Regular readers of this column – and I thank you both – may have a notion that I tend to look at the past through rose coloured spectacles. Those far-off days of decades ago long before football became the corporate beast it is now; when teams took to the field in plain shirts with not a sponsor’s name to be seen; when you didn’t need to buy a ticket in advance – just handed over your cash to the friendly old man at the turnstile - and when you had to buy a match programme in order to get the half-time scores from around the country. I still miss those half-time scoreboards…
I’m currently reading Cliff Hague’s excellent book ‘Programmes,
Programmes!’ which not so much wallows in nostalgia but nearly drowns in it. A
Manchester United fan who actually hails from Manchester, Hague writes
affectionately about how he still treasures his ticket stub from the 1968
European Cup final (although he felt the need to add ‘Champions League’ in
brackets) between United and Benfica played at Wembley Stadium. It cost the
princely sum of £2 and the match programme set the author back one shilling –
that’s five pence, young ‘uns. Of course, everything is relevant. The pay packets
(in the days when we had such a thing) didn’t exactly bulge for the working
class in this country more than half a century ago. But it’s a sobering thought
that the price of a ticket for a European Cup final in 1968 wouldn’t even get
you a pie at a domestic league game today.
Hague also writes about the programme for Manchester United’s
first home game following the Munich air disaster in 1958. Twenty-three people
died when the plane carrying Manchester United players and officials and
members of the press back from the club’s European Cup quarter final in
Belgrade crashed on take off from Munich airport where it had stopped to refuel.
Atrocious weather conditions with snow and ice on the runway meant the pilots
had tried three times to take off but the plane failed to clear the runway on
the third attempt and more than half the forty-four passengers onboard perished,
some immediately, some days and weeks later. The programme for United’s game
against Sheffield Wednesday merely left the names blank on the team sheet, a poignant
indication of the tragedy. The importance of the programme is forever a
reminder of a tragedy that destroyed one of football’s greatest ever teams, the
legendary Busby Babes – although manager Matt Busby survived the crash.
Programme collecting has always been popular among football
fans so it’s disappointing to read of some clubs who have stopped producing
them, in paper format at least. Some have gone digital in producing programmes which
may reduce a club’s carbon footprint but takes away, in my view, from the
matchday experience. In days of yore one would leave the pub after partaking of
a half pint lager tops and push through the turnstile five minutes before kick
off (after greeting the friendly auld fella at the gate – Ed) and stand on the
often open terrace. The programme would make a good read at half-time along
with a pie and a cup of Bovril (other beverages were available)
One could catch up with the manager’s thoughts on the
previous game. Whenever I went to Tannadice, reading Dundee United manager Jim
McLean’s thoughts were often enough to have one crying into one’s Bovril but usually
a manager’s ‘notes’, as they were often described in the programme, contained
the usual cliches about ‘treating today’s opponents with respect and how it
will be a tough game but the boys are ready for the challenge’
Scrolling through the digital version on your mobile phone
doesn’t quite have the same effect and, try as I might, I just can’t write the
team changes or the half-time scores on my mobile phone screen…
Much to the dismay of many, some clubs – and I’m talking
about you, Hibernian FC – have even stopped producing any programme, digital or
paper, which is a real shame.
Cliff Hague’s book is a wonderful recollection of times gone
by and some programmes such as the aforementioned Manchester United one against
Sheffield Wednesday are a moment in history. Yes, everyone needs to keep a tab on their carbon
footprint and paper is a commodity that is easy to cut back on now we’re in the
digital age. But producing football programmes on recycled paper may be a way
of offsetting that.
Much of what gave me huge enjoyment when I first began going
to the football more than fifty years ago has disappeared. While I don’t miss
some of it – open air toilets which amounted to little more than a brick wall
with a drain – football programmes are an essential element of going to the
game.
Please don’t let this disappear.
Twitter @Mike1874
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