Towns that are not very nice

Charlton has been gentrified to a great extent even during my lifetime, but it is not very long ago that decaying back-to-backs and crumbling slum streets stood not too far from the Valley. Football was one of the few bright things in the grinding weekly routine for many working folk from the factories and docks. There is many a dreadful mill town where the Football Club and its heritage is still a cause for pride among people who had even the basic dignity of being hard working taken away from them in the last three decades.

Fleetwood, Bradford, Scunthorpe, Charlton. Not so long ago all very similar in their humble industrial foundations, places where working folk laboured hard and long for very little, but still came together on a Saturday afternoon to follow their team, to cheer on their heroes and be proud of their town.

Football is our game, not a pastime for the gentry like so many other sports.
Mean streets and poverty is where it came from. In a country where getting your hands dirty is now something to be ashamed of, let's spare a thought for the humble yet glorious past of a tradition now losing its identity.

 

Which contains 4,000 holes.

 

Rotherham and Scunthorpe are both real dumps.....as is Nelson in Lancashire.

 

Scunthorpe being called off last year meant me going to Goole v Bamber Bridge.

I would compare Goole as the Northern equivalent to Penge!

 

What’s the likelihood of Shrewsbury going ahead ?

 

100% it will be played.......not sure when though.

 

I hear Stevenage is a bit of a slum these days.
Those six-bedroom houses must be hell to live in. Not nearly as nice as Monaco.

 

A soulless, desperate place.

 

Monaco? I can believe it.

Stevenage is probably no picnic either, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a slum.

 

Hamilton meant that if you live in Stevenage you have to pay your bloody taxes.