Get with the programme, pt. 1

I was at my Mum’s house the other day, and under my boyhood bed I found four random football programmes – I suppose they must have become detached from the bulk of my collection when it got moved up to the attic. The arbitrary nature of the discovery appeals to me, and over the next few days I’m going to write about each in turn, taking them in chronological order.

The funny thing about football programmes is that they have two distinct periods of usefulness. They give you something to read on the day of the match when you’re waiting for the teams to emerge, and then, years later, you can return to them and wallow in nostalgia. In between, in my experience, they are completely useless; I can’t remember ever having cause to refer to a recent programme, or even one from a recent season.

The appeal of old programmes isn’t just nostalgia, of course. There’s also something vaguer which you might sum up as ‘the benefit of hindsight’. For example, my junior school used to organise class trips to watch England Schoolboys play at Wembley, which was great fun; but it was only on examining the programmes years later that I discovered that I had seen the teenaged Ray Wilkins, among others, in action.

So it is with my first programme: Brighton & Hove Albion v York City, a 3rd Division match that took place on September 4th, 1971. My grandparents lived in Southwick, just outside Hove, and we used to go and stay with them for one weekend a month. Dad took me to this match on one of those weekends. It was less than a year after my first visit to Vicarage Road, and I must have been eager to grasp any opportunity of seeing a game.

My only memory of the occasion is a vague impression of the Goldstone as a pretty ramshackle ground – and this nearly 30 years before it was finally demolished. Still, Brighton were doing well, topping the Division 3 table at this early stage of the season. A quick scan of the teams on the back page doesn’t reveal any familiar names, but there is one in the York squad listed on page 5: Albert Johanneson, described here as “popular South African-born player who signed from Leeds United where he spent nine seasons”, but best known now for being the first high-profile black player to feature in the English league. See what I mean about hindsight?

There’s also a certain historical irony about the lead item in the ‘3rd Div Focus’ on page 7. “Halifax Town were disappointed about the departure of manager George Kirby to Second Division Watford,” it begins. “But there were no hard feelings. New chairman, Nottingham businessman Mr Arthur Smith has promised that the club will make a presentation to Mr Kirby in recognition of the splendid years [sic] work which resulted in Halifax finishing third in the table last season.” Sadly, Kirby’s time at Vicarage Road was to prove anything but splendid, and I doubt that anyone there was disappointed to see him go.

I could go on all night – the ads alone deserve their own post – but I will merely note that, according to Dad’s pencilled half-time scores, Chelsea and Coventry were drawing 3-3 after 45 minutes that day (sounds like a belter), while Albion’s rivals in Division 3 that year included three current Premiership clubs: Aston Villa, Blackburn and Bolton. It really was a very long time ago.