Having had some blood extracted from me this morning at t’ local hospital I came home and sat down (as I do) to sip sweet tea and read my ‘I’, the “concise daily newspaper”. Well, why not? – it’s a good read for a small outlay.

Simon Kelner (the former Independent editor) wrote an interesting article headed “Money hasn’t ruined football, it just made a difference”, and the reason he arrives at that conclusion appears to be the fact that he has a teenage daughter from his former marriage, and he’s found ways of getting close to her by taking her to football matches: Manchester City matches. But I digress just as I was about to slide in an underhand comment about glory-hunters!

Kelner goes on to infer that he couldn’t have so easily done that in the pre-Premiership days when “fans were called ‘animals’ by a government minister”, he declares. In those day, he says, “a football stadium was not the place to take an impressionable young woman.” Kelner concludes: “Like it or not, football has always been about money. It’s just the sums are much bigger now.” And he then hints at starting a pressure group to get Toure’s pay increased beyond £200,000 per week!

Certainly words to chew on, and for me even more so as it was only in the last two weeks that an old Aston Villa youth team ‘keeper from 1959 got in touch with me. This was as a result of he noticing that I had mentioned his name in my Villa History website, and that I used to work with him. Well, I did – for a couple of months while he was sorting out whether to be a football professional or to go into teaching. As it happens I found out he eventually did both, but did not play for Villa but against them (twice) in 1970-71.

But again I digress.

The thought about that Villa youth ‘keeper sent me mentally back to a match when I saw him play in the late autumn of ’59 at Villa Park – an FA Youth Cup tie against Wolves which Villa won 5-1, playing with wonderful Jimmy Hogan-inspired simple football. There must have been less than 1,000 spectators in the ground that cold damp evening, and it was certainly cold enough to need a really hot Bovril at half-time. I was 15 then, and it was also one of the rare occasions when I saw a match with my dad – he had heard much about these upcoming Villa youngsters and hence why he wanted to see them play. The likes of Slogger/Tulip, Deakin and Alan Baker were on display with others that also went on to play some first team games – like Ashe and McMorran.

But even though there were so few fans there, the place had a remarkable atmosphere that I cannot describe and which, I fear, has been lost since the last terraces disappeared at VP in 1994. Yes, the later 60s and after brought about a change in fans behaviour that eventually caused the ground changes that we now see, but for me there was nothing quite like standing on the old terraces. And it was cheap!

Yes, Simon (Kelner), times have to move on, and, yes, money was always relevant in the professional game, but then it was simple fun to watch your heroes. And the players, in turn, reciprocated with their love for the club and the game. Sims saved, Stan-the-Wham whammed, Dugdale dug-in and Slogger slogged. And Supermac (or Hitchens) would usually find 5 minutes in a match to fill the fans with ecstasy.

And despite what you say, Simon, even in the 1970s I managed to take along the odd “impressionable young woman” to share the ups-and-downs of being a Villan!

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