Nuggets from the Loft… Volume 4

February 15, 2012 at 5:01 pm · Filed under Nuggets From The Loft

OK, here’s another priceless antique for your inspection…

Yep, a genuine dog-eared match ticket for a crunch North-Eastern derby, from the days when professional football was played by slightly pot-bellied men with sideburns the size of the Indian subcontinent. And the kind of persistant bronchial conditions that suggested most of their pre-match warm-up consisted of a drag on a Rothmans Kingsize.

My first Boro match was in October 1981 (a 1-1 draw against Nottingham Forest, fact fans) so this ticket must have belonged to my Dad… who, in September 1976, was 36 years old and will no doubt have grumbled endlessly about the extortionate entrance fee (“65 bloody pence? I can get two pints of Tetleys for that and still have change for a bag of chips on the way home”) as he walked the mile and a half from my Gran’s bungalow in Acklam to a seething, overcast Ayresome Park.

Sporting mustard-coloured BHS flares and a fur-lined parka, he’ll have wriggled onto the packed concrete terrace of the Holgate End and taken his place amongst the 26,014 fans who saw Boro sneak a 1-0 victory over their bitter Geordie rivals with a goal from David Mills. Yay! And then, at 4.43pm, he’ll have muttered ‘Right, time to get get a flyer…’ and shuffled to the back of the stand, waiting for the shrill parp of the final whistle before jogging gently out onto Roman Road amongst a streaming flock of ebullient Boro fans.

Meanwhile, I’ll have stayed at my Gran’s house. Three years old, and probably messing about with Mr Men colouring books for the afternoon before steadfastly refusing to watch Part One of the new Doctor Who story ‘The Masque of Mandragora’. Too scary, you see, and likely to make me choke on my Chocolate Flake Cake. Although I imagine the Doctor’s nail-biting battle against the Mandragora Helix was a walk in the park compared to my Dad’s afternoon spent in such close proximity to Micky Burns.

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