Great story.
My Dad took me to Roots Hall for the first time in August 1969. I was 8.
Up until a few months before, I had hated football. It was all my Dad used to watch on the TV and drove my Mum mad. Of course, in those days, there were only really 3 channels and football was restricted to Saturday build up on Grandstand or World of Sport, Match of the Day on Saturday night and Star Soccer on a Sunday afternoon (which became The Big Match). Bloody hell, almost any time of day now on Satellite you can find a game on somewhere.
Anyhow, as a 7 year old kid my hand/eye/foot co-ordination was rubbish and I was the last one selected in the lunchtime teams at school. Then, one day (I remember it vividly) I suddenly started connecting with the tennis ball we used to kick about. Tackles were made, shots were fired and who would have guessed that within 4 years I would be captain of the school team.
But back to 1969... I remember watching the league cup final as Swindon and Don Rogers beat Arsenal at Wembley. At school, I wanted to be Don Rogers and remember trying to recreate the goal he scored by running clear, rounding Bob Wilson the Arsenal keeper and placing the ball in the net.
I saw the FA Cup final on TV between Man City and Leicester and can recall on the old black and white set that we had, Neil Young firing past a young Peter Shilton to win it for Man City 1-0.
My Nan lived with us and was registered deaf and blind, so on a Saturday morning she used to ask me to read the horses to her as she loved a bet. Come August, I had enough interest in football to ask her if Southend had a team. She said they did and thought we played in Division 4. She told me to look at the fixtures that were printed on the inside back page and the team named first was the home team.
That day we were playing Crewe Alexandra at Roots Hall.
She told me to ask my Dad to take me, he would love it as he was a Fulham nut, being born and raised just a stones throw from Craven Cottage.
He duly obliged and the start of a love affair commenced; we won 2-0, I had read the match programme and saw that Billy Best was the big name even though he didn't score that day and have never turned back.
The following week my Dad took me up to see his Mum who still lived in Fulham, Reporton Rd to be precise and they also had a home game on. They were in Division 3, having dropped out of Division 1 a couple of years earlier. I think Johnny Haynes was still playing and they had Steve Earle, Jimmy Conway, Vic Halom, Les Barrett, Malcolm Webster (later to play for us), George Cohen (a member of the 1966 World Cup winning team)... there was no way they should have been down there. That day they were at home to Shrewsbury and they won 3-1.
For the next few years, Southend played on Fridays and on a Saturday I either was taken to Fulham or occasionally West Ham as my Nan had a relation who was the groundsman at Chadwell Heath and he used to sometimes get tickets. I remember being the envy of my classmates when I was allowed a day off school to go and watch a training session.I met Bobby Moore, Ron Greenwood, Geoff Hurst and Jimmy Greaves, who had just completed a switch from Spurs with Martin Peters going the other way.
My Dad I think would have loved me to become a Fulham fan and to be fair they are my second team, but it wasn't until the 1980's when Fulham played Southend for the first time since I had started supporting them that I really discovered where my loyalties lay. West Ham were never in the picture, but I don't hate them, as many of our fans do. In fact, I will still occasionally see them if one of my many West Ham supporting mates (including my ex-brother-in-law and my eldest son, also a Blues fan) have a spare ticket.
For a few years, I had fervently followed both Southend and Fulham, but with my Nan moving to Westcliff in the early 1970's, the opportunity to see Fulham just didn't arise. Southend I could see whenever and as soon as I could start getting myself to and from games, my Dad stopped coming.
Despite being an absolute football nut, he became disillusioned with the game. He played to a decent standard himself, being captain of Kew Association who played in the then Southern Amateur league. I guess 3 levels down from League Two would be about right these days. I think it was the money and the collapse of Fulham who so nearly went out of the league before Al-Fayed took over that dampened his interest. However, even when they got into the Prem, the passion wasn't rekindled. In fact, he fell out of love with football completely and I now am beginning to know how he felt.
I would say I am more a Southend fan than a football fan and if for any disastrous reason SUFC ceased to exist, I don't think I'd bother. I love the game, but hate the sport and the way it is - and has been - run.
But the anecdote about your old man and the stories at half time... that struck a chord. My Dad was always telling me about the goal he scored from the halfway line that broke the net; the abuse he gave Tommy Docherty when he was playing by yelling "Dirty Docherty" as loud as he could from the front of the terraces; the fact that he had a trial for Chelsea and was very close to being taken on, World War II intervening and the time his ankle was broken in a tackle which more or less ended his playing career.
The last time my Dad took me to a game was in the 1970's as he really didn't get bitten by the Southend bug. However, I remember seeing him on the South Bank Terrace before the South Stand was built and he was a Fulham fan that night; it was a promotion season and we drew 1-1... 1990 I think? I think Tilly scored our goal. That was the last match he attended.
He was always interested however in how we fared, not for him but for me, knowing that he started the process of my SUFC love affair by taking me to that first game.
Sadly he died last summer, but reading the blog above just brought back a few memories, thanks for that.
