Earliest Oakwell memory

I’ll let him know mate

 

Barnsley v Grimsby 8th May 1979

Dad took me and my sister, I would have been 8 years old.

It was an evening game, Dad couldn't go to Saturday games cos he played for Birdwell Rovers then.

I think it might have been a lot of kids first game, there were over 21,000 there that night, we beat Grimsby 2-1 and gained promotion to the third division.

I can't remember anything about the game, just the atmosphere, the lights, the heat and smell of the crowd and the surges back and forward - it was scary but wonderful.

 

I'd been badgering my Dad to take me to Oakwell throughout the Summer of 1968. After seeing the FA Cup Final between WBA & Everton, the European Cup Final between Manchester United & Benfica and England losing in the Semi Finals of the European Championship to Yugoslavia (live matches on the television were a rare occurrence in those days), I wanted to see the team which represented my home town.
On the 10th August 1968, we played Barrow in the first game of the 1968/69 campaign. We lined up :-
1. Roy Ironside
2. Barry Murphy
3. David Booth
4. John Bettany
5. Eric Winstanley
6. Pat Howard
7. Bob Earnshaw
8. Johnny Evans
9. Jimmy Robson
10.Allen Bradbury
11.George Hamstead
12.Dick Hewitt.
Barnsley started the game well, with Evans opening the scoring after a couple of minutes. Barrow withstood the opening barrage and began to take control. It was no great surprise when they equalised. Two further goals were conceded by us. Towards the end of the game, Bradbury pulled a goal back, but we lost 3-2.
After the match, I trudged back to the car and couldn't understand how people could be walking about, doing their shopping and even laughing! Didn't they realise it was the end of the world???
However, I was hooked and totally in love with the club. I really liked Eric Winstanley, but my favourite was Pat Howard. As well as being an extremely good player, he like me was a Dodworther! Even better, a few weeks later, he and his wife moved into a flat at the end of our street in Gilroyd!
There's been more than one occasion when I didn't like/rate our manager or boardroom members of the time, but I've always loved the club.

 

Seventy years ago we lived in Walton, and I attended school in Wakefield where most of the lads were Huddersfield supporters. There were a few who supported Barnsley and Leeds. My father had a visiting colleague from Scotland staying with us, and he asked me which team I supported. I hadn't made my mind up at that time, being more interested in playing the game than supporting a team. He told me he supported Partick Thistle, as he had been born in Partick. I then pestered my father to take me to a Barnsley match, having been born at Pinder Oaks MH, and in the end he relented. And what an introduction - Barnsley 7 QPR 0. After that I was hooked, and although I spent some 20 years working overseas, I bought a season ticket every year from my mid 20s.

 

One of the worst experiences I had as a Barnsley fan was at Old Trafford! No not when we drew 1-1 with Manchester Utd and robbed of a penalty on Andy Liddle, but when we lost to Marine in the FA cup. Embarrasing display does not come close to suming it up!

 

8th March 1975. 1-1 draw versus Crewe Alexandra. Remember Crewe being the dirtiest team I'd ever seen & I had watched the Charity Shield at the start of the season on telly, so that's saying something.

 

Lincoln City some time in the early 70s sat in the west stand I think Graham Taylor may have been the Lincoln Manager at the time. I think we lost 2-1 went to several matches each season but not all cause my dad worked Saturdays until the summer Allan Clarke arrived my dad got a new job stopped working Saturdays and we didn't miss a home match for years and that's when the abusive love affair with Barnsley FC really started properly. Best moments as a Barnsley fan phoning my dad constantly during the Bradford game as he was too Ill to attend and hearing him sob with joy at full time, attending the old Wembley with him in 2000 against doctor's orders he'd always said hed only goto Wembley to watch the reds (pity about result) it was his last live match. Then taking my own son and daughter to Oakwell for the first time and infecting them with the Barnsley FC virus what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

 

Mid sixties with mi dad , can’t remember season , game or owt . Talking to mi dad about it years after n he’s worse than me with memory .
Game I have vague memories of and don’t know the team we were playing or anything but it was Jimmy Robsons home debut .
I was kidded that it was the famous pop Robson from I think villa .
My memory is terrible some things stand out but in the main I can’t remember many things just instances .
I remember in parts the Rhyl game , Chesterfield away in cup late sixties think we lost 2-0.
I can remember some of the county cup games with Sheff Utd and I think len badger etc.
Most vivid memories probably early mid seventies , Neil Warnock , Anton who is it ,Ali millar , Mick Butler etc .

 

Anton Otulakowski.

 

I know that I saw us play West Brom in the mid 90s at the Hawthorns - I went with a friend of my parents because he had two Albion season tickets and his friend couldn't make it that week. So I think my first Barnsley match was an away game which I watched from the home end!

Don't really remember that one though, and it wasn't at Oakwell anyway. I think my first home game was against Spurs in the premier season. I was told that you weren't allowed in without a pork pie in each hand.

 

Call me a new schooler but I didn't really have any interest in football through the 90s as a kid...I really got into supporting Barnsley when we beat Huddersfield in the League One play off finals, got a season ticket straight away and my first game was the one against Cardiff when Brian Howard scored that worldy overhead kick! Great memory, came out of the game feeling proud loved that season

 

My first (hazy) memory is, I think, August 1957 (or 1958?), when we lost 4-7 to Bristol City. I was very young then so my memory consists of odd flashes of goals going in. My dad told me the first league game he took me to was Doncaster 3 Liverpool 2 in Division 2 in 1956 (have no recall whatsoever of that !). He used to take me to Denaby United in the Midland League (in which Peterborough played in the 50s). He was semi-pro there having damaged cartilage playing for Huddersfield reserves which, in those days, was pretty career limiting.
Can remember the teams with Tony Leighton, Frank Beaumont, Billy Houghton, George Kerr, Harry Duerden, Ken Oliver, Johnny Byrne, Barry Murphy, Pat Howard and, of course "King" Winny (Eric Winstanley) - particularly him scoring a hat trick against Watford who were already promoted (I think to Div 2 - modern championship). I started following The Reds at the end of the 50s when we started our dalliance with Div 3/4 so it was more than 20 years before Clarkey took us back to our usual status. I think this has coloured my perspective of The Reds - I never expected us to reach Div 1, but we did for 1997-98. I only dreamed of getting to Wembley - but I've watched us there four times and a play off win at the Millennium stadium. Ramblings of an old git, I suppose - but I will celebrate tomorrow night when the EFL confirm Wigan's relegation

 

i can remember the Watford game. Eric started the game at centre half and then moved up to the forward line in the second half scoring 3 goals for the reds to go and win the game . {I hope you are right about Wigans relegation.}

 

Yes, and (I think) all of them were headers ! Glad to hear that someone else remembers that game, many thanks, pal !

 

Mine was a league game against Port Vale round about 1966, can't remember owt else like.

 

If this is Winny’s hat trick, I don’t think they were. Think the third was a spectacular volley.

Nutkins will know.

 

Smell of the linament the players used to cover themselves in - really strong and very distinctive.

First real memory was walking out in the West Stand and seeing the pitch for the first time also lots of people in one place swearing

 

That was a good few years before Nutkins was born, old mate.