Mick, I could not agree more and it was my favourite time too and possibly as you say through boyhood eyes. I was in my ****s then but I really loved this club with all its ups and downs and although we had more success under Dario I never felt quite the same excitement. It a great memory travelling by train to Barrow on Furness to find the match almost called off due to fog as its on a peninsular near the sea and I never saw another Alex fan that day even on the train and I never gave it a second thought. We won that match 4-3 I think but can't remember seeing any of the goals!
. That was the time you could wander all around the ground and maybe that is another thing that is missing in modern football...mixing together with other fans. The players did give their all and on heavy pitches too and wonder how our kids would fare on such pitches today and with a heavy case ball....Like you I miss the five forward formations back then and hate today where you have one or two strikers...
I can't remember what I paid to get in but it wasn't much as the players didn't get much either...They would really smile at needing all the background staff clubs have now and an armful of managers and coaches. In those days the manager managed the whole club too...They have it too easy and to me makes no sense, players practicing on pitches miles away when you can train on the same pitch as you played the matches on...It all adds to the cost and to be honest not a lot of return when we are basically back to those days in the basement of the league and not a lot of reason to be going now...Its why the grounds in the lower leagues are almost empty and as said before its just too expensive for what is on offer...There are not many fans that can say they were at Gresty Road in 1961 in front of 20,000 fans playing the best team in the country at the time, ie Spurs who we drew 2-2.. You must have been there Mick? Of course we erm lost the replay 13-2 and so you are right, plenty of goals back then!
That replay was on youtube and you can see how heavy the pitches were back then when even PL clubs like Spurs had to play on them too...Nowadays its a new laid pitch each season. More reason to practice on the pitch then and close down the training facilities.
BTW Mick I can't remember ever seeing ****agers playing back then in our teams. Can you? Colbridge was quite young and Barry Wheatley and John Mahoney? So maybe there were one or two but all of them were strong though.