Beer, Baccy & Bovril!

It was mentioned by one of our distant fans on the Haway The Podcast episode from the International Fans’ Day, that when you’re an ‘exile’, you often don’t have anyone to chat with ‘all things Sunderland’.

There could be some exciting game to discuss, or a massive moan that you need to get off your chest – but unlike local fans, we have no one to turn to. Thank goodness for podcasts! Being an exile in Worcestershire, I certainly know the feeling. My ears are also on constant high alert for a north-east accent that I can relate to or chat to.

So it was last week, when I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, and heard an elderly chap talking to the receptionist. As he sat down, I went to sit beside him (the kind of mad, desperate thing I do since moving south over two decades ago). ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘and I might be way off the mark, but is that a Wearside accent I detect?‘

The guy looked at me and pointed a finger straight in my face. I was starting to think I might have offended him, or had started an unwelcome conversation. ‘Spot on!’ he said. ‘Occasionally I get called a Geordie, but no one ever notices it’s actually a Wearside accent. I’m impressed.’

I then had to own up to the fact that I was from the area and could tell the difference between the North East localities.

FBL-ENG-PR-SUNDERLAND-DI CANIO

I got a potted history of his life. He was born in County Durham and worked in the Durham coal mines. When they were closed, he became a policeman. For promotion purposes, he had to move south (much like myself) – and had led a happy life and career, until his retirement. I noted that he had not lost his accent, ‘no – and nor will I.’

We, of course, got chatting about Sunderland, and what a fantastic season it had been. Although he still visited the area two or three times a year, he no longer went to matches. But without any pushing, he went straight on to telling me about his early visits to Roker Park.

‘I saw Len Shackleton,’ he proudly announced, ‘the Crown Prince of Soccer. An absolute magician. I can still remember the beautiful green turf, and the high bank of The Roker End.’

Len Shackleton of Sunderland

We sadly had to curtail our conversation shortly after I had brought him up to date with all the goings-on at The Stadium of Light, and The Legends’ Way, where of course Leonard Francis Shackleton, or just ‘Shacks’, was chosen for one of the fourteen chosen names. Fourteen names that many hope will be added to over the future years. Shack played 348 times for The Lads, scoring 101 goals, from 1947 to 1958.

I personally didn’t get to see him play, but the brief memories mentioned by my waiting-room pal got me to reminisce about those same early visions of my football-supporting life.

I am told (by my big brother) that it was probably in the 1966/67 season that I was taken to watch my first match. England had just won the World Cup, and that had injected a lot of excitement around the country. Walking into The Clock Stand as a young lad, the pitch was actually slightly above my eye line.

Unlike today at the SoL, which has been dug down into the ground, so the playing surface is always below the fans as they enter. But yes, I vividly recall the lush green playing surface, and the smell of beer, baccy and Bovril!

I remember being in awe of kids my age who were there, who were so experienced that they had the wherewithal to bring their own stool to stand on, or a plank of wood with rope on either side, so that they could hook it over the fence and stand on it, to enable themselves to see over the top of the wall. The perfect viewing spot. Football programmes being sold by sellers wandering around the pitch perimeter.

There were also blokes with white lab coats on, selling peanuts for a tanner (sixpence) from wicker baskets, and they’d sometimes toss a bag into the crowd, to save the buyer pushing their way to the front. The pitch, programmes and peanuts! Getting out of the ground was my most clear recollection. My feet didn’t touch the ground! I was hemmed in by my ears, between two or three big blokes’ shoulders! I could only look ahead and hope they were going in the same direction as my brother.

Sunderland AFC are never far from the front of my mind, but it was nice to chat to a native of the area and cheer up my visit to the doctors! You can take the boy out of Sunderland . . . but you can’t take Sunderland out of the boy. Happy days then – and very happy days now!