Thorpe Groyney
Open your mind
Clacton, Essex Senior Cup.
Away to Workington on a Friday night in February 1970 lost 5-0 with only 1790 fans in attendance, only good thing that happened was after the match Ernie Shepherd told me I could have a lift back on the players coach what a relief that was, we finally arrived back at Roots Hall about 6am on the Saturday morning. I went straight home to bed, sadly the players had to be in for training at 10:00am. such was the rather poor performance!!! Team: T.Roberts, Lindsey, Simpson, Beesley, Haydock, Kurila, Chisnall, Best, G.Moore, Garner, Clayton.
Ken, I am not sure possibly by train which is how I got to the game, in those days the away support was quite small especially at some of the long away midweek games, also not many people from that time had cars. We did hitch-hike sometimes and were lucky enough on a few times to grab a lift back. Ironically the match after Workington was over 2 weeks later against Colchester and Ernie Shepherd selected the same team again and we won 2-1 with goals by Billy Best & Gary Moore.If you hadn't come home on the team coach how would you have made it home ?
Postnote to that Carlisle game. There were no refreshments available in the away end. A huge Carlisle fan covered in tattoo's had been hurling abuse and loved that we had no food or drink. He sarcastically asked me if he could get me a pie..I said "yes". So do you trust this man with your 50p, a man who minutes earlier had told me how he was going to kick the living "sh*e" out of me?? Of course. He went and bought a pie, teased me..and handed it over with correct change! Some years later, I was in Monterrey about to watch Gary Lineker score a hatrick against Poland to send us through to the next phase of the '86 World Cup (with HUGE England flag emblazoned with Southend United) when I heard "you owe me a pie..or at least a drink".!!! I bought him the drink! Well, he might have kicked the living sh*t out of me!!Carlisle, three or four times. One memorable trip was when we met in The Bell on the Friday night to go by minibus. Somebody (Steve Waller?) had not booked or paid for the van and so we decided to go by train. We got on at Southend Vic with no tickets and got to Carlisle in the relatively early morning..still no tickets. As luck would have it, the Queen had the old royal train coming south from Balmoral and so as security was key , we were ushered out of Carlisle station in a hurry. Breakfast and then more booze. We inevitably lost the game but most managed to get back to Southend Vic without paying a penny in fares.
Every home match I attend at Roots Hall.