by Dipstick » Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:38 am
Until the mid 60s it was an absolute doddle to get in at Maine Road without paying but it was so cheap anyway hardly anybody bothered -except us literally penniless nippers.
The turnstiles weren't really designed to stop people sneaking in but to count people going in - as kids we could crawl under them on our hands and knees without being spotted.
Unfortunately they put in proper turnstiles which went almost to the ground - and raised the height of the walls by a couple of feet (+ topped them with broken glass).
However we found out that one of the big blue sliding exit gates on the Kippax car park had lost the short post on one side that stopped it swinging away from the wall - if you pushed at the bottom corner hard enough you could move it just far enough to squeeze through.
By the time we got too big for that my mate's dad was working on the turnstiles and used to let us squeeze in two at a time for free (though thinking about it now he must have been paying for us himself).
We went to most matches and rarely paid to get in until we were about 15, and even after that we were still going in the junior turnstiles until we were about 20.
"People say I'm egocentric, but enough about them." Lily Allen