A couple of years ago I submitted an article to Red News entitled My very
First Time in which I recollected my first match going experiences.
Included was a brief reference to my first ever United game, and believe it
or not, it was THAT game. I was 9 years old.
Read On.
Dave Blatt
Arsenal 4-5 Man Utd (Feb 1, 1958)
As their last game on English soil, this enthralling victory will forever be
remembered as a fitting tribute to the 'Busby Babes', eight of whom died
five days later in Munich.
I spotted the above in a post pre- tomorrows game .
Much is often written about the POST Munich game(s) , but I've never
personally seen any account of this game .
I know it's a long shot , but was anyone on the list(s) actually there who
can give us their memories ?
Only Pete's Dad comes to mind , but there must be others .
³O² - MY VERY FIRST TIME
I was born on 17th June 1949 at the Middlesex Hospital in Mortimer Street in
Central London. I was zero at the time but not for long. I began life with
my parents in boring suburbia, South Woodford to be exact. In 1956 we owned
our first television set, a black white Ferguson. (If you¹re looking for
omens, go no further. Spooky!)
It wasn¹t long before my mother came out with a line that only mothers could
ever come out with.
³If you sit in front of the television all day, you¹ll end up with square
eyes.²
Now, hang on a minute here. With the value of hindsight let¹s examine that
statement. In 1956 television programs only came on at something like 3.45pm
in the afternoon, then finished abruptly at 6.00pm, so as not to temp the
little lady of the house from her duties for the 2.4 family. Resumption at
7.30pm consisted of programs that no seven year old would be remotely
interested in anyway.
Square eyes. I don¹t think so.
Didn¹t parents get away with murder in those days? Still, at the
impressionable age of seven years old you believed everything your parents
told you. I didn¹t want to succumb to this new disease that doctors had yet
to find a cure for, so it fell to my Dad to find an answer. (We didn¹t have
marketing bollocks words like ³solutions² in those days either thank
fuck!)
So what was the ³answer²? You¹ve guessed it football.
Now this is quite interesting because my Dad didn¹t actually like football.
Poor man. He paid lip service to Aston Villa, but only because, as a
sargent, he was posted to an Italian prisoner-of-war camp in Aston,
Birmingham during World War Two. Some of the local sqaddies followed The
Villa and I suspect it was more a case of joining in so as to be accepted
than some dark, recessed longing for the claret blues.
Also, for no apparent reason, he chose a boy from my class, Stephen Moy, to
accompany us to our very first football match. Why Stephen Moy you ask?
Beats me. He wasn¹t even a friend of mine at the time, just a kid in my
class at Oakdale County Primary School in South Woodford. In fact, if the
truth be told, he was a bit ³ruff² and not the sort of boy Mum would
normally let me play with. He dropped all his ³aitches² yet had the most
beautiful handwriting. (I told you I was impressionable). A strange package
indeed. So, what was our first match? Leyton Orient V Brighton Hove
Albion in the old Second Division of course.
You see, The ³O²¹s were my nearest league team, so it was logical they would
be the first team I actually saw live. But I want you to know that I didn¹t
go all the way. Not on a first date. It was OK I suppose. It was cold and
everyone seemed bigger than me. I remember one team played in royal blue and
one team played in orange. Orange! M, nice. So that was the team I
supported that day. It was only as we came out of Brisbane Road that I
overheard a conversation that lead me to the conclusion that I had
mistakenly supported Brighton Hove Albion in their away colours. Still, no
lasting psychological damage was done the game ended 2-2.
For the next two years my Dad took me to the Bermondsey Triangle of First
Division clubs, namely Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham. At these larger
grounds the weather was colder, people were taller and I saw even less.
So, as you can see. Lots of dates. The odd kiss but I never went all the
way.
Then one night at Highbury it all changed. Even walking to the stadium I
could feel the electricity in the air. I began to tingle. Inside the ground
I entered a new dimension. WOW. The noise, the atmosphere. And when the
teams came out that ROAR.
This was foreplay above and beyond anything I had experienced before.
³What team¹s that, Dad?
³Manchester United, son.²
³Well Dad, that¹s the team for me.²
At last - penetration. That all encompassing feeling when you know
everything has finally come together. That spark that had been missing
suddenly exploded in front of me, inside me and all around me. I was in
love. This really was the first day of the rest
of my life.
The speed, the skill, the sea-saw of scoring and emotion. I actually saw
