West Ham Till I Die
Comments
Guest Post

Life, the universe and everything …… Part 2

Guest Post by Beniron

Ok, so part 1 was a quick tour of the early years, missed out loads but in the interests of brevity had to do this. If I get time I’ll introduce some of you to the wonders of growing up with no social media, no mobile phones, no tablets and limited children’s TV – worse still only 2 channels! That meant building camps, go karts, playing footie every day (fortunately the sun was always shining) etc. In the winter it snowed so it was snowball fights and snowmen, ahh the good old days – we also had icicles on the inside, so bad was the build quality in those days!

Part 2 will be from 10 – secondary school, there will be some overlaps I’m sure and you should treat this as a tale rather than a factual account of the times as it is based on my memory. That aforementioned memory took a bit of a caning during the years after this part all self-inflicted, but that will be part 3.

We are now living in a 2 bedroom maisonette on the Island with its own kitchen – not scullery, a little garden (8ft by 10ft), central heating and its own bathroom – really! I thought we’d struck oil so impressed was I at that tender age.

I had made some new mates (it always seemed easy in those days) some are still great friends today and whom I still go drinking and holiday with regularly. But let’s get started ….

Fortunately most of my mates were all West Ham fans (interspersed with Millwall and Charlton mainly) the odd Spud and Man U fan but most were of the claret and blue variety. We were still keen to go but money etc. seemed to be holding us back, anyway after Chrimbo we were all agreed that after the winter – I seem to recall it was freezing all through winter, but not as much snow as 63 – we would all try and save and pick a match.

So April ‘68 came and the sun was out – it was Good Friday and me and one of my mates had the readies to go watch the Hammers, by readies I’m talking bus fare and entrance money (I think it was 2 bob at the time) bearing in mind it was two buses – we agreed to walk to Poplar and trouser the tuppence fare! Oh forgot this was before decimalisation so two bob was 10p and tuppence was less than a penny.

I should mention that my mate was a Catholic and this game was on Good Friday – he’d missed Mass and everything that goes with it by bunking off with me – his mum was going to give him a right hiding when he got home and it got worse (for him!).

I have recounted this in a post on this forum but this will go into more detail, this was my first match without an adult and arriving at the Boleyn on the bus I was giving it the big ‘un as I’d been there once before, so we followed the same route and headed for the West Stand. I don’t recall any vendors or hot dog stands or anything like that in those days – there was the sports shop in Green Street, which I think eventually was taken over by Bobby Moore – but coming from the Boleyn end I can’t remember any, not sure it was any different coming from the station but that was alien to me.

Anyway, got to the turnstile and was told by the fella to squeeze up and lo and behold both got in for 3 bob so that was another tanner each trousered, this was turning into a right touch! Made our way to the front with over an hour to go and settled down, it was a roasting hot day and there was a massive crowd must have been 30 – 35 thousand, loads more than when my uncle brought me earlier in the season. I think we had just thrashed the bar codes so that may have helped – plus it was a bank holiday.

The match was against Forest and if I’m honest most of it like a lot of games just merge into one memory, I do recall certain things – Alan Stephenson was centre half and had his shorts pulled up so high the waistband was under his nipples, Hurst wasn’t playing, a young fella called Billy Bonds had established himself at right back. At half time the band came on, my mate looked a bit rough next thing he fainted – I had no idea what to do, fortunately the adults just behind clocked it and called to the St John’s Ambulance people who were near the tunnel and they came waddling over. I don’t mean that derogatorily but the first bloke looked like Fred Scuttle (youngsters can look it up).

They got him out of the crowd asked me if I wanted to go with them, I politely declined, he had come round and wanted to be left alone – they wanted to take him to hospital. It clicked with him that he was in enough trouble having missed Mass with his mum so insisted he was ok they relented but had someone sitting near the corner flag at the west side so we could call him back.

The match continued and I’m pretty sure it was this match where a Forest fan who could have auditioned for Jabba the Hutt ran (well moving faster than a walk) on to the pitch wobbling everywhere with his shirt off. We won 3 – 0, a great day despite the drama and we made our way home.

Waiting for a bus was pointless as they were all packed so we started walking back to Poplar. Got to the Abbey Arms and finally a bus was relatively empty, got home eventually to a bit of smoked haddock and mash, even though we weren’t Catholic everybody had fish on Good Friday.

That was my last match that season, the following summer was my last at primary school and then it was off to secondary school, I was lucky enough to pass the 11 plus exam and went to a grammar school, not as exotic as some might think but being a small school of around 600 pupils all in it was quite intimate and I really did have some great times. Even better was that I now had pocket money so the world was my oyster.

That summer was one of the best – played football most days over the park, Red Rovers to the museums, bikes over Greenwich Park over the cowboy hills ( I suppose early mountain biking) and cycling through the foot tunnel shouting at the tops of our voices to hear the echo. Always had to get off and walk the last few yards if the lift was there as the attendant used to shout at us for cycling “it’s a foot tunnel not a bike tunnel” miserable old sod. When school started it was scary being a first year (in those days you counted the years from secondary school) and fortunately for me most of the older kids knew my brother who had just left and got on well with him so I was ignored. At that age it was better to be ignored in the early days.

Outside school it was the same most evenings playing out but looking forward to when we could go to the next match. In the new school, as it was in Poplar, virtually all the kids were West Ham so got a couple of games in, most memorable was the home game against Sunderland. If I’m right it was a pretty low crowd and we set up in the West as was usual for us and watched the game unfold – and it was a slaughter 4-0 up at half time and Hursty had a hat trick, at half time we moved to the other end of the West stand so we could see close up the rest of the goals that were sure to come, lo and behold another 4 and another Hurst hat trick. Next day the papers were all on about the fact that Sir Geoff admitted that he punched one of those goals in (I think it was the first). Is Sir Geoffrey classed as the same villain as Maradona or more recently Chico – not in my book and I don’t care what anyone says about double standards!

It’s getting a bit long so I’ll leave it here for now and start working on part 3, 13 -16 years, is this where it all started to go wrong, innocence over and facing up to life.

About us

West Ham Till I Die is a website and blog designed for supporters of West Ham United to discuss the club, its fortunes and prospects. It is operated and hosted by West Ham season ticket holder, LBC radio presenter and political commentator Iain Dale.

More info

Follow us

Contact us

Iain Dale, WHTID, PO Box 663, Tunbridge Wells, TN9 9RZ

Visit iaindale.com, Iain Dale’s personal website & blog.

Get in touch

Copyright © 2024 Iain Dale Limited.