To others, of course the actual town is probably no worse than Aylesbury, Slough, Luton, Milton Keynes etc. It may be no worse than my home town of Chesham!
However, from my very first memories, I had inherited a very real loathing of THAT club. Back in the 50's & till the mid 60's not many people regulary travelled to London to watch football & supported their local non legue team. There was no love between the followers of Chesham, Slough, Maidenhead, Aylesbury etc. towards each other, but we all had one thing in common. W****** W****** were the work of Satan & by definition this extended to the town.
It was on a par with how all supporters of other London clubs detest C****** now.
At that time WW were regulars to finishing near the bottom of the Isthmian League but behaved as if they were the greatest club in the world. Come the mid 60's & they were the best side in amateur football. What brought about the change? Well according to the club they were still true amateurs & unlike the rest of the league (apart from Corinthian Casuals) did not pay their players.
Of course, they refused to answer as to how they had managed to sign all of the top players in the country from clubs that openly paid players! Sheer hypocrisy!
The Russian billionaire down the road probably based his philosophy on how WW was ran in those days. One of their players (allegedly) was unemployed but received a new car every season as a signing on fee & kept refuing offers to sign professionally for Football league clubs. YET, they wern't paying the players!
My best day of watching football came in 1965 when Chesham were losing 2-0 to them with ten minutes left. Stewart scullion then took them apart & we won 3-2. This is why, even now, Mr. Scullion is my favourite footballer. How I wish he had worn the hoops!
Then in 1968, Chesham reached the Amateur Cup Final at Wembley (a town of 20,000 sold over 30,000 tickets!) & the committee of the W****** Combination refused to allow Chesham & Amersham clubs to postpose their games on that day, even though they cancelled all matches when WW were at Wembley! More than anything, this summed up how that town regarded their superiority in the area.
A rarity then occured! All clubs that were due to play the C & A teams called the matches off in support of us!
Also, anyone that suffered watching Procol Harum "perform" at HW Town hall will know what I mean when I say I saw my worst gig ever in that town!