Were the good old days the good old days?

I'm 45, so officially middle-aged and my next big birthday is the big five-oh (although I'm still an immature 18 year old in my head!). I got to thinking that so much time's past now since Hillsbrough and the introduction of all-seater stadiums, that there's probably a large chunk of posters on here that've only ever known the sanitised, safe, ordered world of new stadia. A whole new generation of football fans who've never experienced what it's like to watch a game from old fashioned terracing with barriers. The nearest some of you might've come to 'the old days' was when you visited some of the Championship grounds in our promotion season.

For those of you that DO remember, I ask 'were the good old days really the good old days?'. I say undoubtedley, yes. I remember standing on the open Gallowgate end when we had a full house, and being in the old Leazes end too. I used to LOVE it, reagardless of the fact that when being younger sometimes I'd come out black n blue after being crushed against barriers, digs in the ribs, getting my feet stamped on, having hot tea spilt down my back, being hit on the side of my face on one occassion by a flying meat pie that was ****ing hot.. There was nothing like that momentum, that surge when you had an abseloutely full house that allowed you to quite litterally pick your feet off the ground and let yourself be carried by the crowd.The ebb and flow of the crowd when you couls sometimes travel 20 or 30 feet up down or sideways on the terracing with your feet only touching the ground a couple of times.

When you had days like that, the atomsphere was electric. NOTHING today compares to it. Remember Gazza's first game bacl for the Spuds when all the Mars Bars went on the pitch? The media was full of what we were going to do for days before, but we still got to do it. We still all got our Mars Bars into the ground and hoyed them on the pitch. Can you imagine the uproar if that was done today? (Can someone correct me on this - I was behind Dave Beasant's goal that day, and I seem to remember that he was yellow carded before kick-off for kicking Mars Bars back into the crowd - is that right or my imagination?) The cameraderie of the fans was I think much closer back then, though I am fully aware there may be an element of rose tinited specs about all this.

And even though I can clearly remember abseloutley ****ting myself on a few occassions over the years, I do actually miss that air of menace that was about football back then. It really was an adventure with an edge going places back then. I wasn't a hooligan or a fighter or someone that went with the intention of looking for trouble, but sometimes you couldn't help it. Sometimes you didn't have a choice.

This might seem very odd to people who never experienced the old days, that an air of possible violence or a edge of uncertainty could add to the attraction of a day at the footy, but it did, for me anyway. In a twisted way (don't know if twisted is the right word) it added to the occassion of going to football, to the glamour. Going even though you knew you end up in an unpleasant situation.

Of course there's lots of stuff that we're all glad is gone, like sick, overt, extremley vicous open racism, darts and coins (sometimes with filed down sharpened edges) being thrown from other fans, the violent coppers who volunteered for Saturday football just for an excuse to bash skulls with a truncheon and get involved in fights knowing they would never be prosecuted, rathere than for the overtime.

I can understand why youngsters would raise their eyebrows when you get nostalgic about standing on open an exposed terracing in the middle of winter, soaked to the skin in the pissing down rain while watching your team lose 300 miles from home (done that on lot's of occassions!), but I loved every minute of it.

 

I think every generation likes thier own times. you may love your memories of what football was but to someone of twenty cant imagine standing in the stands watching football in black and white.

 

I'm 45, so officially middle-aged and my next big birthday is the big five-oh (although I'm still an immature 18 year old in my head!).

it doesn't change

i'M 51 so officially OLD-aged and my next big birthday is the big six-oh (although I'm still an immature 21 year old in my head!).

 

Lovely post, enjoyed reading.

 

Think I'll just stay 16 forever.

 

24...have a mortgage & get married in November

I feel 45

 

Well if you want to experience standing, head to an All-ireland semi final or something in Croke Park and go for the Hill 16 end. Safe standing and fantastic atmosphere. Re-introduction of standing is long overdue IMO

 

Reading back what I've posted, I can now imagine myself and some of the more elderly 606ers sitting round in white Tuxedo's smoking cigars and saying 'We used to DREAM of living in a hoel in't road...'

(for younger viewers, ask your parents....)

 

Yes, in answer to the probably rhetorical question.

Used to love the surges in the Leazes End. Watching the match from your starting point and one surge later you could be 5 yards to the left and 7 steps further forward.

Also remember the blokes who couldn't be bothered to go to the toilet at the back at half time. Could be perilous......had to move fast. Not old enough to drink then.

Also miss the peanut sellers and how far and accurate they could throw.

Can't remember anything other than shoulders getting wet in the rain when not in the only covered end ie the Leazes.

Also the atmosphere was better partially due to the semi hostile atmosphere towards the away fans when at home and at you if you were an away fan.

Sound like my old man now... oh, the good old days

 

Being Newcastle United, I would have thought that was a given?

 

by far the best football experience time in my opinon
standing in the corner of the gallowgate out singing the scoreboard (yes young lads we had a scoreboard with little dancing men when we scored) or thinking we were ha. having to arrange to meet your mates at the bottom of the stairs on stawberry place as you never knew were you'd end up while jumping up and down singing the blaydon races'. aye oh to have those days back
"sing in the scoreboard"
QUESTION if football was still the same now as then would you let your kids go to those matches we went to . good times but sometimes thought "if my parents could see me now i'd never be aloowd to watch newcastle again "
class times

 

Home games only once they were about 14/15 if they went with mates. If we were back then, I wouldn't let em go on away-days unless it was with the proper supporters club and bussed in and out.

 

I'm 45, too, and my first match was in about 1972 (Crystal Palace, in only their first or second year in the top league).

Football's changed enormously since 1972. Back then it was a true community sport. Local people supported their local team, and went to matches at 3pm on alternate Saturdays. Most grounds had only one wooden stand, so the majority stood.
Meanwhile the board of directors comprised lay, patrician fans of traditional professional backgrounds (accountants, solicitors, doctors) who paid nothing into nor took anything out of the clubs. Clubs likely Newcastle United had dozens of shareholders, though few had the inclination to do unpaid work for their clubs with attendant pressures.
TV was limited to the highlights of one recorded match each Saturday evening. Foreign fans of English football clubs was as rare as foreign fans of English cricket counties. Decent players were on salaries equating to maybe £30-40,000 in todays money. Clubs from small towns/cities, such as Ipswich and Derby, were able to compete with clubs from the big cities of London, Liverpool and Manchester, because clubs were largely financed through returns from match fees and nurturing their own players.

Away from football, music was WAY better back then, with rock bands like Deep Purple and Led Zep dominant. Politics and business reflects the changes in football in some ways: politics had a genuine social conscience, local democracy was still powerful, philanthropy was still common, and the only true celebrites were from the big screen. The world was less cynical, respectful, superficial and grabbing, and people took pride in what they did. Life was simpler, though in many ways tougher (especially for minority groups), while society was much stronger.

So, yes, I believe the good old days were just that. However, those born in, say, 2005 will surely look back fondly on today, just as those born in 1945 would have sighed deeply when thinking of their youth in the 1950s. Life is usually sweeter looking back because we had fewer responsibilities, had not been scarred by disappointments and grief, AND for all those aforementioned reasons.

 

Not been scarred by dissapointments and greif ? I support Newcastle United, remember?

 

i love marmite

 

The atmosphere was a different class in those days, I remember being at my grandparents near Saltwell Park as a youngster and you could hear the roar from there.

I think the reason is that with standing you choose to postition yourself next to friends / like minded people so if you wanted to sing you all crowded together as you weren't allocated a fixed position, obviously with seating it's dictated as to who's sitting next to who which massively changes things as you need to alter your behaviour out of respect for people next to you.

I gave up my season ticket when Keegan was here the first time as the all seater meant match day massively lost something for me even though the football was far better, many of my friends did the same and haven't gone back.

I bought a 3yr season ticket when Keegan came back to give it another try, went to one match, the fans were on players back, had an argument with bloke behind me for barracking players and never went back, just gave the ticket away...up there with the worst £1,200 I've ever spent.