Random pages from old programmes and stories behind them

[Foot of Astaire's]

Newcastle United 1976:

Geoff Nulty is always remembered at Bolton for getting in the way of a punched clearance by our keeper Barry Siddall and getting his jaw broken in the process.

That was an FA Cup tie in 1976. I assume the unfortunate Nulty is the chap crouching down in that pic? Its 1976 and he looks like a bloke whose jaw is out of line

[Greenlander]

That North East Citrus Marketing Board of Israel seems like a pretty niche organisation.

[ad hoc]

I'd be prepared to guess that the "North East Citrus Marketing Board of Israel" was actually selling fruit grown on the Golan Heights

[Sporting]

Man City 1977. Is this still a restaurant?

[imp]

Love this thread. Had to look my programme box out of our storage space in the cellar the other day for reference - ended up cutting my wrist open in the struggle to liberate it from piles of junk, and wondered why I'd put them down there in the first place. They're staying back up in the office for now, even though I have no space for them (okay, that's why I put them in the cellar).

A few years back I wrote a small piece every week for the Howl! newsletter called Get With the Programme, picking a random programme out of my collection for a retrospective review. An ongoing theme was the "worst football-related ad", usually featuring the word 'score'.

There are a couple of books devoted to football programmes - 'Match Day' by Bob Stanley & Paul Kelly is mainly pictorial, covering "post-war to Premiership", club by club, after a ten-page introduction. Derek Hammond & Gary Silke's 'Fully Programmed: The Lost World of Football Programmes' goes for the nostalgia angle, which is the theme of all their books, and features four or five programme covers from every League club (plus a handful of the bigger Scottish club), broken up with themes like 'Cup Finals' and 'Sex sells' with their trademark chatty commentary. Both very nice books to browse.

[Sporting]

I saw him score a consolation goal for Carlisle in an absolute hammering at Newcastle on Easter Monday in 1984, which dates it as being one of his last games for Carlisle. It was an absolute screamer and elicited a round of applause from the Newcastle fans around us (we were on comps in the home stand). I was trying to look up whether Newcastle were 5-0 at the time (it finished 5-1 anyway) and found this, which I can't remember from the time:

April 1984 saw Newcastle on the verge of gaining promotion and looking forward to entertaining Carlisle United on Easter Monday. However that game was briefly in some doubt when protestors broke into SJP and daubed slogans on the pitch protesting the innocence of a local man found guilty of murder.

A telephone call claiming responsibility for the vandalism also alleged that broken glass had been scattered across the playing surface. In the event that proved to be false and after inspecting the pitch, the SJP ground staff covered up the offending graffiti and the match went ahead. Newcastle won 5-1.

Here you go:

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Thanks for that, didn't know it was out there. That was the season we put in a good challenge for promotion and were hovering around the top 3 with around with around 12 games to go and then buckled completely - a large proportion of our fan base still maintain that we "threw it" deliberately because the board didn't want promotion.

Lots of cross-pollination between those sides - Peter Beardsley started out at Carlisle about five years before that game, and Neil McDonald was on schoolboy terms at Carlisle before being lured back to the North East by Newcastle (Carlisle took it to a tribunal and got a decent initial payout, and then a share of the subsequent transfer fee when he was sold to Everton which kept the club afloat for a while). He later came back to manage Carlisle, although was a bit dismissive of his time as a player here. In the other direction we had ex-Newcastle players Tommy Craig and Alan Shoulder (fluffing the penalty there) playing that day, while Kevin Carr (who saved the pen) and Wes Saunders later came to us, as did David McCreery as player-manager.

[Capybara]

A few years back I wrote a small piece every week for the Howl! newsletter called Get With the Programme, picking a random programme out of my collection for a retrospective review. An ongoing theme was the "worst football-related ad", usually featuring the word 'score'.

I used to love that series. Is it archived anywhere?

There are a couple of books devoted to football programmes - 'Match Day' by Bob Stanley & Paul Kelly is mainly pictorial, covering "post-war to Premiership", club by club, after a ten-page introduction. Derek Hammond & Gary Silke's 'Fully Programmed: The Lost World of Football Programmes' goes for the nostalgia angle, which is the theme of all their books, and features four or five programme covers from every League club (plus a handful of the bigger Scottish club), broken up with themes like 'Cup Finals' and 'Sex sells' with their trademark chatty commentary. Both very nice books to browse.

There's a book about Middlesbrough programmes that a friend of mine was involved in. It lists every game Middlesbrough first team has played and whether there was a programme or not, details of variations, postponed games, friendlies and testimonials, youth cup games and a section on reserves and other games played at Ayresome Park and the Riverside. It first appeared as an A5 softback but was reissued in 2016 as a full-on A4 sized hardback. It's quite a feat, albeit a bit 'niche'.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Man City 1977. Is this still a restaurant?

Sadly not. It was still operating as the Bell Waldron up to the early 1990s before changing its name and owners for a few more years. The building is no longer there now.

[danielmak]

I used to love that series. Is it archived anywhere?

https://www.wsc.co.uk/weekly-howl

[Nefertiti2]

Crappers used to advertise in the Oxford United programme

https://twitter.com/RokerReview/status/1306826281246490624?s=20

[Nefertiti2]

Sadly not. It was still operating as the Bell Waldron up to the early 1990s before changing its name and owners for a few more years. The building is no longer there now.

Pep(?)moved out of the dining room and into the manager's office

[Capybara]

https://www.wsc.co.uk/weekly-howl

Yay! Thanks.

[Gangster Octopus]

Don't you get the email every week?

[Capybara]

Yes, and I don't delete them but I suspect the stuff on football programmes is so far back that it went to my work email which I can no longer access.

[Sporting]

Crappers used to advertise in the Oxford United programme

https://twitter.com/RokerReview/status/1306826281246490624?s=20

One twitter comment; I do like the way the away side's forenames aren't considered relevant

[danielmak]

Don't you get the email every week?

Is it still going? That archive only runs from 2009-2016.

EDIT: Also, it's weird but that link I shared above lists the total number for each year but the link only pulls up issues from October (at least for the two years I checked). I assume I'm missing something or the WSC site has some conflicts with Firefox.

[Sporting]

Spurs 1985. I'm wondering how one can tell small from medium from large boys:

[sw2borshch]

[Capybara]

The book I mentioned upthread is dedicated to George who ran that place. I used to get my programme and fanzine from there when we were at Ayresome. Once we moved away it was amazing he got any business but he stayed there until only a few years ago. I went in a couple of times when I was trying to complete my collection of a programme from each game I'd been to. I only needed a few but he had most of them. They weren't priced, and I know old programmes don't usually fetch much, but he asked for way less than I was ready to pay. I haven't a clue how he made any money.

[sw2borshch]

If I have this right, there's a bloke in the town who keeps opening up short-lived comic shops who bought up all the stock.

[Capybara]

Yes. He occasionally wrote poetry for the fanzine. He had a couple of shops on Wilson Street and took on George's stock, though his prices were much higher. He also took on the stock of the second hand bookshop on the same terrace when that closed - just after I found out it was there, annoyingly (although in the great scheme of things it's probably as well). He closed at the end of last year and I don't know what happened to the stock.

[imp]

Last time I was at Easter Road (September 2015) there was still the crammed little programme shop close by. Hope it's still there.

[torres]

Yeah he’s still there. I think his names Brian Johnston.

I’ve bought a few programmes off him in the past.

[Sporting]

In 1995 I attended a couple of Cardiff City home games, while I was living there. I went to the matches against Blackpool and Shrewsbury and both were thoroughly depressing occasions. I was a neutral and couldn't have cared less about who won, but the atmosphere on each occasion oscillated between apathy and thinly-disguised hometown aggression. Maybe here I'm projecting my own prejudices about Cardiff: it's a great city but when walking to Ninian Road back then I felt a bit strange. Sincere apologies to South Walians on this forum for my undoubtedly unwarranted attacks on the normally good people of their capital.

Anyway, in the two programmes I have, there is a column written in Welsh by one Mark Aizlewood. After 1985 I moved back to Spain and in those lre-internet days lost touch with lower division teams and players but now know that Aizlewood has had quite a chequered life: he learned Welsh as an adult, he suffered from alcoholism and depression; the Wiki article on him says he became a good TV pundit (no idea if true or not); he considered suicide while in Italy; his wife committed suicide; and a couple of years ago he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 6 years in prison.