Let Nostalgia Show Your Age

[The Earl of Hathaway]

 

Being too big for a lift over and too young to earn money to pay in, climbing up a big settee, near the nolly, behind the shed to skip in along with a few other young scallies. (For some reason this settee stayed their for several weeks - around 1968/69).

 

 

This - remember a variety of ramshackle climbing devices (broken ladders, scaffolding poles) would regularly appear round the back of the South terracing allowing the development of, ahem, Kids for Free.

 

But to add another two :

 

Local advertising on the boards around the ground

 

Tying scarves around your wrists or threading them through your Partick Thistle sweatbands.

[thebiglemon]

 

 

Stopping outside Glenn's, Hutchison's, Robertson's or Stepek (whichever it was) on Byres road to see the classifieds on STV on the way home from Firhill.

 

Yes!!

[thebiglemon]

1. Cutting through the back courts of old, soon to be demolished tenements on Maryhill road, as a short cut and being astounded by the size of rat floating about.

 

2. My wee Thistle bobble hat.

 

3. The choir decanting to the enclosure for OF games

 

+ many of the above, nice thread

[Lindau]

Going to Hoeys in Maryhill Rd to get the latest Jags scarf, is another memory!

[Willjag]

Great thread LIB. Just about all of my favourite memories have been said already so in keeping with the James Alexander Gordon theme,

 

1. Arthur Montford - "Walks the ball into the net. it's four nothing!"

2. Jimmy Sanderson - "Were you at the game caller?" (An accusation that could be used here frequently)

3. Archie McPherson - "Whoooff"

[BowenBoys]

A game of two halves for me, 30 years in England and 29 in Scotland. My thought take me back to Layer Road, Colchester.

 

1. The long walk around the terracing at half time to stand behind other goal. Seemed perfectly normal at the time.

 

2. The score boards being hung on the hooks below the half time letters. Invariably the important scores I was looking for remained frustratingly blank due to late kick offs.

 

3. Gazing forlornly through the shop window at the double LP of the match commentary from the FA Cup game when the U's beat the mighty Leeds United.

[Butters]

1. Sitting on the wall at the front of the shed watching the game. Quite scary considering the giant drop for a small boy.

2. Being made to stand outside munns or the tavern whilst my brothers went in for a pint. No matter what the weather was like!!

3. Having a fabulous ground with great terracing and atmosphere. Where u could pick what end you went into and even swap over at half time. Loved the old north end terracing in the sunshine.

[Jagsman]

1. sitting in the main stand when we drew 0-0 v forfar to go u

2 standing in the shed when geordie shaw hit 4 goals past leighton and got 10 on sunday mail stats thing (can't remember name of it though)

3 Scotsport extra time, and scotsport presented by jim white

[Winter of '63]

Inspired by this thread, I tracked down the Youtube Video of Sportsreel - the predeceesor of Sportscene - which I would recommend to Nostalgia Buffs who like me have a hazy memory of Scottish Football coverage in the Sixties. It's all there - grainy Black & White footage of games from Ibrox & Tynecastle with film editing by the local butcher, a youthful Archie Mcpherson (with hair!), Alastair Dewar reporting on another miserable match and a host of other long-forgotten names & faces.

 

It's from September 1963 and the brief report on our game is "Partick Thistle have been playing some of the most attractive football in Scotland over the past couple of seasons, but there's just one snag...they haven't been scoring enough goals". We lost to Third Lanark!

 

Google "Sportsreel" if you're interested...the first item on the programme is a greyhound result and the programme finishes with a feature on a pigeon race.

[Wiltshire Jag]

1. Dreeping down the wall at the end of the game to get on to the pitch to get autographs.

2. Swapping ends at half-time at away games

3. Macaroon bars and spearmint chewing gum

[potty trained]

1. The pie stall at the back of the shed.

2. Standing at the south end behind the goals, going out on penalties to Hibs in the league cup. My dad came to pick me up that night and he got in in time for the spot kicks.

3. Down the front of the south end giving Ally Maxwell a torrid time for 45 minutes in the first leg of the play off.

4. We used to start a match day in time square at st enochs before heading to the caste vaults.

5. The stairs at the south end. The walk way behind the wall on south drive.

6. Playing with my brother on the pitch during a game at Newlandsfiels during pre season. My dad hadn't realised we'd climbed under the barrier, apparently.

7 The Alloa away, Dave the Ukramian game. Possibly the coldest game I've ever been to.

8. My dad and I doing the "up north and back down again" pre season tour of the highlands in the bunnett's first pre season. Full of hope. That faded quickly.

9. In the main stand directly behind Rod McDonald when he scored against motherwell.

10. Following Preston NE scores on teletext after Kevin Magee's move down there.

 

ETA

 

11. The Bunnett hunting me out after I'd asked him a couple of questions at a meet the manager night to tell me I really knew my football and his door was always open.

 

12. The ground mans outstanding grass art.

 

13. Doing my paper round on a Saturday morning listening to Brian Matthews On Radio 2 on my Walkman.

 

14. Diehard's Diary.

Edited August 19, 2014 by potty trained

[Mr Bunny]

 

3. Going into the comic bookstore on Maryhill Rd to buy Marvel comics before the game.

 

Was that the second-hand bookstore that was run by a wee old woman (later helped by her daughter) and also sold new and second hand comics? If so sold DC, Marvel and Charlton - oh and Harvey which my sisters bought. Also you could get old 2nd-hand (and3rd/4th hand) comics of the above plus some other companies including some that were defunct by the mid fifties. I remember buying Plastic Man comics which were brilliant but the company had gone out of business (though I didn't know that then).

 

Since we're on comics, who remembers these cardboard league table things you used to get as a 'free gift' in comics with the little tabs with team names that you moved up and down the table each week - for about 2 or 3 weeks until you couldn't be bothered?

[stillresigned]

I remember being bought a copy of " The Evening Citizen", circa 1972, as it had a colour photo of Dennis McQuade as the cover. Which those of a certain vintage will recall that every weekend the Citizen had colour pics enclosing the actual paper. Unsurprisingly, it was usually OF players, can't recall why or how often they had Jags players featured?

[kni]

I should add our own Robert Philip's pieces on the Jags in the Daily Telegraph. Several few colleagues read them too and understood why I supported Thistle rather than the Ugly Sisters.

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Don't think anyone's mentioned the late Bob Crampsey. Must mean a lot to many ages. I can mind him when there were players older than him but still had that inspiring air of authority..

 

...and Tayside's wonderfully alliterative radio reporter Dick Donnelly who regularly told us of a "dull dreich day at Dens".signing off "Dick Donnelly, Dundee".

[Jaggernaut]

Re: 'Winter of '63' :

 

 

1) David Francey's radio commentraries - I think only the last 30 minutes of games could be broadcast and there were no score updates from other games.

 

I remember doing field work for months in the savannah in Senegal in the late 70s, hundreds of miles from any villages, in the days before satellite phones or computers. All we had for entertainment (apart from ourselves) was a cassette tape player and a radio. Every Saturday afternoon we'd listen to a David Francey commentary; it felt weird to be listening to a Jags game. I think you're right about the 30 minutes rule.

[angry gaz]

Was that the second-hand bookstore that was run by a wee old woman (later helped by her daughter) and also sold new and second hand comics? If so sold DC, Marvel and Charlton - oh and Harvey which my sisters bought. Also you could get old 2nd-hand (and3rd/4th hand) comics of the above plus some other companies including some that were defunct by the mid fifties. I remember buying Plastic Man comics which were brilliant but the company had gone out of business (though I didn't know that then).

 

Since we're on comics, who remembers these cardboard league table things you used to get as a 'free gift' in comics with the little tabs with team names that you moved up and down the table each week - for about 2 or 3 weeks until you couldn't be bothered?

Yes, that was the shop.Great wee find, we used to get the subway over at lunchtimes from the southside when we were at school to buy comics.(Marvel only of course)

[scottymagoo]

1. Focus and the Banana Splits

2. The old urinal (a wall)

3. Missing the evening times and not getting the other results til the Sunday papers were delivered the next morning.

 

Potty trained, I sometimes go to Newlandsfield when the Jags are away from home, I was there the other week when Celtic sh*t out of playing us. The kids are still allowed on to the pitch at half time for a kickabout.

Edited August 20, 2014 by scottymagoo

[crazy davie]

All the games in all the divisions in Scotland and in England kicking off at 3pm on the Saturday...

Leaving the Doublet or Halt at 10 to 3 and racing up the road just in time to be 5 minutes late for kickoff...

Changing ends at half-time at Boghead (Dumbarton FC)

[Norgethistle]

1. the smell you used to get at firhill on an evening game, from a factory or brewary

2. the characters that used to attend firhill

3. the old maryhill bus

4. the catering choice of a pie or twix washed down with a bovril or quenchy cup

5 postponed games having the original programme with a new cover

6 guys with wee trannys (Radio's not lady boys) at the game filtering the scores round the shed

7 Tannoy announcements that "Mr whatever your wife has just given birth to a baby boy / girl" followed by a roar

8 being able to count to 5

[Dug1e]

 

Since we're on comics, who remembers these cardboard league table things you used to get as a 'free gift' in comics with the little tabs with team names that you moved up and down the table each week - for about 2 or 3 weeks until you couldn't be bothered?

 

I remember that. it was Shoot that gave them away. I loved it.

[eljaggo]

1. Watching Scotland v England at Hampden with a crowd of 130,000 with my dad and two uncles - too wee, never saw a thing.

2. Chatting to a dad and his two sons in a pub in Falkirk before the match, seemed quiet and sober - then saw both of the sons getting lifted by the polis at the game

3. Peter Thompson's? face reading out the results on Saturday nights, and everybody knowing from his expression whether the h*ns had won or not.

[Islay jag]

Airdrie having a support!

 

Motherwell being more bigoted than Rangers but slightly less than Airdrie!

 

Workie v Tommy Burns (RIP)

 

Doug Somner, jim Melrose, John Buckley,johnny flood..........

[partickthedog]

Happy memories from late 1970s:

 

1) Leaning on a barrier on the terraces.

2) Pie served with chunk of cardboard. This was to soak up the mysterious fluid oozing out of the bottom of the pie, something I only realised the first time somebody forgot to give me the cardboard.

3) The gradual crowd movement round the north end of the ground in the latter part of the second half to arrive at the exit gates as the final whistle blew. Nowadays people either stay in their place till the bitter end of the game or they leave early, pausing only for a last glance back at the mouth of the vomitory and taking the risk of missing some late excitement. The "continental drift" was a happy compromise between those 2 extremes.

[allyo]

The Clydesdale Bank Scottish Football League Review

Audio tapes of Only an Excuse (it was funny!)

The smell of Panini stickers kept in a tobacco tin