by bobbyspater » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:37 pm
Ten years old but remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday. October 18th 1958 v Portsmouth. Team: Trautmann, Leivers, Sear, Cheetham, Ewing, Barnes, Barlow, Johnstone, Hannah Hayes and Fagan, and I'm pretty sure the legendary Jimmy Dickinson played for Pompey. 3-2 to City - scores were Hayes, Fagan and, I think, Cheetham. Crowd around 30,000. Stood on the open terrace at the scoreboard end, Beswick Prize Band performing before the game and at half time (the crowd lived in hope that the bandmaster would drop has baton when he tossed in the air, but he never did). Remember the programme with adverts for the UCP tripe restaurant and Stonedry? macs, but not much about football, and also trying to work out the halftime scoreboard. Remember too the refreshment trollies with a huge urn of tea, which went round the pitch but never managed to get served. Entertaining game, though City weren't great at that time and I think they finished the season quite close to the bottom, but certain players stood out as exceptional by any standards. Ken Barnes was one - how he never played for England I will never know. And of course the incomparable Bert - far and away the best keeper I have ever seen and one of the few truly world class players to play for the club.
As for so many of us that was the start of a lifelong love affair. Can't explain it - it's just something wholly intangible which grabs you and never lets go and carries you through the doldrums and teaches you never to take City for granted.