I was in Mount Vernon Hospital with fractured pelvis, compound fracture of femur, compacted fracture of tibia and fibular plus multiple lacerations and contusions so on this occasion I was not allowed to attend
Before my time, and technically not. My Dad used to take me to watch the reserve matches around that time or perhaps a year or so later. First proper home game was a 1-2 loss at home to Fulham in our Div 2 relegation season, taken by a near neighbour along with his son. Regular attendance started at the Huddersfield Town home fixture after Mike Keen had been sacked: an Alan Mayes brace for a 2-0 win with 9 men! Huddersfield Town was also the last match that my late father saw, the ghastly 1-4 home defeat 9 years ago, with the home 4-2 win in August the following season coming on the day we had a memorial and interned his ashes under the SEJ stand. As I've often stated Huddersfield is, coincidently, my favourite awayday - just not necessarily the bit between 3 and 5pm, and certainly not last weekend!!
I take it the motorbike came off even worse? Sounds like the sort of injuries you'd get when sided by a car.
Nooooooo the bike had a dent on the petrol tank (compound fracture of femur) and a broken kick start (compacted fracture of tibia and fibula) I protected the bike from serious damage The car was more damaged than the bike, front nearside wing was caved in, windscreen was smashed and the windscreen surround was dented
Wow! The last bike accident I had was due to some prat doing a U-Turn on a zebra crossing outside of the University of Bedfordshire (as it's now known ) and the car missed my left knee by a gnats dropping, but crunched the engine, frame, and clutch. I landed on his bonnet and nearly got crushed under the car. 2 weeks off work with whiplash and an assortment of bruises. The bike, which I'd bought with the money left to me in my Dad's will, was a write-off. Absolutely , and I can think of some insurance folks that - come the revolution - I would see first up against the wall!
Along with Litigation Lawyers Your knee might not have survived that crash so lucky on one level but the source of the money that bought the bike makes it seem so much worse
Imagine, having been told that the bike was good only for parts and was refused getting the bike back, to then a few months later getting a phone call from a bloke asking me to send him the key to the bike-lock as he was repairing it for the road. Apoplectic and distraught in equal measure I was. Just unbelievable.
End of an era for one part of the ground in 1986. https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/23923548.memories-demolition-shrodells-stand-watford/
Some of it is still there, supporting the GTS... not entirely, obviously. Warts'n'all tour, back in the day, doing my dissertation. They were putting in the foundations to what is now that corporate corner before they thought better of it, so I got to see the innards of it's replacement!
I do remember it, though without the original Rookery stand it looks very odd. That was built over these years, some of it paid for by going through a turn style on a voluntary basis where you paid an extra penny or two for admission. The picture below shows it in the course of construction in 1958/59. please log in to view this image
