The Isle of Wight is not one of football’s hotbeds as Spot can testify. 

Growing up in the 60s there were no natural local league sides so Burnley were my team because I loved their claret and blue kit and Ray Pointer’s haircut. My family were not really football people although dad had been a decent player in his day. He represented the Royal Artillery at both soccer and hockey while serving in India. His dad supposedly played in goal for Clydebank but that is one family myth I’ve been unable to resolve.

I later found our Scottish ancestors were avid Rangers fans. One of them supposedly said he would “never suffer a papist under his roof!” My parents had a wartime wedding so there was no honeymoon until dad returned from India. He and mum went to Scotland to meet his relations and took in a Rangers v Celtic match at Ibrox. Years later I asked my mum what it was like. “I couldn’t see the pitch” she replied. “All I saw was someone’s back.”

Our family actually hail from the Kilmarnock area of Ayrshire and my Great-Great Grandfather only moved to Govan around 1870. Back then Clydebank was the workshop of the world so having an Iron and Steel business close to the shipyards was a smart move. The family were therefore on the spot when the professional game was born in Scotland during the last quarter of the 19th century.

My mum was from Barnsley so I‘ve always had a soft spot for The Tykes. Indeed I made a generous donation when they were in danger of folding some years back. I was therefore pissed off with their attitude when Saints were in the brown stuff. Her father’s people were from just down the road in Doncaster but her mother was born in Oldham. I’ve tracked my gran’s forebears to rural Northumberland, Westmoreland and Norfolk. All were sucked into the Lancashire mill towns during the Industrial Revolution. Whether any of them watched the newly formed Football League I do not know.

Early in the 20th century gran’s family moved to Barnsley where her dad worked in the pits. She used to say you daren’t go out of doors on a Saturday lunchtime unless you were going to the match. A tide of humanity exited the coalfields and swept via the alehouses of Barnsley to Oakwell, carrying all before it.

In the mid-60s I started watching football and where I lived that meant Pompey. I watched them several times either side of the 1966 World Cup. In 1967 they flirted with promotion to Division 1 but ultimately failed. I saw my first away game when Pompey drew 0-0 at Craven Cottage in the FA Cup. I was dangerously close to becoming a fan….

Of course Saints had already achieved promotion which meant 1st Division football on the South Coast. There was a guy at school called “The Bear” who watched Southampton and I arranged to accompany him to the Burnley game in 1967. My first visit to The Dell was a big disappointment: Saints won 4-1 with Ron Davies netting a hat-trick. A season or two later I went with him to watch the Chelsea side of Osgood, Tambling, Charlie Cooke, Eddie McCreadie and Chopper Harris. Chelsea won 5-3 and it was a cracking game.

When I reached the 6th Form at school I was good enough to play regularly for the 2nd XI so my league football watching was temporarily curtailed. I even made my single 1st XI appearance - coming off the bench to score against Carisbrooke in a 2-2 draw.

We’ve been taking holidays in Derbyshire since the 60s. We’d visit a guy who’d been a Commando - billeted with my gran in WW2. Mum nursed Harry back to health after the ill-fated Dieppe raid - he’d been under fire, chest deep in the sea for several hours before escaping. Afterwards he shook so much all the fillings fell out of his teeth! He broke his leg training for D-Day but in1945 won the Military Medal for retrieving the body of a posthumous VC winner as the Marines advanced through Holland.

In the late 60s Harry began raving about Derby County and took us to the Baseball Ground to watch a Div 2 game. (The women went shopping of course).

This was the start of the Clough and Taylor era and Derby were indeed brilliant.

The next season we watched them in Div 1 and before long Derby were champions of England. Move over Burnley - I had become Derby fan.

Derby now has a very good University but not when I was applying to study Pure Chemistry. (Don’t ask: I blame appalling careers advice). So I ended up holding offers from Sheffield and Leicester. All my mates thought I was mad as they were all holding offers in London, Liverpool, Birmingham; indeed anywhere that guaranteed 1st Division football. I had the last laugh as we sat our A levels and both Sheffield United and Leicester City were promoted from Div 2.

When I went up to Sheffield, the Blades sat top of the 1st Division. It wasn’t to last of course but, for the first time, The Blades gave me the opportunity to watch top flight football week in week out. I loved it.

This was the era of Woodward and Currie. United were a joy to watch going forward. They were rather agricultural at the back but it made for exciting football. That first winter was plagued with strikes and black-outs. Midweek matches had to be played in the afternoon. I recall United beat West Ham 3-0 (Bill Dearden hat trick) in front of 24,000 for a Wednesday 3pm kick off.

Sorry Rams - I’d become a Sheffield United supporter.

Even in the 70s, you could get to over half the league grounds in England from Sheffield in a couple of hours. I made the most of it, visiting Leeds, Rotherham, Birmingham, Mansfield and (at last) Turf Moor. I even paid a couple of visits to Hillsborough where I watched Burnley and a friendly against Santos. Pele played. He was reaching the end of his career but his touch and vision were undiminished.

Returning to the IOW I watched Pompey a couple of times but the football was shocking. I’d played in a very good side in Sheffield, winning our league and reaching the semi-finals of the knock out. Intent on keeping playing I joined a local side. I bagged a hat trick on my debut yet we lost 8-3 and it all went downhill from there. I needed something new in my football life.

On 1st October 1973 my younger brother went off to Southampton to study at the School of Radiography. He moved into a flat in Atherley Road, a stones throw from The Dell. Pining for my student days I was soon going over at weekends and one Saturday he announced “We’re all going down to watch Saints.”

Next time: Falling in love again.

Photo: Action Images

Vasco added 10:27 - Oct 16 I dread Part 3 - "The Osborne Years"
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