The matchday experience

 
Saturday was one of those days.

An afternoon that delivered such wonderful sporting delight, a feeling that so many of us will have long forgotten, but for some perhaps, an event that might lead to a lifelong love affair. Thrilling entertainment for 96 mins, a wonderful matchday experience.

Bobby Robson died on 31^st July 2009.

He was a very good footballer and a great manager. But above all else, he was a genuinely lovely man, with qualities that are so absent in our game today

Writing in Newcastle - My Kind of Toon, his 2008 love letter to his home city, Sir Bobby wrote: "What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it.

"It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes.

"It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city.

"It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love." 

When you next wait to enter our ground, cast your eyes left then right. Look up to the Rec., and consider the landscape, the urban form. Then tell me, like the Chairman does, that you can see tens of millions of pounds just waiting to be made through a development that will turn our history of decline into a 21^st Cent success story. A new ground that will deliver sustainability and the much talked about, ‘improved matchday experience’.

I do struggle with the argument that the Recreation Ground is a massive drain on our resources. The FibreSand pitch, a gift from Chelsea, has always been maintained at least cost. The East Bank roof can’t be touched, because of the presence of asbestos. The gutter in the North Stand has leaked for all of the 60 years that I have been coming to the Rec. The toilets in the ‘new social block’ are fine, and have never to my knowledge been vandalised, despite the exposed pipework (and the high-level cistern still carries the original makers sticker).

Generally, the facilities are adequate and homely, satisfying the demands of 'basement national football', if you ignore the away supporters offering. And we should be proud of the fact that our ground will soon be the recipient of a letter from the King. 

The Recreation Ground has served us well. But really does it need the introduction of a wrecking ball to deliver the Holy Grail of a wonderful matchday experience?

I don’t suppose parents let four-year-old children walk on their own to their 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 onto the pebbles at Southsea beach, during a violent winter’s storm.

Cove 14 Stoke Rec 0; 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 keeper, we’re at home’. The ‘Stoke’ goalie took a firm grip of his worn-out boots and disappeared into the timber pavilion, that stood proudly in the top corner of the Green. Big and jet black from years of creosoting, the building gave off a pungent and overpowering smell, that cleaned out the nasal passages every time I went close, when 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. Saturday October 15th 1960 became the date of 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 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.

62 years on, and the Rec really hasn’t changed very much, reassuringly the guttering above the North Stand still leaks, the toilets work and my seat offers a cosy view of the Recreation Ground. The only downside being that Redan Road seems so much steeper today, than when I ran up the hill after a game as an excited 7-year-old.

The Chairman continues in his attempt to convince us all that the matchday experience will be enhanced when his phantom vision becomes a ‘new ground’.

But my long journey home after the game on Saturday allowed me ample time to conclude that Aldershot Town 3 Wrexham 4, succinctly confirmed how Bobby Robson’s observations were so apposite.