Beautiful. If I could go back in time the first thing I would do would be to go and stand on the East Terrace to watch a game.
God I remember when people used to say we had a ****e ground when the changing rooms were portacabins. Those were the days man..Football grounds have been ruined because of various reasons mainly building these massive stadiums people can't fill when they get relegated! Bring back the terraces
I rate Gillinghams ground set amongst rows of terrace houses. The occasional smell of coal fires in the winter....Proper old school... Bit like the grounds up north. Photos like this remind me of going to a dark day away at Burnley.....Love it.... Not like some of these modern ground built like Asdas in Charlton on retail parks!!
Great pictures, DJ. Floodlights looming up from rows of terraced tenements in northern settlements. The smell of frying onions. The flat-capped programme sellers. Thousands of feet marching up damp streets. The snickering of police horses. Cigarette fumes and the whiff of hops escaping from corner boozers. And the victorious dash back to the station. Perfect.
LOved the South-East quadrant. Sparsely populated with assorted oddballs with their own crush barrier, same place every week.
I was never there in the 60,000 plus days. Largest crowd I can remember is 46,000 for a Cup replay against Fulham. John Hewie had Johnny Haynes in his pocket at the Cottage but was injured for the replay. He was replaced by the willing but medicore Fred Lucas and we lost 1-3. We were packed like sardines. I cannot imagine how they squeezed in 73,000 pre-war against the Villa. In those days it seemed players were either in the first team or in the reserves. None of this "squad" nonsense. And there was usually a sizable gap in ability between the two. Many players spent most of their careers as "reserves" with only two or three first-team appearances (sometimes none) each season. Nowadays they would try their luck elsewhere if they haven't broken into the first team after a year or two as adult players, and indeed the club would usually want them off the payroll. But when they were being paid 12 quid a week the latter wasn't a big issue. I vaguely remember that the club owned the land where the tower-block now stands and sold it for the latter to be built (late 'fifties?). Can anyone confirm or deny that?
