Guest Post by Big Safe’s Buddy
Given where we are and with all of us largely confined to our own surroundings I’d imagine like me you’ve all had extra thinking time. Me and me brothers are constantly on the blower, harping back to when we were kids and as a consequence we usually end up in fits of laughter. I really could write a book about us as kids and young adults; but so as not to get banned by Iain I best stick to some of my fondest early memories of the long school summer holidays, if it makes one person smile I’ll consider it job done.
There’s only a year in age between me and me elder brother so we obviously have a lot of shared experiences, not least the start of our West Ham journeys. We’d both been indoctrinated by me dad and grandad from a really early age. The exact details of which games we first attended are all blurred into one marvellous collage of kid-like excitement, I really couldn’t tell you who we played on my first visit. My earliest vivid memories started a few years later when, aged 11 or 12, we were allowed to go on our own but I swear if I close me eyes I can remember walking in that place for the first time ….. the colour, the smell of the grass ….. embedded in me bonce for life.
We obviously fell in love with the ‘ammers but we liked all sport, in fact we were sport mad, our entire early lives revolved around it. We weren’t poor in the strictest sense but we lead basic lives; dad a Ford worker, mum a stay at home mum to us 4 kids. Our house wasn’t the first choice if you wanted the finer things in life, no good asking for an ice lolly as up until we were about ten I don’t remember having a fridge, let alone a freezer; but if you wanted fun it was a Mecca and all our mates were welcome.
We used to have brilliant improvised mini tournaments of all the top sports, everything from cricket to croquet, we couldn’t do show jumping but I swear if we could’ve found an ‘orse we would’ve had a go, which brings me to the title of me post. One of the benefits of the social media boom is all the funny videos that do the rounds, I love ‘em. I got one from me brother this morning of kids playing football in their garden, they were shooting into the same goal with their dad as the keeper, top of the range it was, proper posts and nets. Cutting to the chase, one of ‘em scores after tripping the other one up and then legs it, when the other one catches him up it leads to the inevitable punch up. Me brother sent it to me with a little sub heading, “1 nil to me, done yer.” It struck such a brilliant chord with me as it’s exactly the type of thing he would’ve done to me with the same end result. We were close in ability in all sports, but luckily for me he couldn’t fight. It was only nipper level violence and he obviously thought the Mickey take was worth the minimal pain, lol.
Our back garden was ahead of its time in so much as it was a multi-purpose stadium with an all-weather pitch; which basically means we had no grass but flattened mud that me dad turned over once a year with his garden fork to stop the weeds coming through. Our goals were 2 half buried metal bedsteads, the mesh still attached, which made for terrific nets. Hours of 2 or 3 a-side games would take place dependant on how many mates were around and when they’d all gone home me and me bro’ would switch to shooting to each end, taking it in turns to be Hurst and Peters. They were who we mimicked as we blasted a goal in …… “HURSSSST!”
Our basketball nets were the old style 4ft high metal ringed council-supplied paper bin bag holders; the lift up metal lid was a perfect back board and would close when the ball rebounded off it on its way through the ring to register your 2 points. At this point I would like to put on record my sincere apology to the house round the corner that we nicked the second basket from, we weren’t happy doing it at the time but each house only got one and the Harlem Globetrotters had just been on the box and needs must.
We had a painted set of stumps on the wall between the back door and the toilet window, the boundaries were our fences, which were worth 4 runs, providing the ball stayed in our garden; but unlike Lord’s, if you cleared ‘em, instead of getting 6 you were given out by the bowler, who doubled up as the umpire. On top of that it was your job to go and retrieve the ball; now this was fine if you hit one too long to the left of us, as all the gardens in reach were mates’ houses, as were the ones over the back fence, and most of ‘em would be playing anyway. However, it was prudent to show restraint if hitting to our right as next-door-but-one was where old Ted lived, his garden was out of bounds (in other words don’t get caught), if he got to the ball before we did we never got it back.
He had these posh wooden trellises which were his pride and joy and we only realised after a while that the miserable old so-and-so was decorating it by gluing our captured tennis balls on top of it. When we sussed him out I’m afraid we took the difficult decision to tell our old man, who promptly went round to talk to Ted. I don’t know exactly how the conversation went but given that 10 minutes after me dad got back about a dozen tennis balls mysteriously flew into our garden I’ve got a pretty good idea. From that moment on dear old Ted was like an extra fielder, me dad insisted we thanked him every time though.
The Olympics were great and as we were sticklers for tradition they only occurred every 4 days. All kids are competitive but in fairness us lot were pretty reasonable and would make sure the medals were shared around. Sometimes this happened naturally; in the javelin for example luck played a big part and all largely depended a lot on how well mum’s broom handle flew through the air at any given time.
The long and triple jumps were pretty much hit and miss as well, as the measuring mechanisms weren’t that great and tended to vary on the shoe size of the current measurer, not to the mention the fact that no 2 of us could ever agree on the exact landing site. The high jump was one of my favourites as I was one of the tallest. An old folded in half double mattress that had been fermenting behind dad’s shed was the perfect crash mat, with 2 of us standing in front holding a skipping rope and adjusting the height as the competition went on. We used to just take a run up and dive over it as I don’t recall any of us being familiar with the Fosbury Flop.
We couldn’t facilitate the track events in the garden and as this was the sixties we were allowed out the front to play. The running posed a bigger problem with sharing the medals around as, short of kicking him in the shins at the starting line, our mate Pete would win everything from the sprint to the marathon. Whichever relay team he was in the second runner would have half a lap start over the opposition, if he went last he could make up an half a lap deficit. The track was our immediate block of streets, which for convenience we estimated to be about 400 metres. The truth is it was more like 600 but what’s 200 metres when you’ve got an Olympics to organise? Good old Pete got in the spirit in the end and an accidental handicap system sort of self-developed. We had to let him win as often as the rest of us but when it weren’t his turn he developed a bit of a convenient cramp and invariably went out in the heats.
I’m extremely grateful for my early childhood and I really do mean it when I say I wouldn’t swap it. Given the current circumstances I’d imagine a few nicely manicured lawns are gonna take a bit of an ’ammering; but the grass will grow back and hopefully there’s a lot of kids that will build a lot of nice memories around all the gloom. Garden Olympics anyone?