Fifty years tomorrow

Since my old man & @Father Benny Cake went to their first game. Chester at home, January 27th 1974. Division 4 - anyone got any memories of the game?

Imagine how successful I'd be now if they'd missed their bus & I wouldn't have spent half my life talking ***** on here.

 

Pretty sure that was one of the games played early afternoon on a Sunday during the miners strike I think. It was my first season watching us as a 9 year old

 

Summat about buying a team sheet got you access to the game because they couldn't officially sell tickets being a Sunday?

 

Spud scored for them.

 

Sure I would have been there too pal….. was it Reading at home the first Sunday fixture we had?….long time ago so I may be wrong

 

A 1-1 draw on the Sunday and there was an attendance of over 8000.

 

I bet Mick Butler scored….

 

You're just guessing!
Actually, old mate, you're spot on!

 

Reading at home 94/95 season. Lost 0-2. East Stand Upper Tier. Cheese and onion sandwich and pork pie was nice. As was my only visit to the Social Club. It was demolished shortly after I'm told.

 

This was the first Sunday fixture @WG Red - Reading was the following week 3d February. The kick off time was also brought forward to 2:30pm due to the government ban on the use of floodlights during the miners’ strike.

 

As usual you're spot on Kev. I just checked and it was 8,511, the highest of the 73/74 season and considerably higher than the average of 3,305 for the 12 home matches already played.

 

Cheers mate, I went to them all but couldn’t remember which way round ......age eh?

 

I sort of knew that he would have. What a striker!

 

Those 70s years sound like they were dark and depressing, and that's before Colin even played for us.

 

They were great but maybe I’m wearing rose tinted specs…

 

Up until Allan Clarke joined us in 1978, that particular season of 1973/74 was my favourite campaign as a Barnsley fan. We had a young team, who played an attractive, all out attacking style of football, even away from home.

 

Was the manager Jim Iley Out ?, which is a really weird name to be honest lol.
I had more important things on my mind then though in the mid 70s, like learning to walk and talk and run.
And Im still struggling to be honest!.

 

Yep. Iley out was the crowd’s favourite chant of the 70s.

 

Being my first season that must be what lured me in for the next 50 years

 

Approaching my 34th year as a red. 10th February 1990 a 0-1 home loss to Swindon Town but I was hooked. It was in the early days of who some on here refer to as "mad Mel " and also, the backend of the Reds careers of Clive Baker, Gwyn Thomas and the late great Paul Futcher.