The other night, my father-in-law, a West Ham fan, came round. He'd been clearing out his loft and examining his programme collection. He gave me a programme from the Sunderland v Manchester Utd game in October 1956. Billy Bingham and Len Shackleton were playing for the lads but the Man Utd team was the Busby Babes era team and contained several of those that died in the Munich Air Disaster. There are a few highlights in the programme that made me smile. The front cover bears the legend "Only club which has never played in any other than the First Division". If only that were still the case. In Bill Murray's column he talks about flying to Geneva to discuss the upcoming friendly with Servette. Both clubs agreed that substitutes could be used but FIFA were still dead set against it. Towards the back, there is an article on how terrible it is that players crowd round the referee to dispute his decisions. The author suggests that only the captain should be able to approach the referee. So it seems like this isn't a new thing! I don't suppose anyone on here was in attendance at this game who can give an eyewitness account?
This is an interesting post, Norton, though it's open (for responses) to a very limited audience, and I hope that there are some that were there and can remember it
Interesting about players crowding the ref being an issue as far back as the fifties. I assumed, growing up watching Man United bully every ref into submission, that it never occurred to anyone until recently that they might need some protection.
True. I suppose anyone who collects programmes might be vaguely interested. I was just trying to post something to distract from all the negativity.
Yeah, I'd assumed it was a more recent thing and that everyone was more gentlemanly, or at least more stoic, back then.
This was a couple of years before I became infected ...sorry...obsessed with all things red and white. You'd think I'd of learnt by now
Interesting post mate. A little before my time,but I'll bet my Dad was there.He often talked of Billy Bingham and Shack....pity I can't ask him.
Funny thing is, it wasn't my Father-in-Law who was at the game to get the programme, it was the year before he was born. Plus, until recently, he'd never been that far north. So we're wondering how it came to be in his possession.
Going back another hundred years to the 1840s, I'm reading (audiobook) Flashman's Lady which has quite a bit of cricket in it. Doesn't seem like it was a very gentlemanly game back then, mainly because it was riddled with betting and match fixing. Dangerous as hell too, they'd recently switched from underarm to overarm and hadn't yet thought of things like pads and helmets.
Good book that! One of my favourites. I love historical cricket stuff too, really interesting! All the gentlemen v professionals stuff and the shamateurism. And all of the teams of different sizes. Love it.
Great series of books aren't they. Interesting historically and funny as ****. I like how they take you through a series of legendary historical events but from a very human and unvarnished perspective which works for me.
I think they're brilliant. Apart from the obvious bits, I think they're quite accurate historically and I've definitely learnt a bit from them. I believe they've been criticised a bit recently for being very un PC but I think that misses a lot of the humour and the point that the character isn't meant to be the nicest of blokes.
People these days get offended over baa baa black sheep so I'm not surprised that a book that describes everyone who isn't white as an n word has eyebrows raised Personally I find the un-PCness refreshing and as you say you aren't supposed to agree with him.
Yeah, I'm fully on board with an inclusive society but censoring anything that shows that people in the past had different attitudes to now is like trying to eradicate history.
