Going With Dad

A dad and his son going to the match. Sometimes grandad is there. The son wearing his football shirt and dad in his jeans. Grandad wearing something sensible like dark blue but in this day and age its more likely to be something pink with mustard trousers.

Sometimes it could rarely be moms and sons or daughters but dad and son was about me and probably many of us on here. Its mainly your dad that made you support the Albion. I even remember being lifted over the turnstile in my first ever game and i remember vividly the first flash of the green turf as we entered the ground and the box that dad brought with us so i could get a better view, but generally I was placed behind the goal with my legs over the wall behind the advertising boards.

I cant remember dad singing but he would often curse and swear. Football is something dad and sons do together, perhaps like fishing, but its sadly no more. Any memories you have of your first time attendance?

First match was against PNE in late 50s. Tom Finney was playing for Preston and match ended 1-1 with Jimmy Dudley scoring for the Baggies. Went with my dad and joined his dad, behind the goal at the Smethwick End. Dad parked his car in the back streets and even paid a kid to "mind it".

Joining the crowd heading for the ground, the atmosphere inside and as you say the first glimpse of the pitch and I was totally hooked. Went another six times that season and we didn't lose one of them!

Dad took me regularly to Central League games. The scores from the first team game would be put up every 15 mins on the scoreboard at the Woodman corner. Dad took me to my first first team game versus Notts Forest. It was so different and I couldn’t see much because of all the people there. I was football mad but because of dad my love and loyalty to Albion became strong and will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Got my middle name Raymond because that was dad's favourite player in '54 the year I was born. Like Q165 born to be a Baggie always a Baggie.

9 goals in my first match in 1962. Dad had stopped going regularly by then (probably couldn't afford it) and only took me because I nagged to go. Sat on the wall at the Woodman with back to the game looking over my shoulder.

My eldest's first match there was only 8 goals v Aylesbury in the Cup. He was playing Sunday Junior football and we had season tickets and followed Albion home and away from Suss ex in the 2000's most Saturdays. Great son and dad times. When he started playing on a Saturday at a decent level I became more interested in watching him than a Tony Pulis side.

My Dad refused point blank to take me to any match. He said British football was crap. He would sometimes give me entrance money to go to the matches but mainly it was my Nan and Grandad who subbed me. My dad was mad about Brazil with Pele and Garincha (excuse spelling). His first words to me after the 1968 FA Cup win were: ''That was possibly the worst Final I have watched.''. The only time he took any notice of Albion was during the Regis, Cunningham era when he admitted the Albion were good to watch. I would have loved to have had that relationship of going to games with my Dad. Sadly he died in 1979 aged 49. The only consolation was he never had to see us when we really were total sh*t.

My only game with my dad and grandad actually was in 1968 at the hawthorns v Man Utd. Absolutely packed. I was 8 and I could only see the corner flag at the brummie end. Atmosphere was amazing though. Huge crowd. One of the only times I remember doing anything with him.

Some poignant memories hope a few more are added.

My dad didn’t like football, he was a rugby man; he took me to many rugby matches, though. Also, I only went to schools that played rugby and as one of those was a boarding school, going to football was never on the radar. After I left the boarding school, I was talking to a neighbour one day and he asked me something about football and when I replied that I had never been to a match, he said that he was going to fix that the very next weekend! It must have been 1963 or 1964, I was about 16, and these neighbours were Albion shareholders (they would be turning in their graves over recent events), I can’t remember who the opposition was or what the result was but one Albion player was, I think, Ronnie Fenton, Stan Jones and John Kaye were also there if I remember correctly. Anyway, after that, I was hooked on the Albion and sometimes I would go to the Hawthorns on the football special bus from Grammar School Lane in Halesowen or my neighbour would take me on one of their season tickets, in the Halfords Lane Stand, which was, of course, the main stand back then. I’ve been suffering ever since!

As a matter of interest, those neighbours of mine from Halesowen were rather wealthy and had no children (they ran Hall Brothers steel stockholders in West Bromwich) so when they had both passed away, they bequeathed a very substantial sum of money to the Black Country Museum; their names are on the Museum’s ‘honours’ board, recognising their major benefactors. They were lovely people, I was honoured to have known them.

Started going regularly in the mid 70’s, always with my Dad, Grandad and his brothers, always in the Halfords lane where they had season tickets, was old wooden seating then before the current stand was built in the late 70’s. Always used to park at the back of the houses on the industrial estate and walk up, always stopped for a packet of polos at a little long gone newsagents, even then the old boys still wore old fashioned macs and galoshers (what ever happened to them?) if it was winter, always seemed to be a full house every time I went back then. Happy times.

My dad and his dad used to go together from when my dad was a kid in the 1930s right up to 1960. Then I inherited my grandad's season ticket (Halfords Lane) for my 8th birthday and went with my dad for many years until I grew up and moved far away. My first match was the 1-1 draw with Bolton on 5th March 1960.