Football in the 80s and before...

Cheers everyone! I wish I was born through them times! It just looks a whole lot better than the franchise sport now which is sad!

 

Coppers in the middle of the Ponty chasing their helmets, when we scored finishing rows and rows further forward, at times if yer lifted yer legs you could surf the surge.

Snap were limited but more affordable as were tickets.

Glad I`ve got summat to put mi arse on narrdays but seating has dulled the atmosphere at games.

 

A good read and a great post.

 

Cheers mate

 

Great thread. I began my journey in the 70's but really got the bug in '78 when Clarke turned up and the whole atmosphere around the town changed, crowds doubled overnight (or so it seemed) and at school it was cool to be a Barnsley fan, whereas before the playground was full of Leeds, Liverepool or Man Utd wannabees. As many have said, there was a huge downside, with violence & racism being present at every game, but the atmosphere was like a drug to an impressionable young kid. I can still remember the carnage of goal celebrations in the Ponty, often carrying me yards away when we scored, and if you fell over, some random stranger would help you up. I suppose for the younger fans, the nearest reference point might be a mosh pit, but having frequentd both, the ponty wins every time.

I started going away by the time I was 14 and that was such a nervy experience, I consider my parents to be negligent for even allowing me to go on a football special as I often did back then. They clearly had no idea what went on. Getting chased all over North London (Enfield replay) or taking a full on kicking from 100 skinheads (Chelsea) was just part of the experience. The team helped, they were just classy, with Glavin the jewel in the crown, but the miner's strike killed it all in one swift blow. We lost our mojo as a club and it took more than a decade to get it back. The late eighties were such a contrast.

I consider it so much more civilised these days, and I think the social aspect of meeting up with life long friends is more why I go than the game these days, but it had to change. Not so sure its for the better though. I miss the ponty end.

 

Football spectatoring has changed so many times during my time watching the reds .
Can remember in the sixties when there was no segregation and fans stood next to each other explaining and comparing players etc .late sixties and Seventies when trouble flared up and segregation at first seemed unreal but then became the normality.
Coming out of football grounds to be asked what time it was to check out the accent and trying to answer in Geordie or Cockney lol.late seventies and early eighties was a great time , going to a match and thinking we could win every game and seeing sublime football and skills and goals coming from every position .
Some great nights out after away matches with Coach and Horses supporters club which then became outpost , then rising sun .
Mid eighties to mid nineties were a funny old time with the miners strike and then pit closures plus the ground development we did have one or two moments though.

 

I started going in 1968 with my friend Noel and his dad, Jim Marsden, who worked at Dodworth colliery as a union leader or some such and was a local councillor and prospective MP candidate. Some of you may remember him. Lived in Darfield. Jim was a great bloke, upstanding and very highly regarded. He called me his son-number-two !
Anyway, we always stood by the same barrier every game, at the corner of the old John Smiths stand and the open hill where away fans were put. Half time saw me and Noel going down the steps in the stand to get our scalding bovrils and screaming hot pork pies, woe betide you let the molten jelly run down your chin. It was common place to have the skin removed from the inside of your mouth if you ate or drank too soon !
I've been in Oakwell when there were crowds of less than two thousand, in fact I've got photos of it like that somewhere in the house. I'll have to dig them out.
The first season I was there we played Leicester City in the cup. Alan Clark had just signed for them for a record fee of £165,000 (or thereabouts). We drew the game and lost the replay. I still have the programme from the Oakwell game. I believe it was a 3rd round game and there were 25,000 in attendance.
I have many memories of times after that, too many to recount here, but this was just a starter.

 

I, too, started going in 1968 with my late Father. That first season, 1968/69 which included the Leicester City cup game, we sat in the wing stand at the Spion Kop end of the stand. The following campaign (1969/70) he bought us our first season tickets (I've had one every season since), but we moved to the opposite wing stand at the Ponty End. We stayed there until the Summer of 1981, when ill health stopped him from attending. The bovril on sale during all that time had the same temperature as molten lead! Our seats were simply on long, wooden benches, with little slats to signify which part of the long bench was your particular seat. To compensate for the inevitable numb bum you ended up with, the club stewards loaned you a red cushion for the price of 2d, or 3d each match. My Father thought the price was extortionate, claimed the club was trying to rip us off and refused to pay for two!

 

Even then you had someone looking after the comfort of your posterior.

 

It didn't matter how much I whined (and boy, could I whine), he never got one of those cushions! Cue teenage sulks, which I still produce these days when I don't get my own way!

 

far better in the 70's and 80's

roads to and from grounds were lined with police dogs n osses,bricks were missing from garden walls so that they could be used as ammo, we used to cram into barnsley bus station with lunatic fans from donny and rotherham while both used the aforementioned ammo, we could get served beer from back of ponty well before we left school and we enjoyed the pint with a ***, we watched the game from all four stands(slag heap lol), we ran onto the pitch to pat our heroes on the back,and to top it all we used to drop on the same heroes in town centre......happy days

 

Brilliant team, brilliant atmosphere, great football. A national scene where Forest could come straight up and win the league. Where Forest and Villa and Ipswich could win in Europe.
The only substantial downside being the moronic hooligans who cast a shadow over the game that still exists today.