4th round of the cup, Sheff Utd away. Twas a very good day out.


http://inthemadcrowd.co.uk/UI/Match.aspx?oid=3521

It certainly was apart from me suffering with Piles that day!!!!

Took about 4 hrs to get home.
Gearbox fucked up could only use 2nd and 4th gears. .
4000 poolies great atmosphere.

Some of us were at work.

Did it feel like this?

I remember thinking at the time that some of our players weren't good enough.

Got the train up from Swindon with a lad from work. Met my dad, his mate, my brother in law and his dad outside Sheffield station. There was a decent pub opposite called the Howard Arms I often used, but this day it had a bouncer on the door and we couldn't get in. The bouncer directed us to another pub not far away, a typical corner end pub in an industrial area, called The Globe. We had only just got settled in there , when a group of Newcastle supporters came in, they were at Rotherham and apparently all the pubs there were home fans only, so they had come back into Sheffield. It was a cracking afternoon, the John Smiths Magnet was to die for. The last time I was in Sheffield I went looking for The Globe, and found it still survives, though from the outside at least it unrecognisable from the pub it was in 1993. It has totally been enveloped by a regenerated area of trendy cafes and office blocks, in some area called the Bessemer Converter Quarter or something. It was an electric atmosphere that day walking down Shoreham Street, towards the ground, lots of pubs, lots of Sheff U hanging around. As you got nearer the away end, it was all Hartlepool, like a mini Cardiff. We gave a good account of ourselves on the pitch, but Sheff U always looked comfortable, with us never really looking like scoring. Despite been in the top 4 we had already gone 3 games without scoring, and what was around the corner after this game was the stuff of nightmares.

We were right in the financial clarts (as usual) if my memory serves me right. I thought it was possibly the last time I'd see Pools play (another recurring scenario). The Sheffield United stewards were very friendly and amazed at our level of support. I've recently discovered that Bramall Lane is the oldest football ground in the League.

Drove down after work in a strangely huge hire car that I had because mine had been stolen. I was driving but the four passengers had consumed all the refreshments by the time we got near Leeds so we had to stop at an offy to refuel. Two of them have no memory whatsoever of the match and confuse it with the Sheff Wed fixture from around the same time. I'm shit at recalling matches even when I was sober so my clearest memory is the car speakers being blown by progressively louder repeat plays of Sonic Youth's cover of Ca Plane Pour Moi.

A brief reminder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_q6V_sHWRM

Cheers, Mr Horden. We had some very good players then didn't we?

We did, that period between Cyril taking over and Sheff U was my favourite period as a Pools supporter.

Pretty much agree - I loved those players and I even liked the pretty naff strip. So many of that team could hobble (one legged) into our current group.

Would it still have been a 3-sided ground back then?

I loved that strip by the way.

No it had four sides then I would have been intrigued to see it when the Cricket ground was still there, a ground which once hosted an Ashes Test. It was the first season of the Premier League.

No, I think a fourth side was added in the early 70's when it stopped being used for county cricket. The photographs of when it had three sides are pretty amazing, but not as weird as Bradford Park Avenue's old ground, which had a pavilion which faced the football pitch on one side and the cricket pitch on the other!

1974 I think it was for Sheff U. The pavillion at BPA was nicknamed the Dolls House. I went for a mooch around their old ground before we played at Bradford City in 1993, spooky, still terracing behind the goal, toilets and entrance gates, and the pitch of course, which I believe has now been turned into a park, with the site of the goalposts etc marked.