second round of the FA Cup. Oh yes, and without any charge to the individual fans or our Club

What a wonderful gesture and I have to say so typical of a man who when he was Chairman, in our ‘phoenix days’, worked tirelessly to establish a powerful bond between the Board and fans.

Today, I wouldn’t even know our Chairman ‘if I tripped over him’.

Moreover, I now have a terrible feeling inside...I’m not confident that our Club is particularly interested in ‘us’...

'Mood Index'

2010-11-12T12:15:00.006Z

After too many years of following the Shots I’m a long way past the point where results really matter…..when a scruffy 1 v 0 win in front of a small crowd at a bleak and windswept Recreation Ground sends me back home down the motorway singing our manager’s praise.

Now, I have commented on a number of occasions that despite his obvious charm, I didn’t really like Terry Brown, and 'promotion back to the League' Gary Waddock was just our manager….and current boss, Kevin Dillon would not feature in my top 100 people to invite round for dinner. But then really these feelings matter not a jot when I get in my car and set off on the 12000 miles each year in support of the Shots.

And any performance appraisal of our manager plays only a small part in my own ‘mood assessment’, a status that is determined by so many variables.

So what factors affect my mood?

Of course our results do have an impact on my wellbeing and how we play is important too – the power and pace witnessed just about every week in our conference promotion winning season was memorably exciting. Then there is the electric buzz in the crowd that will lift the spirits, not forgetting that I meet my family in the pub before every home game – this is such an important aspect of my obsession with the Shots. But then roadworks on the M4,5,6 etc will frustrate and the behaviour of our players and management team must be exemplary. And the actions of our Club towards spectators and ‘employees’ always impact on my feeling of identity,….and so it goes on.

It is therefore a complicated mix of factors that affect my mood, and to lay the blame or credit at the door of Kevin or Gary or Terry or even Len Walker is I’m afraid missing the point.

So here is my own ‘mood index’ established at 100 on Sunday May 16th 2004, the Britannia Stadium, Stoke – Aldershot Town v Shrewsbury Town, Nationwide Conference Play-off Final.

Index low: 40 – Monday April 17th 2006 Aldershot Town 0 v 3 Grays Athletic

Index high: 120 - Tuesday April 15th 2008 Exeter City 1 v 1 Aldershot Town (the Shots are promoted back to the Football League)

Current index: 60

''The Great European Cup, The Final, East Surreys v Bavarians, Kick Off at Zero''

2010-11-11T10:36:00.005Z

The Cenotaph in Whitehall was first opened as a temporary war memorial on Peace Day, 19 July 1919 when celebrations to mark the end of the First World War were held throughout the UK and Ireland. It was designed and built in plaster and wood by Edwin Lutyens at the request of the then Prime Minister Lloyd George.

The Times referred to Peace Day as "the greatest ritual day in our history"; the object of this state event was to represent society as a harmonious whole, united in remembrance, and to paper over the social tensions of the period.

And for the past nine decades the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London has played host to the Remembrance Service, forming such an enduring part of our commemoration of those who lost their lives in past conflicts.

At its unveiling, the base of the monument was spontaneously covered in wreaths to the dead and ‘missing’ from The Great War. Such was the extent of public enthusiasm for the construction, it was decided that The Cenotaph should become a permanent and lasting memorial.

The Cenotaph, made from Portland stone, was unveiled in 1920.

The inscription reads simply "The Glorious Dead".

Donald Bell was a defender for Bradford Park Avenue FC but in November 1914, he joined the army. Then just two days after his marriage in 1915 he was sent to France.

On 5 July 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, he won the Victoria Cross for outstanding bravery, by stuffing his pockets full of grenades, creeping up on an enemy machine-gun post and capturing it.

He wrote to his mother “I must confess that it was the biggest fluke alive and I did nothing. I only chucked the bomb and it did the trick....”

Five days later, he died, trying to repeat the same feat.

William Jonas played for Clapton (later Leyton) Orient. I guess he was like many of our current Premier League favourites in that he was very popular with the ladies. However, the hundreds of appealing letters that dropped on to his doormat each week concerned this happily married man. His response was to ask ‘the Orient’ to put a notice in the next match day programme thanking the ladies very much, but please would they stop!

He served in the army alongside teammate Richard McFadden, who reported William’s last moments:

“Both Willie and I were trapped in a trench near the front in Somme, France. Willie turned to me and said ‘Goodbye Mac. Best of luck, special love to my sweetheart Mary-Jane and best regards to the lads at Orient.’

Before I could reply to him, he was ‘up and over’. No sooner had he jumped out of the trench, my best friend of nearly 20 years was killed before my eyes.”

On the Somme, on 1 July, 1916, under heavy enemy fire, the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment waited in their trenches to go ‘over the top.’

As a way of encouraging them, Captain Billy Nevill had four footballs to kick across No Man's Land, promising a reward to the first to score a ‘goal’ in enemy trenches. Led by Nevill, they set off. Many were killed at once, but the rest charged with the footballs bouncing ahead of them and achieved their objective.

Sadly, Nevill was not one of them. He had been killed just outside the German wire.

One of the footballs was inscribed: "The Great European Cup, The Final, East Surreys v Bavarians, Kick Off at Zero".

Moreover, through the sacrifice of so many, our Premier League stars can today fill the front pages of our newspapers with their off-field troubles and offshore bank accounts with a wealth far beyond the comprehension of William Jonas.

On through the hail of slaughter,
Where gallant comrades fall,
Where blood is poured like water,
They drive the trickling ball.
The fear of death before them,
Is but an empty name;
True to the land that bore them,
The SURREYS played the game.

The wrong kind of.....

2010-11-04T17:34:00.005Z

The phrase ‘the wrong type of snow’ first appeared in February 1991 when British Rail were caught out by a cold snap that brought snow too soft and powdery for their snowploughs to be effective. BR announced they were having particular problems 'with the type of snow', which led the London Evening Standard to run with the headline "British Rail blames the wrong type of snow.

"

One of the things that makes our society great is that there are so many people who are willing to sacrifice their time and energy to volunteer for a wide variety of causes. Sports Clubs, hospital transport, Day Care Centres, National Trust properties…..yes, the committed helper can be found just about everywhere - working alongside ‘professionals’ and often taking the place of ‘professionals’.

Let’s face it, society can’t afford to be without them.

However, with nearly 17 million individuals in England who volunteer their time through an organisation (Department of Communities and Local Government, 2009), the task of managing them is clearly considerable and complex.

Ensuring that their contribution is fully utilised, acknowledged and sustained raises a number of challenges and as such, debate over the management of volunteers has increased considerably in recent years. It is therefore somewhat disturbing to read that at Aldershot Town we somehow seem to have created the ‘wrong type of volunteer’.

You know the type. The volunteer that seems to know everything there is to know about how the ‘business’ works. In fact, if they are being honest, they think they know more than ‘you’ do – although they just might.

Of course I cannot possibly comment on the events that have led to the recent ‘Club statement’ but the sad circumstances point me towards a failure to put in place an effective volunteer management strategy or if we do have one, the ‘professional’ who is responsible for it is has underperformed.

I’m sorry but it’s easy to make money. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. And without doubt, our volunteers, who are the DNA of the Club, are assets whose worth extends beyond being ‘thanked’ for snow shovelling, litter picking, toilet cleaning and gutter painting.

Volunteers are unpaid — not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless. Therefore we must provide support and recognition, relevant training and offer extra responsibility. Only then will we demonstrate that our Club truly appreciates its volunteers.

It seems to me that through its actions, the Club has overlooked the value of volunteers. A position of course afforded by many successful businesses…..but Aldershot Town is not a successful business.

I will never forget the effort and combined emotion that brought our Club back to life in 1992. The power generated by so many volunteers drove us forward and returned League football to the Recreation Ground.

Maybe we don’t need that emotion now. Maybe the ‘job is done’ and now it’s time for the professionals to take over. After all so few of us have the time to volunteer and even fewer have the heart.

But for me I am saddened to think that our Club now has one less heart.

So I leave you with this thought:

‘Volunteers built Noah’s Ark, but professionals built the Titanic.’

Kevin, you need help....and you need it now

2010-10-31T16:38:00.019Z

Aldershot Town lost yesterday’s encounter with high flying Bury 3 v 1. It was a game destroyed by the early sending off Aldershot defender Jones, followed in the second half by the dismissal of Marvin Morgan.

From my seat in the North Stand I’m sure some, and quite possibly a lot, of the decisions made by the referee were flawed….and his posture and overall demeanour certainly didn’t win him many friends in the ‘home enclosures’. But then he was the man in charge and despite his disaster inducing performance our only hope of survival was combative but considered, and within the rules, retaliation.

Early in the 20th century, Walter Cannon’s research in biological psychology led him to describe the 'fight or flight' response of the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) to perceived threats to physical or emotional security. Cannon, W. B. (1929) - Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: An account of recent research into the function of emotional excitement.

And what observations would a psychologist have made looking across to our Manager Kevin Dillon yesterday afternoon?

Well the simple narrative was rage and lost control. Finger pointing and ‘abuse’ directed towards anyone connected with the control of the game. Behaviour that led to his removal from the touchline, to be followed, no doubt by a fine and ‘ban’. Many supporters I’m sure felt the same anger and pain……the boos and corporate vitriol pretty evident as the final whistle was blown. But in a disaster situation how should we react…..well perhaps a quick lesson from Aviation.

A pilot in charge of flying an aircraft is called the 'pilot in command'. All pilot training involves coping with equipment failures and other emergencies.

Emergencies can happen no matter how well-prepared and competent the pilot may be.

When an emergency occurs, physiological changes resulting from the threat to life favour strong surges of energy in the large muscles, and they foster a narrow focus of attention on the 'blood rage' necessary for survival.

In a crisis, however, a pilot needs precise hand and foot movements—not gross physical strength—and he or she needs clear thinking—not the tunnel vision of rage.

Consequently, the 'natural' survival skills triggered by an emergency can actually contribute to a pilot losing control of the aircraft.

Therefore, in order to manage SNS arousal in an emergency, a pilot—or any person—needs a third option, a sort of 'unnatural' option: not fleeing the problem, and not fighting the problem either, but taking command of it.

In an emergency, a person should be 'pilot in command' of his or her body as one essential step in coping with the overall problem.

Kevin ‘lost it’ yesterday…it wasn’t edifying to watch and, despite the many comments in support of his reaction, a ‘Monday morning’ sincere apology to the officials would be the proper course of action.

But unfortunately Dillon does not strike me as a man who welcomes opinions other than his own…..so, in fear of raising his temperature..... Kevin you need help and I think you need it now…..

My top 50 memories from 50 years of following the Shots

2010-10-28T17:47:00.010+01:00

"Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things." Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

And Aldous Huxley wrote that every man's memory is his private literature.

My ‘top 50’ list of Aldershot football memories has been extracted from the many thousands of ‘pebbles’ picked up and stored away over the last 50 years.

For me they all fashion vivid images and so starting at number 50, here they are……

50 – Aldershot 8 v Barrow 2, November 30th 1963

Tony Priscott scored four but I left the Recreation Ground feeling so sorry for the handful of Barrow fans who had made the long trip south. The weather was dismal….the suffocating blanket of mist barely penetrated by our floodlights….the Barrow defence pathetic…….

49 – Aldershot 3 v Tunbridge Wells 1 (FA Cup R1), November 4th 1961

The ground was lit up by brilliant sunshine after the morning’s rain and George Norris scored with a diving header right in front of me at the High Street end.

48 – Basingstoke Town 2 v Aldershot Town 0, December 26th 1996

And just about every game that we were required to play at The Camrose, Basingstoke as we climbed our way back to the Football League…..invariably cold, always miserable, but what an incentive to restore League football to the Recreation Ground.

The memory of former England International Neil Webb wearing a Shots shirt, tentatively ‘running around’ on a frozen pitch lives on…..like me, he just didn’t want to be there…..

47 – Brentford 2 v Aldershot 3, October 19th 1970

Jack Howarth scored three in a thrilling game at Griffin Park. I missed the game as I was playing football against Leicestershire that same evening….now if I had a pound for every time my brother said, ‘Brentford, Jack Howarth hat-trick, what a game’.

46 – York City 2 v Aldershot 2, October 17th 1987

After the play-off success the previous season it was typically disappointing to sit with my 5-year-old son in an empty ‘away stand’…..yes ‘Shots on the road’ were often hard to spot pre-1992.

45 – Aldershot 6 v Cambridge Utd 0, April 13th 1974

Aldershot and Cambridge were both promoted to Division 3 (League 1) the previous season…..then after a poor start to the ‘73/4 campaign Aldershot blazed their way up the League by scoring 47 goals at the Rec. Hapless Cambridge were relegated and the Shots finished 8th - their highest ever Football League position.

And the goal scorers that day…..Bell (2), Joslyn and Howarth (3)

44 – Southend Utd 10 v Aldershot 1 (Associate Members Cup -Leyland Daf Trophy), November 6th 1990

Sheffield, Brown, Cooper, Wignall, Flowers, Henry, Randell, Whitlock, Williams, Stewart, Banton, Puckett…..’hang your heads in shame’.

43 – Oxford Utd 2 v Aldershot Town 3, September 15th 2007

A brilliant game to match the late summer sunshine. Aldershot Town bursting with invention and energy. Oxford pedestrian and predictable during a first half that saw the Shots go in 2v0 to the good.

Aldershot manager, Gary Waddock got the half-time team talk wrong and fortunes suddenly changed.

Oxford came out for the second half with more pace and soon got the game back to 2v2.

But the match was won by Aldershot. A team that was not prepared to give Oxford the satisfaction of one point, let alone three.

The effort and combined purpose was too much for Oxford. The winning goal coming from a corner….and for the first time we started to talk about promotion back to the League.

42 - Aldershot 1 v Peterborough Utd 1, October 15th 1960

My first game at the Recreation Ground

"I remember getting to Aldershot quite early. The streets around the ground were full with supporters. Most of them were wearing blue and white hats with scarves wrapped tightly around their necks (‘Posh’ fans). The crowd was about 12500, certainly a lot more than I was used to 'down the (Cove) Green'! I held on to my Dad’s coat not wanting to get separated from him in this big and new world.

Peterborough United, in their first League season brought about 6000 fans to the game and they were clearly not going to just watch the game and say no more than, ‘good shot, well done’. No, the noise was deafening as we queued up at the historic turnstiles.

Steam trains rumbled over the bridge, just behind the ground, covering the High Street in a blanket of sulphurous smoke. The carriages packed with even more supporters on their way to the game.

We entered the stadium, I let go of Dad’s coat and ran up the steps leading through the gardens to the ground. And there it was. The majestic form of the South Stand, and in the distance the East Bank full of visiting and home fans, bursting with colour. Then away to my left, the calm and serenity of the North Bank.

I stood with Dad behind the goal at the High Street End, gripping the fencing and shaking with the excitement of the occasion."

- A Shot from Wales, 50 years ago today – (first published 15th Oct 2010)

41 – Aldershot Town 4 v Clapton 2 (Diadora League Division 3), August 22nd 1992

Just a few months after going bust, 1493 fans watched Aldershot come back from the dead.

And later that season the Shots attracted just under 6000 spectators for a Hampshire Senior Cup game with Conference neighbours, Farnborough – more than watched Wimbledon play Everton in the same week!

40 – Blackburn Rovers hammered…..

Blackburn Rovers 1 v Aldershot 2, April 24th 1974
Aldershot 4 v Blackburn Rovers 0, April 27th 1974

Aldershot’s first season in Division 3 came to a spectacular climax with the ‘double demolition’ of Blackburn Rovers within the space of four days.

And just over 20 years later Blackburn were to be crowned Premier League Champions as the Shots entertained Bognor Regis Town, Dorking, Basingstoke…..in the Isthmian First Division.

39 – Aldershot 3 v Sunderland 2, February 27th 1988

A crowd of 6042 saw the Shots put Sunderland well and truly in their place for 90 minutes. The Roker Park giants went on to be crowned Division 3 Champions (currently League 1), 9 points clear of Brighton.

38 – Dartford 3 v Aldershot 1 (FA Cup R1), – November 16th 1968

Oh dear!.…beaten by a non-League side in the Cup and a sad addition to our list of post-war failures – King’s Lynn 1959, Hereford Utd 1956, Peterborough Utd 1953, Buxton 1951……Worcester City 1983, Burton Albion 1984, Sutton Utd 1987 and Enfield 1991.

37 – Aldershot 0 v Sheffield Utd 6, August 1st 1970

A crowd of 9504 turned up at the Recreation Ground for a Watney Cup match……..we were rubbish that day.

36 – Aldershot 0 v Lincoln City 3, March 14th 1992

1473 ‘relatives sat at the side of the bed’ as our beloved Club slipped away…….and just a few days later Aldershot FC was dead.

35 - Carlisle Utd 1 v Aldershot Town 1, December 28th (Tues) 2005

Our second season in the ‘Conference’ and for Christmas we were given a present of the longest away trip imaginable……..

And it was cold, very, very cold.

Just a handful of Shots supporters were foolhardy enough to leave the comfort of their homes far behind simply to stand like Adelie Penguins on the Petteril End ‘ice flow’. And there too stood dear old Jim Robinson protected from the ‘cruel winter’s wind’ by no more than a flimsy jacket, his gloves left safe on the coach – parked up at the Rugby Club.

I watched the game, glowing from the heat generated by my new ‘Antarctic mitts’…….sorry Jim, but my guilt felt nice and warm.

34 – Aldershot Town 6 v Hendon 2, April 26th 2003

With the Rymans Premier League title won at Canvey Island a few days earlier, Aldershot celebrated promotion to the ‘national conference’ in some style……and 'keeper Nikki Bull scored from the penalty spot in front of the East Bank.

33 – Cardiff City 2 v Aldershot 0, March 20th 1992

Aldershot FC’s last game in the League…… just a few days later we were officially BUST.

The Football League statement that followed the High Court decision was short and to the point….'The liquidator called in to supervise the winding-up order of Aldershot confirmed to the League that no offers had been received for the Club. It is with deep regret that the League is left with little alternative but to announce that Aldershot’s membership is terminated with immediate effect.'

32 – Carlisle Utd v Aldershot Town (Conference play-off semi-final second leg), May 6th (Fri) 2005

Ok, in the end we were so disappointingly beaten in a penalty shoot-out….and yes, the Carlisle fans were moronic…..and yes, it was a long and sad overnight trip back to Wales……but when Jammie Slabber scored in the last minute of normal time, to keep us in the tie, the explosion of joy and outpouring of emotion was as big as I have experienced in 50 years of following the Shots.

31 – April 22nd 1992, the Shots show signs of renewal

Terry Owens held a public meeting to seek support for the ‘proposed’ new Aldershot Town FC….the Shots were soon to be ‘alive and kicking’.

Aldershot came back to life in 1992 because for many, its power was defined by something greater than anything that money could achieve, or indeed destroy.

Our Club was recreated by the genuine passion that flows through the veins of us all.

30 – Aldershot 3 v Huddersfield Town 1 (FA Cup R3 replay), January 12th 1970

A crowd of 14332 watched Jimmy Melia destroy an excellent Huddersfield side on a typically heavy Recreation Ground……..

Melia stood on the goal line with the ball at his feet and teased the lumbering ‘Town’ defender…….waiting, waiting, waiting……the desperate lunge too late….too pathetic.

Yes, a simple back heel……that should do it.

29 – Liverpool 1 v Aldershot 0 (FA Cup R3), January 2nd 1971

If the game was hardly memorable, the trip there and back certainly was…the ‘special’ trains were late leaving Aldershot and ‘picking up’ at Woking….just outside of Crewe the ‘special’ took a ‘short cut’ along a mineral line…… the driver leaned out of his cab and asked a signalman, ‘Am I OK for Liverpool’.

The return train was freezing and we all enjoyed a game of Bingo with ‘DJ Ken’…….but how did Dennis Brown fail to score with the goal open in front of him!

28 - Reading 6 v Aldershot 2 (FA Cup R1), December 13th 1967

Dad said, ‘No, I’m not going to take you to Elm Park, son’. It’s funny how wise Dad’s can be…….

27 – Darlington v Aldershot Town (match postponed at 1230pm), January 16th 2010

"Unless you support Aldershot and live in Middlesbrough, Darlington will always be listed under ‘extreme’ when writing a book entitled ‘Shots on the Road’.

After a month of snow and ice leading to postponements and frustration, it was great to hear the optimism emanating from the Darlington Arena last week - ‘The game is definitely on.’

So at 0600hrs yesterday (16/1/10) I left a very sceptical wife tucked up in bed, safe from the storm force winds that had battered our house all night, and started the long journey north. Although for just a moment, as my car stirred from its mid-winter slumbers, I too started to doubt my sanity."

Fourteen hours later……and

"I think the game was always in doubt and it only took a fussy referee to leave me looking for somewhere to have lunch before returning home to face the inevitable, ‘I said you were mad’."

– A Shot from Wales (first published 17th January 2010)

26 – Swindon Town 7 v Aldershot 0 (FA Cup R3), January 8th 1983

After an easy 4v0 victory over Wimborne Town and then a superb 3v1 away win at Portsmouth, optimism was high as we pointed my brother’s new BMW in the direction of Swindon…..picking up a ‘Shots sceptic’ on the way….

’Well, I’ve never seen them play good football’, Dave offered as we pulled into a country pub just a few miles from the County Ground.

‘You’ll be pleasantly surprised by our energy and pace’, I confidently replied….

We had a great view of the game from our seats high up in the ‘old stand’…….we were bad, so very bad that day…..

25 - Aldershot Town 2 v Accrington Stanley 1, August 12th 2003

Our first game back in a national league was played out with me still in bed following a period in hospital.

The Met Police and Chertsey Town were of course necessary encounters as we fought our way back to the League….but Aldershot v Shrewsbury Town, Hereford Utd, Exeter City, Chester City…..now that sounded so much better.

24 –Tamworth 3 v Aldershot Town 3, October 18th 2003

After a long period of recovery I was ‘allowed’ to attend my first game of the 2003/04 season. A late equaliser secured a point for the Shots and England beat South Africa 25 v 6 in the ‘pool games’ of the Rugby World Cup…….

Aldershot went on to reach the play-off final and England were crowned Rugby World Champions.

23 – Bolton Wanderers 2 v Aldershot 2 (play-off semi-final), May 17th 1987

Play-offs were introduced in 1987 to add excitement to the end of season promotion race. Aldershot eased past Bolton in a tense affair at the crumbling Burnden Park….a first game for my four-year-old son.

22 - Aldershot Town 0 v Bristol Rovers 0 (FA Cup R1), November 17th 2001

Still 18 months away from getting back to a national league, this fixture was a perfect opportunity for Aldershot to grab the first round cup headlines……a big crowd, plenty of anticipation…..oh yes, and my brothers and I were where?

In Bristol of course….well Dyrham Park to be precise.

My sister had decided to get married on a Saturday during the football season with no more than, ‘Oh, have Aldershot got a game that day….’

She then seemed somewhat surprised by the radios in the church and in the photos and at the pre-reception drinks….

21 – Altrincham 5 v Aldershot Town 1, January 28th 2006

Moss Lane is one of my favourite grounds….in fact when the hospitality and genuine friendliness of the Club is added to the simple form of the ground then it could easily be the best……..

This was a bad result, of course…but then did I care after a couple of pints in the social club and a meat and potato pie with mushy peas on the terraces? No, not if I’m being honest….!

20 – Aldershot 1 v Swindon Town 2 (FA Cup R4), January 25th 1964

16000 fans packed into the Recreation Ground to see the Shots narrowly lose to high flying Swindon Town……..Mike Summerbee, Don Rogers, Ernie Hunt, Roger Smart and Bill Atkins were just too fast and too good.

19 – Aldershot 0 v Norwich City 4 (Milk Cup Rd 3), November 6th 1985

After a hard fought 0v0 draw with the Cup holders at Carrow Road nearly 10000 fans (four times the early season’s average) packed the Recreation Ground to see….well nothing really, as the ground was covered by an impenetrable fog and I reckon it was only the referee who saw the ball enter our net on four occasions…..

18 – Newport County 2 v Aldershot 3, September 18th 1971

After the excitement of playing Manchester Utd and Liverpool the previous year, it was inevitable that 1971/72 was to become no more than a pretty average season – the Shots finishing 17th and Newport 14th.

I drove down to the game with my brother and his girlfriend. We found our way to the ageing Somerton Park and then went in search of someone who could sell us some reserved seats. We spotted a man pushing a wheelbarrow. The barrow was full of turf.

‘I’m sure the turf will be used to cover up the speedway track that cuts across the corners of the hard and bumpy pitch’, I thought to myself as the four corner flags tucked securely under his arms came clearly into view. ‘Here is a man with much to do’, I mused.

‘Any chance of getting some tickets for the game’, I called out from the side of the pitch. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll be with you’, his reply was instant and courteous.

Five minutes later we were in his ‘cupboard’ – his desk was covered by ‘stuff’ and a mountain of box files reached up to the damp stained ceiling, no doubt holding the rotting tiles in place……

‘Give me your names’, he asked as he busily rummaged in the waste bin.

He found three old envelopes and carefully printed our names on the back. ‘Follow me’…….’where would you like to sit?’

‘Here will be fine’, I replied.

He pinned the envelopes to the wooden benches and went back to his pre-match task of laying turf….

At 2.50pm we returned to take up our reserved seats……….

17 – Aldershot 3 v Southend 0, March 25th 1978

In a season when Southend were promoted and Aldershot finished fifth…..another ‘play-off’ year (if only!)….. this game is remembered not for the Brodie and Dungworth (2) goals but for a mindless act that, typically for the seventies, was simply 'accommodated'…...

We entered the Rec at the Redan Hill end…..a queue had formed for the adult turnstile, so as my ‘big’ brother and I waited to enter the ground, our ‘little’ brother was already through the junior gate and heading down towards the South Stand.

From a distance it appeared to be no more than the usual scuffle between rival fans. But as we got closer we could see that it was our ‘little’ brother who was being attacked by a very large and ‘booted’ skinhead.

We quickened our pace and ran down the path through the gardens and in no time we were upon the ‘fan’…..the Southend thug was wrestled off our brother’s head and we dragged him across to a policeman, who had been standing, just watching the incident…..

’This idiot has been smashing our younger brother’, we advised, awaiting the call for assistance to remove the ‘animal’ from the Rec.

‘Jolly good, on your way son…..enjoy the game’…..the complacency no more than a portent to the tragic events that in the next decade would rip the heart out of so many lives.

The chronology is sadly well defined. A history dating back to the ‘60s when Mods and Rockers played out the First Leg at the seaside; Brighton or Southend or Great Yarmouth, with the return fixture at Stamford Bridge or the Den.

Then the ‘70s saw the emergence of organised hooligan groups (Firms). Burnley offered the Suicide Squad and West Ham the infamous, Inter City Crew.

But the events that unfolded before our television eyes at Heysel, on 29 May 1985 would be the tragic dynamic for change. 39 Juventus fans were crushed to death after Liverpool followers broke through a line of police. They ran toward the Juventus fans in a section containing both English and Italian supporters. The fence separating them collapsed. Fighting broke out. Fans fled. A wall collapsed……

English clubs were banned from European competitions until 1990.

The Popplewell Committee was set up as a consequence of a riot at Birmingham City when a young boy lost his life. The disturbance that followed was described by Justice Popplewell as more like ‘the Battle of Agincourt than a football match’.

Shortly thereafter the Bradford City Fire was added to the Popplewell brief. Despite not being hooligan related the terrible event was undoubtedly a direct result of the amateurish and disturbingly arrogant demeanour of football authorities across the UK at that time.

‘Football may not be able to continue in its present form much longer’.

When 96 innocent fans died in the tragic events of Hillsborough on April 15th 1989 the Government were forced into action.

The passing of the Football Spectators Act 1989 changed the landscape of our game….probably for ever.

16 - Shrewsbury Town 3 v Aldershot 1 (FA Cup R5 replay), February 26th 1979

Sadly my dear old friend Betty died last year. Perhaps not something that will stir the emotions of many Shots fans, but for me her death secured the importance of my own piece of her life.

Betty, who was born just two years after the outbreak of the Great War and then decorated for her work in the Fire Service during the Second, moved to East Anglia when her husband left the frenetic BBC newsroom in London for the tranquillity of regional television.

And her great passion…well other than red wine and golf…was to be immersed in an ocean of crafts - crochet, knitting, sewing, dress making, spinning and weaving. Somehow producing her most brilliant ‘stuff’ when she was gently drunk.

I didn’t really want the hat. Perhaps it didn’t quite fit my mid twenties ‘trendy’ image.

‘But then I suppose it will be warm. And it is an excellent replacement for the one I threw away ten years ago’, I thought to myself as I was presented with the ‘bobble hat’ just in time for the Shrewsbury Town Cup replay……

And it has been with me ever since………

15 – Aldershot Town 4 v Stevenage 0, September 12th 2006

"Joining the M4 at the Madejski, last night, and pointing the car towards Wales my mind was on fire with the emotion of the night. A night that hadn’t started that great.

After the long drive down from my office in Cardiff, the last thing I wanted to see was Edwards having a nice chat and sipping fruit cordial with Molesley in the Social Club, as our ‘boys’ were warming up. And Winfield to replace the brilliant Edwards was not a swap of choice….then Day was to report injured.

The trepidation mounted as we missed chance after chance……and then Barnard was just a tad too clever with the penalty…..…….but the noise and passion…..the power and pace of our forwards.

Somehow the goals just seemed inevitable……and how brilliant they all were. Different of course, but all contributing to a feeling that will last forever in the minds of all those present."

- A Shot from Wales (first published August 12th 2007)

14 – Hereford Utd v Aldershot Town (Nationwide Conference play-off semi-final, second leg), May 3rd 2004

After securing a hard fought 1v1 draw at the Recreation Ground the prospects for the second leg were not great……but a surprisingly organised show by the Shots led to a penalty shoot-out……and we won! (4v2 on penalties)

13 – Aldershot Town 1 v Weymouth 0, March 27th 2007

Without doubt the departure of ‘Saint’ Terry Brown (manager), from Aldershot Town, was completed, in this ‘win only world’, with a sensitivity rarely displayed by football clubs.

And so on Tuesday March 27th 2007, after five years in charge, Terry Brown took control of his last game, and at 2200hrs he was sent on his way with the applause of the East Bank ringing in his ears.

12 and 11 - The ‘first’ Division 4 play-off final (two legs), May 22nd 1987 and May 25th 1987

Aldershot 2 v Wolverhampton Wanderers 0
Wolverhampton Wanderers 0 v Aldershot 1

Despite finishing 9 points behind Wolves and losing both League encounters Aldershot easily beat the ‘fallen giants’ at the Recreation Ground and never looked in any danger of losing the advantage just a couple of days later in front of 20000 fans at Molineux……play-offs are so unfair!

10 - ‘A fan for all seasons’ - James ‘Jimmy’ Robinson, July 16th 2009

I was privileged to have been invited to give the address at Jimmy’s funeral - held at Aldershot Crematorium on Thursday 16th July 2009.

For 62 seasons Jimmy gripped the railings in the North Stand following his team……….

"As I stood next to Jimmy at Exeter on April 15th 2008 I could clearly see that the restoration of League football to the Recreation Ground was achieved, not by the players and the management, but through the combined emotional power of people like Jimmy.

Promotion from the Blue Square Premier followed by a season back in the Football League for Aldershot Town, was shared with his many friends…….the long and hard fought battles, a personal triumph.

James Robinson was the personification of hope, friendship and strength."

– A Shot from Wales (first published July 7th 2010)

9 – Aldershot 2 v Aston Villa 1 (FA Cup R3 replay), January 8th 1964

We queued for what seemed hours when the mighty Villa visited the Recreation Ground in 1964. I watched the game from the terracing behind the seats in the North Stand, just about where the ‘corporates’ sit today.

And with the 2v1 victory the Shots secured a place in the record books - the first time that Aston Villa had been removed from the FA Cup by a team outside of the top flight.

8 - Aldershot 1 v Manchester Utd 3 (Football League Cup R2), September 9th 1970

The day United came to town and the only time that I have stood on the East Bank….

They say the crowd was 18509 but I reckon it was more. Richard Walden’s opening goal was scored at the ‘far end’, but who cared…we went mad, and the thousands of ‘travelling’ United fans fell silent.

In the end Charlton, Best and Law were just too good.

7 - Torquay United 1 v Aldershot Town 2, March 16th 2008

Probably the defining game in our ‘Conference’ winning season…..

The game was tense and frenetic. The crowd passionate but totally consumed by the public emotion.

Aldershot scored early on…..Torquay equalised in the second half. Then Scott Davies hit a superb volley in the last minute of injury time, to win the game.

The explosion of feelings in the ‘away’ end, powerful and beyond control.

The silence on three sides of the ground, no more than a shroud for the pain felt by 3500 Torquay supporters……

6 - Aldershot 2 v Shrewsbury Town 2 (FA Cup R5), February 20th 1979

An absolutely stunning John Dungworth second goal should have been enough to secure a quarter-final spot…… but then Malcolm Crosby gifted the Shrews a last minute equaliser. We were all on our feet shouting….'No, don’t pass it back to our ‘keeper….' 'No, it will slow down on the wet surface….' 'No, it’s bound to stop in a puddle….' It did.

The Quarter-Final draw for the FA Cup had us playing away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, but the replay at Gay Meadow was simply one game too many…..

5 - Exeter City 1 v Aldershot 1, April 12th 2008

After 16 years of combined effort and shared emotion the party to celebrate promotion back to the Football League was one to savour.

But the following day my world seemed just grey and flat. The Champagne laced with adrenalin served only to dull the brain, making any sensible thought a step too far.

'Did we really play in red shorts?', I enquired of my brother.

The night before no more than a footnote in the Times….’Aldershot Town promoted to the Football League’.

4 - Aldershot 1 v Crystal Palace 0, December 27th 1976

Malcolm Allison brought his swaggering south London ‘playboys’ to the Rec only to see them frustrated by our ageing ‘keeper, Tony Godfrey. Attack after attack was beaten off….save after brilliant save was made by Godfrey, who had been enjoying non-League retirement until Christmas.

And then a solitary Pat Morrissey goal was enough to send most of the 13997 fans home very, very happy……and left ‘Big Mal’s’ fedora looking just a tad crumpled.

3 - Shrewsbury Town v Aldershot Town (Nationwide Conference Play-off Final), May 16th 2004

My season had started in hospital and ended up at the Britannia Stadium, Stoke. It was a season that exposed the senses to the beauty of power and pace. A year when our young team developed a confidence through their own innocence.

And the play-off final? Simply an explosion of excitement dressed securely in a feeling of community pride.

We lost on penalties….Shrewsbury regained their League status and Aldershot would have to wait a bit longer to realise the ‘impossible dream’.

2 - Stockport County 1 v Aldershot 1, May 4th 1973

A Roger Joslyn goal and a brilliant save by Tony Godfrey secured the point that promoted Aldershot from the ‘basement’ to Division 3 for the first time in our history.

The all-night celebration with friends at Manchester University was joyfully followed the next day by Sunderland disposing of Leeds Utd in the FA Cup Final - courtesy of an Ian Porterfield goal and a save by Jim Montgomery that was almost equal to that made by ‘our Tone’, the night before……..

And at number 1……

Aldershot 1 v Reading 0 (FA Cup R2) January 16th 1967

Jack Howarth scores the greatest goal…..

I guess the 1966/7 season was like so many others…….excellent home form and pretty dismal ‘on the road’.

The final League Division 4 position - tenth.

Jack Howarth had joined the Shots at the beginning of the previous season, scoring his first goal in only his second outing - the first of 171 League and a further 25 Cup goals.

After disposing of Torquay United on November 26th, in the first round of the FA Cup, Aldershot were paired with arch rivals Reading in round two. The game was set for Saturday January 7th, but as the insert to the match day programme confirmed, ‘Thank you for purchasing this programme. As you will observe, it was prepared for the original fixture but cancelled because of the unfit state of the ground.’ – the game was finally set for Monday 16th.

And only two days before the ‘big’ encounter, Aldershot flattened Newport County 5v0, in a League game at the Rec. The Shots were in form and the pitch was left looking like the Severn Estuary at low tide.

My memories of the FA Cup game are incredibly vivid.

Even within the relative sanctuary of the North Stand the pressure from the crowd was intense. ‘Happy Jack’ – The Who, played with such a force that it shook the bolts free from every loudspeaker around the ground.

The floodlights tried their best to cut through the gloom that engulfed the Rec and the massive cheer, as the teams came out onto the pitch from the two tunnels in the South Stand, made me shudder with excitement.

And then the goal.

The greatest goal that I have ever experienced in all of my years watching Aldershot.

A goal, that like a fine wine improves with age. The images in my mind enhanced by a power far greater than that found in any modern day computer.

And with just a very tired newspaper photo of the moment when Jack released his thunderbolt to refresh my mind, the status of the goal can never be challenged.

Steve Curry wrote in the Daily Express the following day:

"Howarth was swept off the field at the finish by frenzied fans who had swung from the grandstand roof and climbed floodlight pylons to view this thriller……….

Ernie Yard mis-hit a pass and Peter Kearns whipped in to snap it up and send Howarth away.

Big, bustling Howarth smoothed in on goal and even the defiance of brave goalkeeper Arthur Wilkie could not keep this one out………………."

50 years of following the Shots….….Happy Days

Club watch.....

2010-10-17T13:09:00.007+01:00

Not satisfied with upsetting local businesses the Club has now decided to take a ‘swipe’ at its own fans.

"Here at ATFC, we would like to apologise for a comment that was made a few weeks ago regarding promoting the ATFC facilities to the detriment of local pubs and external facilities" – Aldershot Town FC match day programme, 16th October 2010.

And from the Club Secretary, in the same programme, came the following ‘warning’, "The economic climate is very hard at present and it’s not about to get better in the short term. So when we read about supporters complaining about the type of football KD is playing and that they won’t return until something changes just think carefully about what you are declaring".

Look 'Mr Secretary', our Club came back to life through the effort and combined emotional support of ‘us’, the fans. We therefore have every right to express both concern and opinion. And as you quite rightly point out…times are tough and we will all have to prioritise our expenditure in the future. The trick that you must pull off is to get the Shots priority rating to the top of the page….

And it does seem somewhat pointless to use such unfortunate language in a programme that will only be read by those who have continued to attend despite, ‘the type of football that KD is playing’, and it will certainly not be read by the 1000 fans who have already become established non-attendees.

50 years ago today.......

2010-10-15T19:19:00.020+01:00

I don’t suppose parents let four year old children walk on their own to the local recreation ground today. In fact I’m not sure that youngsters walk anywhere today. The roads are all so busy. The cars so fast. Drivers more concerned with the incoming text message than the small child escaping the security of their home.

But in 1957 the run down past the allotments, through the alleyway and out across Cove Road, by St Christopher’s Church, was something that I did with my brother every Saturday.

We were like any two kids on a beach, running down to the surf, blind to the dangers that only adults can see. Our focus….Cove Green. And our mission….to get there with our precious leather football before the match kicked off.

Cove Football Club was formed in 1897 by a group of local people playing on a field behind their favourite public house. Then after just a few years the club moved to Cove Green, their home until the 1970’s. The club left the Green in 1973, when they developed their present facilities at Oak Farm.

I loved going down to the Green on a Saturday. We always stood behind the goal, talking to the keeper and asking the stupid questions that little kids specialise in. And when the heavy leather ball hit the back of the net the sound was like waves crashing down on to the pebble bank at Southsea beach during a violent winter’s storm.

A sound so sadly lost to football fans today.

Cove 14 v 0 Stoke Rec….plenty of ‘crashing’ that day and an opportunity for us to ask the keeper if he would let us have his boots. Gosh, he was so down and despondent…then just as he was about to hand them over his manager shouted out from the far side of the pitch, ‘ok for next Saturday…we’re at home’. The ‘Stoke’ goalie took a firm grip of his worn out boots and disappeared into the timber pavilion that stood in the top corner of the Green. Big and jet black from years of creosoting the building gave off a pungent, overpowering smell that cleaned out the nasal passages everytime I went close in search of another ‘famous’ autograph.

The run down to Cove Green became our regular Saturday adventure for the next three years….I can’t remember any of the players names and my autograph book was lost years ago, but to a small boy the matches were simply magical.

When it came, Dad’s invitation was a bit of a surprise. He had never shown any interest in joining us down the Green and I certainly couldn’t think of any occasion when he had been to see the Shots on his own…

’Son, I thought we would go and watch Aldershot on Saturday’.

I responded just like any boy aged 7, who loved football, would, ‘ok, can I take my ball and play behind the goal’.

‘No Son – I don’t think so’.

And that’s how my lifetime obsession with Aldershot started and Saturday October 15th 1960 became the date of my first game at the Recreation Ground, Aldershot.

I remember getting to Aldershot quite early. The streets around the ground were full with supporters. Most of them were wearing blue and white hats with scarves wrapped tightly around their necks ('Posh' fans). The crowd was about 12500, certainly a lot more than I was used to 'down the Green'! I held on to my Dad’s coat not wanting to get separated from him in this big and new world.

Peterborough United, in their first League season brought about 6000 fans to the game and they were clearly not going to just watch the game and say no more than, ‘good shot, well done’. No, the noise was deafening as we queued up at the historic turnstiles.

Steam trains rumbled over the bridge, just behind the ground, covering the High Street in a blanket of sulphurous smoke. The carriages packed with even more supporters on their way to the game.

We entered the stadium, I let go of Dad’s coat and ran up the steps leading through the gardens to the ground. And there it was. The majestic form of the South Stand, and in the distance the East Bank full of visiting and home fans, bursting with colour. Then away to my left, the calm and serenity of the North Bank

I stood with Dad behind the goal at the High Street End, gripping the fencing and shaking with the excitement of the occasion.

Peterborough kicked off towards the East Bank…that I can remember. As for the rest of the game…well it was a 1v1 draw and Peterborough went on to become Division 4 champions, beating us 7v1 at London Road on the way…..

50 years on and the Rec really hasn’t changed very much, although we are now no longer allowed to stand behind the goal at the High Street End……and after all these years I’m no wiser, just older, but I do sit in the serenity of the North Stand.

On Saturday Kevin Dillon, Aldershot Town manager, will celebrate his 50th game in charge…..as I celebrate my 50th year…..I look forward to an entertaining game!

Oxford United 0 v 1 Aldershot Town

2010-10-15T14:17:00.007+01:00

‘He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow’ - (George Eliot)

Jan Ludvik Hoch was born in the small town of Slatinske Doly in the Carpathian Mountains of Czechoslovakia in 1923.

He died Ian Robert Maxwell on November 5th 1991.

He fell overboard from his luxury yacht, Lady Ghislaine and his body was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands.

And Oxford United was, until 1960, Headington United. A club founded in 1893. The name change no more than a matter of profile, driven by the desire to gain entry to the Football League….

And in 1962 their wish came true, when they were elected to join the League following the demise of Accrington Stanley.

Early success was followed by a period of mediocrity…..and then along came Robert Maxwell. A man whose business empire was built on heavy indebtedness and dishonest practices. His arrogance was such that he ‘borrowed’ millions of pounds from his companies’ pension funds to prop up his group of companies.

Yes, in 1982 Cap’n Bob the man lampooned by the satirical magazine Private Eye as the ‘bouncing Czech’ , took over Oxford United. His ‘money’ took Oxford into the top flight and subsequently they experienced success at Wembley, a 3v0 win over Queens Park Rangers in the Milk Cup Final of 1986.

Then Bob was off to Derby and the Club started to slide…..finally losing their League status when Accrington Stanley achieved promotion from the ‘Conference’.

So it is somewhat ‘reassuring’ to find the ‘bouncing Czech’s’ arrogance still pervading the club……it makes the 1v0 win last Saturday, courtesy of a brilliant Marvin Morgan goal, so much the sweeter.

It's good to be back....

2010-10-15T13:55:00.012+01:00

This blog was established in July 2007 and tracked Aldershot Town’s successful Blue Square Premier campaign that led to the restoration of League football to my beloved Recreation Ground. The blog was maintained throughout our first season back in the League and for much of last season too…..it went into hibernation earlier this year.

So as a reprise……the following is from July 1st 2007.

'Hi there Aled. Good trip. Did you travel down from north Wales this morning?' I enquired as we made our way through the terminal building at Heathrow.

We had met just once before; a short planning meeting held in the depth of mid-Wales, but after just one cup of coffee I could sense we were both thinking the same thing…..'Kuwait is a long way to go to give a series of lectures to the Ministry of Sport.'

Check-in, baggage security checks, body search, more checks, more searches. 'Certainly no risks were being taken here', I thought to myself.

'Exits left. Right.' The Flight attendant was in full flow. 'Oxygen above', with just a hint of body armour under the blouse.

The plane quickly climbed into the clear blue sky above London. And my hearing was restored to normal at 35,000 feet, with Paris stretched out below like Bekonscot, the world’s oldest model village.

I turned to face Aled.

'You like football then. So Rugby isn't your religion. What team do you support?'

It's bound to be Bangor City, I thought to myself. European Cup Winners Cup against AC Napoli in 1962 – if the away goals rule had applied all those years ago Bangor City would have secured a quite remarkable victory over the one time Italian giants. As it was they lost in the replayed tie at Highbury.

'Sorry Aled, who did you say? Wolves? 'Yes, Wolverhampton Wanderers’, came the reply without the faintest hint of a Brummie accent.

'Mmmm….and your best memory?' Aled's features lit up with the brilliance of the Molineux floodlights. 'The European nights. Stan Cullis. Billy Wright. Great adventures.'

'Yes, I'm sure the ground must have been rocking with excitement and passion when Real Madrid and Dynamo Moscow visited the Black Country’, I was so reassuring with my agreement.

'And your worst memory?'

'Oh easy.' Aled's response was instant and the recall clearly vivid. '1987, the 4th Division play-off final. We had beaten Aldershot at home and away in the League…finishing nine points clear of them at the end of the season. Then quite unbelievably we lost two nil away and one nil at Molyneux. It was awful…..so disappointing. I was devastated….it was so unfair……

’So what team do you support?’, Aled enquired with an air of innocence.

I smiled and settled back into my seat. Kuwait is a long way to go…..

It's now 50 years, to the day, that I experienced my first game at the Recreation Ground, Aldershot…….and I look forward to quite a few more….

'For one night only.....'

2010-07-07T09:11:00.010+01:00

One year ago today, James (Jimmy) Robinson died.

To many at the Rec, Jimmy Robinson needed no introduction. A committed supporter from 1947 to 2009, on the old East Bank when it was cinder and railway sleepers to a season ticket in the North Stand in the early seventies…..

So as we race towards the start of a new season wrapped up in the security of professionalism and commercialism…..with thoughts turning to the needs of our corporate ‘supporters’ (for the day)…time to stop and think. Well, perhaps for just a couple of minutes…..as England return in disgrace from South Africa, questions are raised about the power and effect of the Premier League, players and managers throughout the professional game act only to disengage from the ‘average’ supporter and where existence…survival….and progress are all dependent on a world far removed from the sanctuary of the East Bank in 1947.

And despite this blog entering hibernation in March I think it is fitting that I should post, in full, the address that I was privileged to have been invited to give at Jimmy’s funeral - held at Aldershot Crematorium on Thursday 16th July 2009.

So ‘for one night only’…..

James (Jimmy) Robinson

As I left home first thing this morning, my wife shouted down the stairs – ‘keep to your prepared text and don’t, whatever you do, attempt to recall all of Jimmy’s 62 seasons at the Recreation Ground.’

I just wish she had reminded me to put my reading glasses in the car.

And one of the great mysteries. Meeting up with Jimmy on match day. His arm extended. His hand offered, ‘Bonjour Wales’.

And my one regret. Never responding as Derrick Trotter, from Only Fools and Horses, would have done, ‘Mange Tout, Aldershot’.

News from my brother that Jimmy had been admitted to hospital shortly after he returned from a trip to Paris came as no surprise to me. His fight against cancer had been long, determined and resolute.

And when Jimmy sadly died, it wasn’t for the first time that the Football Club message board had been used to report the loss of a fan.

But something made this posting different.

No, it wasn’t just the fact that some 40 tributes have now been viewed over 4000 times. And no, not because all of the words used have been genuinely warm and kind.

Yes, as I posted my own contribution I could see quite clearly that many of the thoughts were structured around a common theme, and I’m not referring to Jimmy’s vice like grip of his pint glass.

Bob the Red wrote….’ The news has knocked me back a bit. I wasn't exactly a close friend but I did know him, in fact I think that everybody must have seen him around at some time or other on match days. He loved his football, and he loved his ale. I knew that when I travelled on any of the away coaches I only had to follow him to find a decent pub, he knew them all. I will certainly miss him.’

Alan B, who lives in the midlands, wrote…’ I've seen Jim loads of times at away games over the years but never got to know him, just the occasional nod of recognition. Everybody who follows the Shots away will know he was one of the most loyal fans a Club could wish for.’

And East Bank Boy wrote…’ Jim was a lovely man, very approachable; you could always go and have a natter with him on the coach or at the game. I started going to away matches on my own on the supporters coach in 2003 and I used to chat to him quite a bit. Last season I started going on the RBA (Red and Blue Army) bus but still managed to have a word with him occasionally. He always had something to moan about which was great as I could always find something to moan about with him! I'm going to miss him….’

Jimmy started following the Shots in 1947 although he could never recall his first game at the Rec, only the fact that it cost 9d return on the double decker bus from Dogmersfield to Aldershot.

In 1950 Jimmy joined the RAF as a stores accountant and was stationed at Middle Wallop. On Saturdays he used to get the train up from Andover via Basingstoke and Woking to Aldershot. In those days the Shots played in front of 8 or 9000 fans and even the reserves played to crowds of 1000. Then after the game Jimmy would hit the town….well the cinema, and he probably downed the odd pint before catching the last train home.

And by the time that I started following Aldershot in 1960 I guess Jimmy was paying the adult rate, and probably having a good moan about the ‘exorbitant cost of getting in these days’.

From the experience of the cinder and railway sleepers that formed the East Bank Jimmy moved to the North Stand in the early seventies. And to a position that he maintained pretty much for the rest of his life.

And when Aldershot Football Club died in 1992 Jimmy was still gripping the railings of the North Stand, refusing to be removed.

But somehow we came back….happier…stronger…optimistic…joyful. And gosh didn’t Jimmy make the most of the new adventures. Consigned to memory the inevitably dismal trip north to Barrow, the open terrace, horizontal rain, barely warm Bovril and a last minute own goal…..to be replaced by the superb Clubroom at Eastleigh and the beautiful ground at Bognor…..and the last minute winner.

For more years than I care to remember my family has parked, on match days, close to Redan Hill, the walk down to the ground always exposing deep seated emotions. The floodlights coming into view first, then the East Bank, the North Stand followed by a glimpse of the ageing but classic form of the South Stand. Everything in place…..perhaps no different to the comfort blanket formed by the quintessential Englishness of the pub overlooking the Village Cricket Ground at Hartley Wintney or the strength exuded by the commanding presence of Winchester Cathedral.

Then when I look around in the North Stand the faces are always the same. Perhaps all showing signs of age but if you look close enough you can see how together they all make up the DNA of our Club. Each carrying the same emotion that makes my own long journey back to the Recreation Ground so compelling.

And etched in Jimmy’s face…victory over Aston Villa, Sir Matt Busby bringing Charlton, Law and Best to the Rec in 1970…. ….Jack Howarth and the Cup win over Reading….so many shared experiences.

So as I stood next to Jimmy at Exeter on April 15th last year (2008) I could clearly see that the restoration of League football to the Recreation Ground was achieved, not by the players and the management, but through the combined emotional power of people like Jimmy.

Promotion from the Blue Square Premier followed by a season back in the Football League for Aldershot Town, was shared with his many friends…….the long and hard fought battles a personal triumph.

James Robinson was the personification of hope, friendship and strength.

I will miss you Jimmy, but in my thoughts you will always be there, gripping the railings in the North Stand…..

A Shot from Wales
July 16th 2009

2010-03-03T09:20:00.000Z

Sorry, but A Shot from Wales is taking a break......

2010-03-02T12:23:00.004Z

Gordon Banks......

Trust and Confidence.....

2010-02-26T11:49:00.010Z

It was the summer of 1963 and my Dad got a new job that resulted in our family moving away from Cove, near Farnborough, to Chobham in Surrey. I had just one more year to go at Junior School – not the best time for a career move I thought to myself, with the life shaping ‘Eleven Plus’ looming large on the horizon.

But looking back I guess the decision to let me stay with my aunt and live away from home for a year was a good one. After all I was a ‘big grown up boy’. I was in the last year of juniors and captain of the soccer team. The fastest runner in the playground.

Yes, I felt like an adult.

The long days of summer that were surely designed to keep my mind away from thinking about the first day at Grammar School were noticeably absent and September 1964 came upon me very quickly.

The 55B stopped not far from our house and at 8.20am I rather timidly followed my brother up the steps of the Aldershot and District bus. And he was just behind Peter. ‘He can’t be going to the same school as me’, I thought to myself. He was massive. He was like a man. I found out later that Peter was about to commence his ‘O levels’ and was only a 5th former (Year 11 in ‘new money’).

I remember the day vividly. Late summer sun. No clouds. A cool breeze that somehow found its way into the subway underneath Woking Station. Blowing the litter around and throwing up dust that inevitably found its way into my eyes. I was crying as I entered the lower playground….from the dust not nerves. Although it could quite easily have been the other way round.

The 2nd and 3rd formers were already enjoying games of football across the width of the playground. The ‘men’, 4th and 5th formers, were occupying the goals that were painted on the walls, allowing them to play along the length of the ‘tarmac pitch’.

Gosh I felt small. And how stupid I must have looked in my shorts as I walked towards the steps leading to the upper playground and the exclusive domain of the 6th form. Every step taken in fear of one of the ‘big boys’ nicking the shiny new cap that was secured firmly to the top of my head.

The balls were flying all around me and I desperately wanted to get away. How I missed the sanctuary and calm of my old primary school. This all seemed so out of control……so big…..so intimidating.

I suppose on reflection my feelings were probably no different to the ones experienced by referee Gavin Ward, as he lost control of our game at Northampton a few weeks ago. We went on to secure a 3v0 win at the Sixfields Stadium despite the ‘first formers’ pretty feeble attempt to control the ‘big boys’.

I was probably about 20 yards away from the bottom of the steps when he appeared. Dressed in a green dust gown. Red hair poking out from underneath his green mortar board. Eyebrows that seemed to be growing ever upwards. His face ruddy. His manner full of foreboding. I stopped and turned towards my ‘bodyguard’.

‘Is that the Headmaster?’ I whispered nervously to my brother. ‘Oh no’, came the instant reply. ‘That’s Mr Butterworth, the Geography teacher.’- a man who I later christened Captain Scarlet.

With the shock of seeing merely the Geography master I was just a bit late getting up to my new classroom. And by the time I arrived in room 1S all of the desks were full with faces that I had never seen before - save for a ‘space’ at the back, next to a very large boy. We shared the small bench. He took up 75% of the seat and I perched myself on the end.

Our form teacher was Mr Skuse - a tall and upright man with a pallid complexion. He picked up the register and without raising his eyes from the list of 30 names he called out, ‘Alsop’. The boy next to me answered boldly, ‘Yes sir’. ‘First name, boy’.

‘Timothy Nigel Edward Lucian Cameron Miles - Alsop, Sir’.

Again, without raising his head, Mr Skuse asked. ‘And what do people call you, boy?’

‘Most people call me Fatty sir.’

A gentle smile formed across the face of ‘Paddy’ Skuse. A smile that I have carried around with me to this day.

A simple smile that somehow connected me to this man, securing my trust and confidence.

Watching Aldershot throw away a 2v0 lead over Dagenham on Tuesday night, to lose 3v2, was a disturbing experience. The final whistle no more than an invitation for our players to collapse to the ground in an advanced form of group malaise, followed by what appeared to be a well rehearsed skulk off the pitch.

And how portentous it was to observe our players combined failure to attempt just the slightest glance towards manager Kevin Dillon in search of acknowledgement and support.

But then with Dillon fixated by the referee, who had blown his whistle a few times too many in the second half, no doubt for no other reason than his boredom with the proceedings, any prospect of recognition by the ‘boss’ was minimal.

To date Dillon's judgement has been poor and his public statements appear insensitive. Of course he feels the need to be his own man. But such an approach will only work effectively when the organisation shares in the recognition of the need for change, is ‘signed up to the new style’ and when progress is evident.

Without doubt the exposed feeling that our approach before his arrival was unprofessional has been compounded by the mantra that the playing squad was inherited….’it’s not mine’…. Alongside this Dillon has chastised players in public and even questioned the value of the fans opinions. To me this does appear to be no more than the desire for change for change sake. An approach that is certainly not clever and one that will inevitably lead to mistakes.

The public dismissal of goalkeeper Ruiz, to be replaced by a young keeper from Bristol City has predictably been a disaster. The defence has been unsettled. The youngster has made countless errors. Goals have been unnecessarily conceded. Games have been lost. And to what end. Probably the restoration of Ruiz to the team on Saturday…Dillon’s myopia and obduracy combined to destroy the confidence of Stephen Henderson – ‘return him, Dillon, to the Robins before he suffers any more pain’.

Now how does that sound? The advice of a mere fan to a professional manager. The trenchant criticism of someone with a UEFA Pro Licence. Probably of no consequence whatsoever, I guess, to the single minded Dillon as he appears to give little regard to the opinion of ‘amateurs’.

I don’t like the man. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t make the players exude confidence and they now appear insecure.

But then I didn’t particularly like Gary Waddock….and I never liked Terry Brown. I did like Lenny Walker and Jimmy Melia and Tommy Mac….probably because they were exceptional players for the Shots before they took on the leadership of our Club - and I quite naturally carried forward my ‘idolisation’ of them to their period at the ‘helm’.

However the liking of a manager has no connection whatsoever with my respect for the contribution that the person makes to our Club.

In recent years both Terry and Gary contributed to the significant progress of the Shots. An advance that was an appropriate reward for the collective emotions of a passionate group of supporters. And the common denominator in each of our successful seasons has been the exuberance and combined power of our players.

It took Terry Brown just over a year to destroy the power that he unleashed in our Club. A power that was unfortunately beyond his imagination. But how we all loved the experience of the play off final at Stoke in 2004 and then the feeling of community as we shared in the pain of losing the penalty shoot out at Carlisle the following season.

Kevin Dillon has destroyed the team in just a few months.

And the evidence for such a statement? Just the simple, yet oh so telling, demeanour of our players as they left the pitch on Tuesday night.

‘Eyes to the left of him eyes to the right’……but not one look that said ‘please help me boss’. And not for one moment did he in return say, ‘I’m here to help you improve and put this poor result behind US. Together we will advance’.

No, Dillon had more important things on his mind…..that bloody referee needed seeing too…..

‘And the exuberance, confidence and vibrancy of the whole squad more than outweigh the occasional impetuous act……….’

’…….Aldershot came back to life in 1992 because for many, its power was defined by something greater than anything that money could achieve, or indeed destroy. Our Club was recreated by the genuine passion that flows through the veins of us all.’ –

From - 'A Look Back' – A Shot from Wales 4 Jan 2008.

I’m sure most observers of the Shots in recent years would agree that results could be improved with a tighter, more secure defence. But I had hoped that progress could have been made without putting the ball into the same orbit as Sputnik.

And the latest ‘leaks’ from the Club suggest that a big target man is on his way to the Rec….

Julian Alsop….age 36…..back to scoring ways at Cheltenham Town certainly fits the bill.

Now what was the adjective used by my brother when Alsop was last seen at the Rec……..

Time to 'restore factory settings.....'

2010-02-12T11:36:00.013Z

The comments that have divided opinion, following the appointment of manager Kevin Dillon, are of course a load of old nonsense.

But as I sat back quietly drinking my beer in the pub next door to Underhill Stadium last Saturday, I couldn’t avoid overhearing a range of views that were disturbingly similar, I’m sure, to those expressed in Newcastle over the arrival of Ruud Gullit…in north London when Tottenham appointed Christian Gross….following Bolton’s announcement that Gary Megson was to be the new manager…and across England when McClaren was ‘elevated’……

All good coaches. Some, good managers. All capable of dividing opinion.

Perhaps with Kevin it could be that the all consuming desire to be ‘his own man’ has led to public statements that appear insensitive and actions that have been based on unsound judgement. The drive to make an impact on the way we play appears from the outside to be no more than change for change sake.

Now of course we needed to modify our playing style after Gary Waddock left….but it was only necessary to make our defence more secure. Despite the free flowing football that restored League status to the Rec being quickly understood by the ‘big boys’, last season, it is still our greatest asset. An asset that should not be discarded lightly. And the current approach, which will only lead to our midfield developing ‘corporate neck ache’, as they search the sky for the ball, was not on the ‘must do list’ I sent Kevin when he was appointed.

Then to compound matters Dillon secured the services of a young goalkeeper, on loan from Bristol City. His League experience pretty much zero and his match experience in the previous 12 months, limited. Kevin Dillon replaced Ruiz, who has in my opinion been one of the revelations of the season, with Henderson. And inevitably the ‘young boy’ failed his test at Barnet.

Lewis Carroll died in January 1898 at his sister’s house in Guildford, Surrey and was buried in the Mount Cemetery. His last great work was, The Hunting of the Snark – a classic example of literary nonsense. An unusually long poem for Carroll and full of darkness.

‘The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it-- he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand-- so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day.

During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

From ‘The Preface’, The Hunting of the Snark – Lewis Carroll

Kevin Dillon still has time to reflect on his approach to the first few months at the Recreation Ground…..and the ’restoration of factory settings’ could be a good first move.

Images from Barnet.....

2010-02-12T10:06:00.008Z

Aldershot Town supporters left Underhill Stadium last Saturday pretty upset following a 3v0 defeat at the hands of a team whose 'good form' can only be found in the local history section of the Barnet Library....

A view from the North Stand.....

2010-02-05T16:20:00.008Z

Fellow Aldershot Town supporter Victoria Rogers came across her old autograph book a few days ago.....she opened it up and the memories came flooding back.

'Heroes....'

Deep down in one of my desk drawers a small green book rested quietly just waiting for the right moment to light up my mind.

And I have no idea what I was looking for the other day when I unearthed the autograph book that my Grandma gave me about 30 years ago.

But when I opened up the pages I was instantly reunited with a whole host of names that I hadn't thought about for years - friends from school, old teachers, family friends and sadly a few people who are no longer with us.

Now was Jane the girl with long hair…did she play hockey or was it the violin….and Peter, was it the Navy or Army that he joined?

I quickly flipped through the teenage ramblings and headed for the centre fold. And yes, there they were….spread over the next five pages. Murray Brodie, Malcolm Crosby, Alan Wooler, Joe Jopling, John Dungworth, Mick Earls, Glen Johnson, Alex McGregor, Will Dixon, Trevor Rockett, and Joe Butler.

Two pages on, and upside down, I found the signature of Terry Bell. I just know that my small book was thrown across the dressing room to Terry. He caught it and signed it without noticing that it was the wrong way up.

And Murray Brodie signed my book twice – I’m sure he knew that he was my favourite.

These precious signatures of Aldershot Football Club players from the 1970s were collected not by me, but by my Father. He secured them all on 31 January 1978 while he was working at the ground, as a welder. They were a wonderful gift to me, a 14-year-old devoted Aldershot fan.

But why did I treasure them so? Why should a few scribbled signatures from a bunch of footballers plying their trade in the lowest division of the Football League mean so much to a teenager?

Well probably because of the one simple word, that is the title to this article –‘heroes’. Of course, it is an overused word these days, but I still think ‘heroes’ are undoubtedly something that every teenager needs. And the Aldershot players of the 1970s were my heroes.

Now I was lucky enough to live near to several of the players that I followed with such admiration. And I would often see some of them coming out of the betting shop that was near to my home. For a young fan, this opportunity for a close encounter with a hero was really exciting.

The only problem was, like many teenagers I was too shy and could never manage to say so much as a ‘hello’ to any of my ‘gods’. Funny really, as I look back, because on a Saturday they all received my full attention. And I certainly had no inhibitions when chanting their names from the North Stand. Cheering their good play and feeling their pain when fouled. Yes, they were all something special….unique….sporting heroes to be admired.

Of course, I know now that such feelings were ridiculous! They were just ‘big boys’…men, not gods. Apart from kicking the ball around the Rec on a Saturday afternoon, they offered nothing to suggest that they were anything other than footballers in red and blue shirts.

But rational and considered thought is not something teenagers do well and just the sight of one of these heroes would render me speechless. In fact so dumb that I never did manage anything more than simply to stand and stare when I met them outside of the betting shop!

Fast forward thirty years and several of these heroes have reappeared at the Recreation Ground in a completely different guise. No longer wearing the shorts and shirts that gave them a god-like appearance they are now no more than men in smart coats, ties and jackets.

And no longer do they take to the field for 90 minutes of tough tackling, sharp shooting and fingertip saves. Today their appearance is restricted to – ‘just a few minutes on the pitch at half-time, Murray. We will ask you a couple of questions. Then perhaps you can draw the 50:50 winning ticket.’

Invited back as honoured guests to enjoy our Club’s hospitality how do these heroes of mine now appear?

Well, with some you can see immediately the ‘young blood’ that they once were. And with others? Ageing can be cruel. Some of them walk briskly, others slow. Some regimental and upright others stooped and pained. But they all leave me with a feeling that their enthusiasm for the Shots and the Recreation Ground has never waned.

So how do I feel about my heroes 30 years on? Has the passing of time taken every vestige of glamour away? Or do I see before me a collection of everlasting heroes.

Well, despite their extra padding and proliferation of grey hair I think that I can safely say, ‘everyone of them is still my hero’. Yes, when one of my ‘signatures’ from 1978 appears on the pitch at half-time my mind is instantly taken back to the many happy Saturdays spent sitting on a rail in the North Stand, wearing a hand knitted scarf and bobble hat (thank you Grandma). Images in my mind of the amazing goals, the penalty saves…..Glen, Terry, Murray….the visits to the betting shop….walking so close to me….why didn’t I say ‘hello’…..

At this point, my husband and son get bored with my reminiscence and I’m required to move on to more prosaic matters like…..

In essence, I think that my favourite ‘signatures’ will always be my heroes. They gave me something to admire and be proud of at a time in my life when it was needed. And once stored safely away in my desk draw they were guaranteed to be with me for life.

So I stand and applaud them all as they reappear on the pitch. I listen with affection to their online interviews on the website and will always be grateful for the role they played, however unconsciously, in my teenage life all those years ago.

They may be older and they may not be able to play our beloved game any more, but they will be forever my Aldershot players. They will always be my heroes.

Gosh, if only I had the courage to speak to them….

Victoria Rogers - January 2010

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Blessed Teresa of Calcutta - yes. Bobby Moore - yes. John Terry - no

2010-02-03T21:56:00.015Z

As I enter my 50th year of watching the Shots it’s hard to believe that I’m married to someone who has never been to a football match. Someone whose only soccer anecdote is based on the Allied Forces drawing 4v4 with Germany in about 1943, just before the D-Day Landings. Images in her mind framed by the many famous players and coloured so vividly by Pele’s spectacular equaliser…..and with the added value of a rare Bobby Moore goal.

And as she frequently tells me, ‘Sylvester Stallone was a ‘legend’ in goal for the Allies and Osvaldo Ardiles so ‘cheeky’ in midfield.’

Bobby Moore staged his farewell performance in London on May 7th 1977, 11 years after lifting the World Cup.

And as if to record his famous No. 6 for posterity, Fulham scored precisely that number of goals against Leyton Orient, conceding only one in reply. Then with a turn and a wave to acknowledge his standing ovation, he was down the tunnel and into the bar above The Cottage.

That was his 999th game in senior football and with such an ordered mind Bobby could never have rested easily had he left it there. So to round it up to 1000, Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore played at Blackburn the following Saturday in Fulham’s last match of the season.

And as the curtain came down for the final time on a glittering career Bobby waited for the overtures that would surely follow.

Many months elapsed without the slightest hint of a realistic offer of employment……then along came John Huston and the opportunity to ‘play’ alongside Michael Caine in ‘Escape to Victory’.

The movie, shot on location in Hungary, cannot be compared in any way to the ‘Shawshank Redemption’ - a powerful story of hope, friendship and strength. Indeed ‘Escape to Victory’ is simply an implausible film about a bunch of World War II prisoners using a football match against their German captors as cover for a break to freedom. Although most importantly, I guess, it did give Michael Caine the opportunity to tell Moore, ‘hit it long son….hit it bleeding long’.

So why did this film create such a lasting impression on my wife, giving her such a surreal football anecdote?

Find the answer to that question and you will be part way to solving my obsession with the Shots - a feeling so piquant that it delivered my car to Accrington on a freezing cold Tuesday night, when anywhere would be considered more appealing than the facilities offered by a stadium that was surely purchased from war-torn Beirut in about 1979.

The events of July 30th 1966 broke through all barriers to class and culture.

England awoke that day to the sight of Union Flags fluttering from every window. The pavements full of people hurrying about their business in advance of the afternoon kick-off. And as we all huddled around a flickering TV screen the country was united by the same apprehension. The memory of those intense stomach cramps still painful today, nearly 44 years later. And then with the curtains drawn tight in every household across the land, to keep the brilliant sunshine at bay, the game to beat all games commenced……

But by tea-time Moore was climbing the Wembley steps to receive England’s golden prize – the Jules Rimet Trophy. And what was Bobby worried about? His hands were dirty.

‘It had been a wet afternoon and when I got about two yards from the Queen I saw her lilywhite gloves. I thought: My God, my hands are filthy. All the front of the Royal Box was decked out in velvet and there am I more worried about scraping the mud off my hands on the velvet than getting hold of the World Cup’ – Bobby Moore (The Life and Times of a Sporting Hero).

If you ask my wife today, and this despite not having seen the final, to name the ’66World Cup Winners, she will get them all, with the exception of the quietly competent George Cohen, the world class Ray Wilson and the hard working Roger Hunt, a player who did so much to symbolise the brutalist architecture of the 60’s.

And so here we have a collection of sporting heroes whose story has undoubtedly been handed down from the increasingly distant past.

In Oxford English Dictionary mode this is truly a ‘legend’ in the making. And clearly in my wife’s eyes the efforts of the ‘famous eight’ can be accorded ‘legendary’ status.

The defining of ‘hero’ status is therefore quite simple and something that can endure the test of time – even for my art loving/football disliking wife.

But with the present day insatiable desire for ‘celebrity’, the colloquial use of the term ‘legend’ has become a cachet for any person granted sporting hero status, no matter how transitory.

In 1297 King Edward I was almost overthrown by his rebellious subjects, and was compelled to reaffirm the Magna Carta, which recognised the rights of nobility. Sir replaced ‘sire’ as the correct way to address the 6000 knights who made up the lowest level of nobility, and whose support he desperately needed to fight a war in France and to help suppress the Scottish rebel William Wallace.

Most of the other honours featured in the ‘list’ were founded in 1917, to recognise people who had contributed to the war effort but did not qualify for bravery awards. They of course include, in order of seniority, the CBE, OBE and MBE.

Bobby Moore, who so sadly died in February 1993, was awarded the OBE in recognition of lifting the World Cup in 1966.

Sarah Kate Webb joined the ‘OBE Club’ after winning ‘Beijing Gold’ in the Women’s Keelboat Yngling – an event so important to the world of sailing that it has been dropped from the London Games.

So perhaps we need just a bit more substance from our sporting heroes if they are to be bestowed the title ‘legend’.

Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997) was an Albanian Catholic nun with Indian citizenship who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950. For over 45 years she supported the poor, sick, homeless and dying – throughout India and then across the world.

Now, I have no doubt she was seen as a ‘hero’ by millions of people and undeniably her story has been handed down from the past – making her life’s work ‘legendary’.

But it seems to me the most important factor shaping her legacy for the world has been the ever increasing respect for the work….perhaps a more powerful image as a result of our combined memories than it ever was in reality.

Criticism of her writings suggesting a ‘crisis of faith’ and evidence that her public image was created primarily for publicity, despite her personal beliefs and actions, have all been summarily cast aside leading to the beatification of Mother Teresa in 2003, bestowing on her the title ‘Blessed’….all she needs now is a second miracle to proceed to canonization.

(Sir) Geoff Hurst said of Bobby Moore, ‘he made himself a great player and the bigger the stage, the better he performed. If the world had played Mars, he would have been man of the match’.

Moore was pretty hopeless in the air. He was slow off the mark and generally pedestrian about the pitch. His distribution was accurate but never incisive. He didn’t score many goals. And his private life was not as pure as the waters that burst forth from the volcanic mountains of the Auvergne. But then not one England defender, since those heady days of the late 60’s and early 70’s, has ever got close to the imperious presence of Bobby. As each new intake is presented to me, viewed and then assessed I simply ‘bring forward’ my memories of Moore….polish them up a bit and determine that not one will ever match ‘The Legend’.

Bobby Moore was a sporting hero who was respected throughout the world. But to bestow the title ‘legend’ does require more than simply evidence of ability and a current or earlier hero status.

Without doubt Moore enhanced the sport by his very presence……in fact an omnipresence that endured long after his retirement. And it continues to mature like a fine wine in an oak cask.

Therefore it is against this measure of emotional impact that each and every ‘hero’ must be tested.

And with the ‘passing hero’ of today John Terry soon to lose his England captain’s armband for topical misdemeanours maybe it is time for Bobby to perform that elusive second miracle just 44 years after his first……

'Shot in the foot....'

2010-02-02T11:15:00.012Z

Aldershot Town manager, Kevin Dillon, has openly criticised goalkeeper Mikhael Jaimez-Ruiz and moved during the ‘transfer window’ to sign a new keeper, who will go straight into the team on Saturday, when we play away at Barnet.

What appears to me to be a public humiliation for Ruiz is disappointing. And in my opinion the lack of competency displayed by Dillon can only be matched by the somewhat tardy, and then ridiculous response by the Club to the season-long ‘young idiots’ problem that has been so evident in the East Bank stand ….oh wait a minute what about the chaos that ensued over the creation of a 'bigger' Directors Box?

Yes, that was indeed an all-time classic.

Since October 2003, after I was given a second chance in this life, I haven’t missed many games home or away. In fact I travel over 12000 miles every season watching our team. So I guess I have experienced more goalkeeping blunders and great Shots moments than Dillon ever will.

I was never a great advocate of Nikki Bull…but he was of course a great shot stopper….and he needed to be, behind the sieve-like defence and disorganised approach that we suffered in each of our Conference seasons.

Nikki contributed significantly to our elevation to the Football League but when he left I did feel the Club would simply move on in his absence.

Ruiz has been a revelation this season and I am therefore somewhat surprised that our manager has lost confidence in him.

Yes, he can be slow with his kicking…Shrewsbury away being good evidence in this respect. And on Saturday the East Bank, well bits of it, seemed to use him as the ‘lightning conductor’ for their angst over a pathetic team performance……and I include the manager and coach in this criticism of our play that secured only a point from the visit of Grimsby Town to the Recreation Ground.

I think management support for Ruiz and time spent ‘learning’ to kick the ball would have been a better approach than the 'public dismissal' that has taken place.

Now didn’t Dillon similarly humiliate Lewis Chalmers earlier in the season, after taking him off for over boisterous play…?

I am concerned….and may just take a closer look at Dillon’s approach to management as the season unfolds…..

Images from Accrington

2010-01-28T10:41:00.010Z

After taking four points from the home games against table-toppers Rochdale and second placed Bournemouth, Aldershot suffered a disappointing 2v1 defeat at Accrington Stanley on Tuesday night.

A nice big terrace behind the goal . Good views of the pitch. Pity it was closed......

It was a long drive....but what a great lunch

2010-01-17T12:42:00.019Z

Unless you support Aldershot and live in Middlesbrough, Darlington will always be listed under ‘extreme’ when writing a book entitled ‘Shots on the Road’.

After a month of snow and ice leading to postponements and frustration, it was great to hear the optimism emanating from the Darlington Arena last week - ‘The game is definitely on’.

So at 0600hrs yesterday I left a very sceptical wife tucked up in bed, safe from the storm force winds that had battered our house all night, and started the long journey north. Although for just a moment, as my car stirred from its mid-winter slumbers, I too started to doubt my sanity.

Then by Birmingham the storms that had swept through west and south Wales overnight were no more than a distant memory and I travelled north surprisingly invigorated by the barren landscape shrouded only by grey mist.

‘Darlington will hold a pitch inspection at 10 o’clock’, came as a bit of a surprise as I stopped at Wetherby for coffee.…..and news that, ‘a further inspection will be held at 12’, did nothing to raise my spirits.

I pulled into the Darlington Arena car park just before midday and quickly found my way up to the Directors Box, just as the referee was looking at the pitch.

The covers alongside the main stand were still being pulled back, revealing a heavy and very wet playing surface. But down the centre of the pitch, and in the goal areas, the surface looked pretty good. I left the arena and walked back to my car. The warm glow of optimism surfacing as a result of my own pitch inspection was destroyed within two minutes by news that, ‘the Ref has called it off fearing more rain….’

I sympathise with Darlington. Their public uttering that the game will be on, fuelled no doubt by the desperation to generate some income, was perhaps blind to the true state of the pitch. But then I also think their statement, that heavy overnight rain put the game in doubt, was probably based on records edited by Alastair Campbell!

The pitch looked playable to me....but then I guess my opinion was corrupted by 600 miles of motorway....or was it?

I think the game was always in doubt and it only took a fussy referee to leave me looking for somewhere to have lunch before returning home to face the inevitable, ‘ I said you were mad’.

'The beautiful game'

2010-01-13T17:14:00.006Z

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) are staging the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola…..a country with a violent past and fragile present. Where life expectancy and infant mortality are just about the worst in the world. A country that was consumed by a violent civil war for 27 years as soon as the Portuguese left in 1975.

And with 65% of Angola’s oil production coming from the enclave of Cabinda – a region where unrest replaced daily armed conflict in 2006 – telling Togo to play there was always going to be no more than just another ‘beautiful game’.

But then the Togo team was attacked by gunmen as its bus made its way from a training camp in the Republic of Congo to the venue in Cabinda City.

A faction of the Cabinda separatist rebel group, Front for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda, has claimed responsibility for the 30-minute machine-gun attack that left two Togolese officials and an Angolan bus driver dead.

Several Togo players were injured in the attack, some of them seriously.

Goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale, who was shot twice, is in a stable condition, in intensive care in a South African hospital, after undergoing emergency surgery.

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos condemned the attack but said, ‘Despite the terrorist attack. Cabinda will remain a hosting city. There is no need to be afraid.’

I guess the Togo team were not reassured by Jose's public utterances and they returned home after Friday’s gun attack.

CAF resolved the conflicting reports concerning Togo's participation in the event, where they were due to play Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Ghana with a simple press release.

‘They are disqualified. This group (B) is a three-team tournament’, said the Confederation of African football.

What a crass statement delivered no doubt with thoughts turning to the 'conditions of insurance and liability'…..

‘Jogo bonito’